Freecycle

Had my first real Freecycle experience - I have had subscribed to the local emails for a while but it has never worked out.  (Freecylce is an internet network that posts items to be given away and items to be taken.  Internet barter, in other words.) Aha! someone was offering a FAX machine just when our old one was dying and needed to be replaced! So I talked my hubby into driving over to Silverlake to pick it up.  It came all neat and clean and in a box, too! "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," I said to hubby.  And then hubby called me an old hippy - which is sortta true, I guess -

We have to re-program the machine, etc. - but I LOVE the idea.  For so long my network for exchange was just my immediate circle and I am glad that I can widen that, given the power of the internet.  This new cooperative spirit is great.

Also trying to revive some music books which were water-damaged - Sprayed them with spray disinfectant to kill the mold , swept the remainder of the green stuff away, and put them to dry in the sun outside.  I figure in a couple of days of S. California sun they will be dried out, and be crinkled and somewhat stained, but usable. 

Spraying with disinfectant spray and putting items out in the sun is a great way to deal with anything that has gotten moldy.  The sun itself is a great disinfectant - the reason, no doubt that the old-fashioned way of dealing with carpets and so on it to clean them and then leave them in the sun.  (If the items are plastic or somehow sturdier, you can wash with regular bleach, another great disinfectant - I use it to clean my toilet.)

Sad news - they are closing the hospital and nursing home sections of the Motion Picture Home in Woodland Hills - (the retirement and assisted living segments remain.)  My fantasy has always been to be able to live out my last days there among other crazy show biz types - You would be surprised how many STARS have ended their lives there! 

So the motto "We take care of our own" of the Motion Picture Fund is now empty rhetoric.  I agree with the comment in the L.A. Times this AM that the billionaires who run the fund could afford to dig into their pockets and the pockets of their friends to keep this going.  What do you say, fans?  Write Spielberg and Jeff Katzenberg!

And you wonder why Thrift Week has to be revived!

2 Comments | Post Feedback

Ah! the demons of finance!

We can be armed through thrift & Freecycle helps, too.

Don't ya just love FC? I do! Except when you get a no show or don't get picked for a requested item. I have also received lots of freebies from FC. A card table & 4 chairs. Didn't need the chairs so passed them on thru FC. Have received a Sun tea Jar (approx $5 new), filters for our above ground pool ($15 new), a full bucket of Chlorine tabs for our pool ($50 new), have several times received boxes of books. I went thru them and re-gifted those I wasn't interested in...and if I sat and thought about it I've probably received more than that. But I've also gotten rid of lots of stuff too. and i do mean LOTS, LOL.

That's really surprising about the nursing home part closing. I could maybe understand about the hospital. Our city has within the past 10 yrs closed 3 hospitals & combined 3 others into one. so now we are only 2 public hospitals (one of them does have a 2nd campus however, so technically it is really 3 hospitals) and then we also have a private surgical hospital. I recently had shoulder surgery which was outpatient but because of backlog of surgeries needing to be done...I had to go to a neighboring town 90 minutes away to have the surgery or wait for one and a half years on a outpatient waiting list!

I use lysol spray myself...on everything, LOL. I even spray my mattress with it, carpet, door knobs, appliances, ect. Nothing is safe from my lysol! I'm not quite a germaphobe but I think every year I get older I get worse with a fear of germs. I do use lysol wipes on the appliances, not the spray. I go thru 2 big 150 count containers of wipes a month plus a extra tall can of spray a month. thank goodness for SAMS warehouse or I think I would go broke buying that stuff. I spend about $15 a month on both @ SAMS but if I bought at the grocery store or walmart it would be twice the cost. I've noticed since I started using the wipes & spray both DH & I have had less colds & sinus infections. Because of my asthma I don't dare use bleach as a cleaning agent. I do use it for laundry but thats about it.

anna

Tried to give away some arm chairs when we upgraded and a love seat - but no luck! Now I feel I have to make some contributions to make it all come out even. The fax is great - it does everything but bake bread (altho we just need it to fax out hubby's school paperwork) and if bought retail would be very expensive! Why were they GIVING this AWAY? my husband said. Of course, we have schools to hand on things to!

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