Shelby's Life and Whatnot

The Oven, She Is Gone

Hooray! My Spring Cleaning is actually coming to fruition! Last week we sold the Ikea bed and mattress that had been taking up space in my room on Craigslist for $35. See ya! Today we got rid of our Big Ticket Item--our old oven. The oven was perfectly useable and in great condition (it was, in fact, cleaner than our current oven, I'm embarrassed to say), but it was very much a base model and we really wanted more bells and whistles. Like a window in the door. Not that we ever use the window in the door, but it looks much nicer that way. I listed the oven on Craigslist once before and got a lot of email interest but nobody bothered to call after my very simple reply saying, "Yes, the oven is still available. Please call us at 123-456-7890". I re-listed it and finally we got a bite. The person flaked yesterday (grrrrr) and it looked for a while like they were going to flake today (they called Kevin and told him they were on their way--almost an hour later they hadn't shown up). But luckily, show up they did! They hauled away the oven and left $100 cash in its stead. Huzzah! I actually hadn't expected to get the full $100 asking price for it, but hey, who am I to argue? So that's happiness to the highest degree here.

A third item we got rid of was our old lighting fixture. I also put that up on Craigslist but nobody wanted to pay "$10 OBO" for it. So that one I put up on Freecycle. If you're not familiar with Freecycle, it's basically a web-based group where you post stuff you don't want anymore and will give away for free, and other people come and pick it up from you. The idea is centered on the old adage, "One man's trash is another man's treasure" (women too!). That is, you offer up something that you would otherwise throw in a landfill, and someone who actually wants what you don't want will be able to get it for free. Everybody wins! Our lighting fixture went to a very nice gentleman not too far from us in Anaheim (each Freecycle community is geographically-based). I'm glad it went to a good home.

Up next--our old Ikea wine rack. We can't keep our wine there because one, we have no place in the house to put the rack (it holds 72 bottles) and two, it gets hot enough here that we can't keep it in the garage. Nobody is interested on Craigslist so far, so it may go off to Freecycle soon.