Your Laziness is now my Treasure :)

It absolutely infuriates me how here in America we'll throw away just about anything.  If an item isn't perfect or the newest we simply toss it out and replace it.   Whatever happened to fixing things?         Whatever happened to putting things in the attic for future use?   and finally 

Whatever happened to donating your item to the charity store not even 5 minutes from your door?

     Now the flip side of my ranting is that because people here in my neighborhood are too lazy to do any of the above choices with their discarded items I have been reaping the benefits.  In the last two months I have rescued well over $300 worth of items.  

     I do want to say a big thank you to the family doing home renovations.  All I can imagine is they over estimated their lumber needs big time.  This family has been putting NEW lumber pieces to the curb marked FREE.  I have snagged 6 sheets of 4x8 3/4" sheating plywood that costs $35 each!  Last week they disposed of sections of tongue and groove hardwood, not floor laminate but hardwood.  I do want to give them Kudos for not trashing these items but offering them to anyone passing by. (I am going to miss driving Meg to school in the morning as I won't be passing their house for anymore treasures.)  This all equals free lumber for the chicken coop we're building next month.      Neighbors in one cul-de-sac must be getting new summer furniture.  Neighbor #1 put out 4 plastic summer chairs, not a crack in them.  Neighbor #2 who lives two doors over put an iron love seat to the curb.  The saddest part was they both had these items out the same day for trash.      We were almost late to the movies one day when I spotted a microwave/bakers shelf on the side of the road.  The owner had a garage sale and despite a $5 price tag they couldn't sell it.  Again this drove me a bit crazy as they had a pick-up truck which they could have put this cabinet and the other items they tagged free into and driven it less than 2 minutes (seriously 2 minutes) around the corner to the charity shop.  It now sits on my back porch.      I wonder if people realize how easy it is to repair things.  I'm not talking about appliances or seriously broken items.   How hard is it to sand and touch-up stain?  That's all a beautiful coat rack needed.  It looks like maybe they got a new puppy who decided to make their coat-rack it's favorite chew toy.  I am not entirely sure if I am going to keep it as a coat rack or simply break it apart, but I really liked the hooks which may wind up in Meg's bathroom re-do.            So thank you lazy neighbors for your precious gifts.  However please remember that the items you put to the curb that miraculously disappear every Thursday morning are actually being taken by the trash collectors and dumped into a land-fill, that is of course unless people like me rescue them.