Today is Black Friday, a major shopping day, but you won’t find me in any stores!  I don’t particularly enjoy shopping in retail stores (unless their prices are extremely low), and shopping in crowded retail stores ranks way up there with getting a tooth pulled as far as things I’d choose to do for fun.  But lots of people seem to enjoy it and if you’re one of them, I hope you find/found lots of bargains!

Yesterday I did some ‘shopping’ that was more in the line of things I enjoy.  Someone was moving and had some items that they didn’t want to take to their new home, though everything was in great shape.  It’s so fun to get things that are useful for our family, and know that the person giving them away is happy to have them go to a good home.  The woman I got the items from told me that she really doesn’t want to throw the things away, but she’s moving today and can’t take more time to find people who can use these things, so they’d be going into the garbage if someone hadn’t claimed them by last night.

So what did I get?  

• A beautiful solid wood rocking airplane, the perfect size for a toddler to play on – I’m going to give it to my baby and toddler for Chanuka; we kept it in the van until he took a nap and then snuck it up to the attic (it’s big enough to be hard to hide). 
• a new looking good quality floral apron – that will go to one of my daughters for Chanuka (I got one of them a nice one last year, and though they all have functional aprons – read, solid colors – it’s nice to have something pretty and functional!)
• Two sets of oven mitts (my kids suggested I buy some just last week when we were in the store, since I don’t have any); one set will be for dairy, one for meat.
• Lots of good quality hangers, including skirt hangers, coat hangers, and suit hangers – and one tie hanger- this will help the kids use their closet space more efficiently, and we’ll get rid of any cheap wire hangers that have been in there until now.  And the solid wood coat hangers will support some of the heavy winter coats well.
• A large bag of spices and canned foods
• Two lucite canisters for storage items, one new in the box
• Gauze pads, alcohol, bandaids (I have hardly any first aid items in my house and am glad to add something to the little I have)
• Two large bottles of mouthwash, one hardly used, the other new
• A gilt frame picture that looks great in my bathroom and replaced something else that was too overpowering (I didn’t realize how overpowering until I took it down and replaced it with this)
• Matching cup and toothbrush holder for my bathroom – cream and gold, and together with the above picture have added a classier look to the bathroom
• Three beautiful oil paintings for my living room – all gold frames, one large one and two smaller matching ones.  My living room walls have been bare except for one picture (which I took down today) since we moved here over two years ago.  I wasn’t sure how they’d look, but the colors in the paintings matched my couches, and the price was right to take the chance so I brought them home with me.  🙂  The pictures we used to have didn’t match the couches we got when we moved here, which is why the walls have been basically empty, but these look SO nice! 
• An old cookbook of nutritious recipes – I’ll look through it and get some ideas.
• A wire strainer that will be perfect for straining curds when making cheese
• A shaitel head and pins

 And while I was there, she mentioned in passing that she was selling her toaster and food processor, and was I interested?  I have absolutely no use for a toaster that holds two slices of bread, since we toast panfuls of bread at a time!  But since my food processor blade broke recently (do you get a sense I’ve been on a roll with kitchen appliances breaking?! – and I didn’t tell you that a couple of days ago, the glass lid broke on the electric cooker I use every single day!), I’ve been limited in the vegetable dishes I’ve been making because the shredding is too time intensive without it and a food processor was very high on my list of wants.  I didn’t want to spend the money for a new one, but couldn’t buy a used one for kashrus reasons, and a food processor is something I use all the time, so though I’m reluctant to call it a need, it really is a huge help for me.  After three or four weeks of doing without it, I finally told my daughter on Wednesday night that we’d have to take out the Pesach food processor and use that, and just deal with getting a new one for Pesach when the time came.  My daughter really didn’t like that idea – somehow, if it’s been designated for Pesach, that makes it special and she didn’t want me to do it.  But what do you know?  The very next morning, before I took out the Pesach one, H-shem sent me to the home of someone giving these things away, who ‘happened’ to mention she had just what I needed for sale, a hardly used kosher food processor for just $20! Don’t you just love how everything ‘happens to happen’?

This was my kind of shopping fun!  

Avivah