The Kindness of Strangers

TLE's outdoor dining room

TLE's new summer palace

An alternate title for this post could be: Freecycle ROCKS.

I have to say that aside from The Little Empress doing so well in her new school, the month of April has sucked mightily thus far. How mightily? We had to take one car in for major repairsand then, the very next day, for The Hubs to get into an accident on his way home from work. Thank God he wasn’t hurt and we do have insurance but the two incidents cost us pretty much every penny we had. As could be imagined, getting new toys for The Little Empress or much needed vacuum parts wasn’t exactly high on our priority list  as keeping the roof over our head, food on the table and gas in the vehicles took precedence.

Enter Freecycle. I have a love-hate relationship with Freecycle; I love the concept of it but sometimes, people can be really annoying when they are picky about what they’re asking for. I mean, I can understand asking for a dresser for your child’s room because they have nowhere to put their clothes but specifying how many drawers, how large and what color it has to be is a bit much, you know?

The Little Empress is a messy little thing. How messy? Well, she has, um, taken to watering the furniture with her drinks. Despite having paid extra for fabric protectors on our couch and chair, everything is sticky and disgusting. Unfortunately our family room and kitchen are adjoining and if TLE gets even an inkling that her drink may be taken away from her, she’ll upend it and splash around in it. This is about as gross as it sounds. Imagine my relief when someone posted their steam vac for grabs on Freecycle. Thirty minutes later, I was the proud new owner of both a steam vac and three bottles of cleaner. My furniture is saved without having to resort to an expensive cleaner!!

Two things that I’ve been wanting for TLE but just couldn’t find the money to get were a child’s stepstool and a little plastic picnic table for her to use outside. There are definite “wants” vs. needs but would be truly appreciated by our family. I’ve asked for them on Freecycle before with no luck. I decided to try again and was very happy to wake up to a message from someone saying she could give us her children’s picnic table that her kids outgrew. Even better, she would throw in their old play house!! I was ecstatic but said that I couldn’t pick up the playhouse (since our truck done got crunched) but would be over for the picnic table.

She shot me an email back offering to deliver it. ***SCORE!!***

After such a crappy few weeks, it was so nice to have such a nice gesture out of nowhere. She had very kindly cleaned the playhouse as well. Sure it isn’t brand new but it is new to The Little Empress and she is absolutely ecstatic to have a little house her size.

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