When we first moved here back in November we were showered with gifts of all sorts from the Peace Church congregation. Even so, we still needed plenty of other items to fill out our house so that it would be comfortable and convenient. This generally meant patrolling Craigslist and keeping an eye out for any appealing trash, yardsales, or good thrift stores. I love doing this kind of stuff - connecting with others and finding value in what they have deemed as excess, out-dated, or simply junk. Even as I'm writing this I'm wearing clothing items from three different thrift stores, one box of free stuff, and a neighbor's trashcan in Cincinnati. Ah, bliss.
Once we had secured all the furniture we could reasonably fit in our house and stocked our kitchen with the desired supplies then the search for free and super cheap stuff was basically done for the time being. Sure, I kept my eye out for amazing finds like a pool table or ping pong table in case something phenomenally great like that showed up, but that was about it.
This past Saturday I found myself poking through the "free" section on Craigslist as I still occasionally am known to do and I came across a post for someone less than a mile from the house. This is exciting because 1) I don't have a car, 2) most of the good finds are closer in to downtown or farther out in one of the suburbs, and 3) there's something kinda magical about finding something so close to where you live that you would have otherwise not known about. A quick e-mail and a phone call later, Chelsea and I were out the door to check out the bounty up for grabs.
The home was in a little cluster of apartments set a bit off the road behind some other houses; Chelsea and I had never noticed them before. The lady who had posted was moving with her son to North Portland and had extra stuff she wanted to get out of the house and maybe save herself the trip to Goodwill later. The one item I found most tempting was a lamp with a matador figure as the base. It was more than four feet tall. As appealingly tacky as it was, we couldn't imagine anywhere it would fit in the house. On the bright side, there were some books and puzzles that looked promising. We scooped up what looked interesting, stuffed it in our backpacks and bag, and wished the family luck with their move.
Later that evening I caved in and walked down to the closest Goodwill store to poke around. Combined with a mosey through Target on the way back, I didn't get home until after 10:00 that evening. When I did I was greeted with the sight of Jon diligently working on one of the puzzles we'd picked up earlier in the day. Chelsea and Heather had been helping but had maxed out their puzzle patience after an hour or so. Just like a really good cookie "hits the spot" sometimes, the same can be true for a good puzzle. Even better is when Jon happens to have gluten-free double chocolate chip cookies hanging out on the counter from when he made them earlier that evening.
The puzzle was a photo collage of paraphernalia from when Halley's Comet was visible in 1910. The pictures were cool to look at and the puzzle pieces weren't all traditionally shaped without being too off-the-wall. Jon and I worked on the puzzle until we finished it some time after 4:00 that morning. I don't think I even stayed up that late for New Year's this past year. It was definitely worth it, though. The two of us got to eat way more than our share of the cookies and we had some good conversations, too (beyond "Hey. Where the heck does this piece go?"). I didn't think to get a picture of the completed puzzle before it went back in the box but I did find a picture of the box courtesy of a quick search.
I actually kinda wanna do it again. I guess I'll just have to wait until the next time the puzzle bug strikes.
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