Giving & Receiving

I have a recurring dream where I'm frantically trying to gather all my "stuff" together and shove it into bags so that I can transport it.  Or I'm trying to fit a house full of items into one room (not sure why I'm downsizing - it's a dream!).  Basically the meaning behind these dreams is more than obvious to me - I have way too much clutter in my life.  I'm a collector, from craft stash to the kids grown out of clothing and toys waiting to be sold.  But it takes it's toll and I stress over the mess.  Today I did something that gave me a huge amount of joy - I gave something away.

It's not that I don't do that - I sum up whether or not items are worth selling and more often than not the local Op shop benefits from many items that I just can't be bothered dealing with.  I've also given things to Logans Kindy before - but today I got a double whammy of Givers Delight.

I was attempting to sell this

on the Trading Post of a website I frequent but it became apparent the huge postage charge anywhere in this country was going to be a big downside.  I was only asking $8 but with postage that would turn into $20.50 which, for something that wasn't in perfect condition (the elephant no longer makes noises when the blocks are piled onto him) that's a pretty steep price to pay.  Even $12.50 - ie giving it away for the price of postage is pretty high considering.  So I pulled my head in and took it along to Kindy today when I picked up Logan.

Plastic bag plonked in the middle of the floor (don't worry mums it's one of those heavy weight carry plastic bags - not the kind that can suffocate them - and I'm sure it was taken away as soon as it was emptied) and two inquisitive little souls took huge delight in unpacking it all one by one.  Each item was poured over, twisted and turned and totally enjoyed, while I totally enjoyed watching it.

Second booster of the day - puppets.  I recently brought home from kindy a simple sock puppet that had been made by one of the teachers, button eyes, wool hair and felt tongue on a little kids sock.  It had been damaged and I offered to sew it's tongue back on again.  Then I got this great idea and it worked a treat.

"Remember how I took the big sock puppet home to fix her all up.  Well she didn't seem very happy even after I'd fixed her up and just wanted to sleep.  So I put her in a little box and look what happened - baby sock puppets!"  Wish I had a photo for this one.  I'd bought a pair of gloves from the op shop, chopped off the fingers and sewed seed beads for eyes to each of them and a different shock of wool hair - some black, some blue, some pink and all crazy.  When I came back from dropping the baby toys off 90% of the kids were flocked around one of the teachers playing with them - I feel wonderful.

And receiving....

This is Jack, the new addition to our family care of our lovely friends B and S and named for their baby son.