Brick house

5/1/10 Dollhouse furniture & Disney figurines, given away; Bricks, sold on craigslist for $5

Only three months left to go in the Downsizing Challenge, and I kicked of the final quarter-year in pretty big fashion.

First, we mailed a box of children's goodies to Joanna's Aunt Jane. Jane visited us last week, meeting both Chase and me for the first time. She had flown up to Boston from her home in Florida, and Joanna's sister Amanda brought her to our place for the weekend.

We were still sorting through items from Joanna's childhood when Jane arrived, so she dove into the fray. In addition to helping us understand how Joanna's old Christening dress worked, she seemed to have great fun looking through the remaining dollhouse furniture and childhood knick-knacks that escaped this earlier downsize. I had fun just listening to Jane, Joanna, and Amanda laugh the evening away.

Today, we mailed off the entire box of children's stuff to Jane, who will distribute it to her granddaughters. Joanna and Amanda hesitated to give it all away, but can rest easy with the fact that these treasures are staying in the family.

I had no such misgiving with getting rid of a bunch of bricks. These were left over from our porch/patio renovation, which I think, as of Friday, is finally complete. That only took five months.

Getting rid of the bricks turned into a little mini-ordeal, itself, as the guy who first contacted me on craigslist kept canceling his appointments to come and get them. This seems to be an ongoing craigslist problem for me.

In the end, I told him to just come whenever he wanted and take them. When we returned home today, the bricks were gone and an envelope with $5 was stuck in the door.

The final three months are off to a fine start.

Editor's Note, 5/2/10: This is the danger of letting everyone else do the work -- I get my facts wrong. Turns out it wasn't a bunch of dollhouse furniture we sent to Jane. It was a collection of dolls. Even better! Like I always say, "You can have a lot of fun with dolls even if you don't have furniture. But, you can't have much fun if you've got furniture but no dolls." Actually, I think Ben Franklin originally said that.