It all started about...oh... twenty years ago or so. My uber-creative and always resourceful mother had four kids - that's four mouths to feed, four different sports schedules, four birthdays, four kids' worth of clothes....all on a teacher's salary. Let's just say our family was "rich" in fun and love and sibling rivalry...
So, mom is driving with all of us in the car when suddenly IT happens: she's spotted something in someone's trash. Some innocent little item left out by the curb has suddenly given my mother that special gleam in her eye and once she's spotted it, she MUST HAVE IT. Car is immediately pulled onto the shoulder and mom is out and digging around before you can say 'Holy Tamole!'.
As her progeny, we recognize this gleam in our mother's eye and know that we too have a special role to play in this whole process. The eldest of us, my brother and self-selected 'Leader of the Kids', calls out, "HIT THE DECK!" and with the precision of a drill team we all simultaneously unbuckle our seatbelts and contort our bodies into unbelievable shapes as we wedge ourselves firmly into the floorboards of the car. This is obviously in an attempt to avoid the humiliation of being seen with a mother who picks through other people's trash.
Fast forward twenty years...
I'm driving down a road that goes by a church near my parent's home when something catches my eye. I vaguely recall that this church has an annual church-wide yard sale that ended recently...and a dumpster. Now, I'm not really sure about the legality of it all and it happened so fast that I can barely make out the details anymore but I do recall saying something like 'MINE MINE MINE!!' and either I or the tires started screaming as I stopped, hit reverse, and drove over a curb to get to that happy little dumpster.
This dumpster was magical! It's siren song drew me in like a bug to a zapper...made my heart skip a beat with happiness... transformed me into my mother (and let's face it, ladies, we all know it's going to happen eventually) because this dumpster was the dumping ground of some pretty wonderful post-yard-sale treasures.
Behold...my booty! (NO NO...not THAT one!)
One old-school wooden dresser without any drawers.
One enamel white chest of drawers with missing hardware but all of it's drawers (by Ethan Allen...can you believe someone dumped it!?!).
And one glider that had a few screws loose and some funky smelling cushions.
Paint me purple and slap me silly! I was literally dancing around grinning from ear to ear when I hauled these babies out from around the dumpster. It didn't matter that they were moldy and used and slightly water-damaged...to me they were more wonderful projects...potential beauties waiting for me, their fairy godmother, to bippity-boppety-boo them!
And THAT is what I call a hardcore dumpster score! Mom, you taught us well!
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