Make your Boxing Day shopping count

Some people are hitting the malls today, but if you're more into online shopping, you can take advantage of sales at the less-mainstream gift and clothing websites. Ten Thousand Villages is having a sale, mostly on holiday decor but also on some jewelry and home items (American site, Canadian site). Toronto's Encircled clothing company has a discount plus they're planting trees if you buy something. The StyleWise blog also has a link to discounted "ethical" accessories.

As for me, I'll wait until Friday, when I have my next volunteer morning at the thrift store.

Friday the 13th is a lucky day...

...for thrifting. After a morning spent pricing and shelving books, this is what came home.

Three books (I gave in and bought a few)

One necklace

One bird plaque with a hook. We hung it by the door of the apartment, as a hat-or-whatever hook.

Hit the Northrop Frye motherlode...or, The calm before the storm

Yesterday was our thrift store volunteer afternoon.  The wind was blowing a bit and there was a tornado warning when we arrived after lunch...but not much seemed to be happening, at least outside.

Inside, there was an absolute wall--we're talking room-divider size--of cardboard cartons of books.  Yow!  Even the book-happy among us quailed a bit at that.  And there were already quite a few books on the sorting shelves needing to be priced and move out to the store. 

But we dug in.  There really was some good stuff in there, all kinds of books...sometimes when there's a big load like that, they're all one kind of thing.  Like somebody's entire self-help library from the 1980's.  This was more of a mix.  Of course there were some many books that hit the recycle box, but there were some neat things too.  A boxed set of the Borrowers books.  Hardcover biographies of Joseph Conrad and Alec Guinness.  A vintage copy of Through Gates of Splendour.  Lots of classics.  One Mitford book.

But the only things that Mama Squirrel actually ended up buying were three Northrop Frye books, ones we didn't have:  Words with Power, Spiritus Mundi, and Northrop Frye on Shakespeare.  Yeah! 

Did the book mountain shrink at all?  Just a bit.  Mama Squirrel estimates that she cleared out between six to eight cartons in three hours, which does not sound like a lot, but we had to spend time pricing and shelving what was already there plus what came out of the boxes.  And then the receiving guys brought more in...

Ponytails helped Mama Squirrel some with the books, and then helped another volunteer price VHS movies...lots and lots of them.  Crayons tidied toys and did some miscellaneous jobs.  I think she helped with the movies too.

The Apprentice (who had been working all day at the hair salon) picked us up after four, Mama Squirrel slid some fish sticks in the oven to go with Crockpot vegetables and salad, Mr. Fixit came home, and we all went out to look at a potential new Treehouse (don't get too excited, it was just a look) and to pick up bananas and milk.  The wind was starting to blow and it was just spattering rain when we got home.  Mr. Fixit and The Apprentice started putting together a new bookcase for her room that arrived yesterday morning (the bookcase, not the room).  (Mama Squirrel is getting the old bookcase, and she's happy about that.)  Mama Squirrel found some funky jazz to listen to on the CBC.

And then our real evening entertainment?

Another side of thrifting...the Squirrels volunteer

What is this thing?

It's a Swift Attacher.  Did you know that?  It's the plastic thingie that holds the price tag on clothes in a store.

For the past few months, Mama Squirrel and the two younger Squirrelings have been volunteering at a thrift store.

Why we never thought of doing it before, I don't know.  The girls have been raised on almost-weekly church sales, yard sales, and thrift shopping.  But the opportunity to volunteer never came up until this year, and we suddenly realized that even Crayons is old enough now to really help.  So the three of us now spend a couple of afternoons a month sorting and pricing clothes, books, or whatever else we're asked to help out with.

Ponytails dresses mannequins.  Mama Squirrel and Crayons load up bookshelves.  Mama Squirrel unloads garbage bags full of clothes.  Crayons cranks out sticky price tags for books, and Ponytails shoots Swift Attachers/plastic thingies through blouses and jeans.  It's a busy place and there are usually at least a few other people working in the back room, at the cash, hanging clothes, or unloading boxes outside the back door.  Plus the customers--who says homeschoolers don't get socialization?

The book corner has also been educational for Mama Squirrel in other ways...but that's a post in itself.