We had a sodden weekend: pouring rain for days on end. Love it!

We've made steady progress on our to-do list for selling the house. We're having new carpet put in two rooms, and having the entire exterior painted next week. These things are not friendly to the bank account, but we believe they're essential expenses in today's buyers' market for houses. And really, the place needs these upgrades no matter what, so they have to be done sooner or later. If we do them sooner, then that will help us later.

During cleaning we finally decided to get rid of a number of bulky items that have been in or around the garage for a number of years now. I guess we didn't have the courage to throw them away before.

We put the following items along the street for the many scavengers to take if they want them. Guess how many disappeared (some even during downpours).

1. Two long plastic drain pipes


2. Top and bottom halves of a plastic car-top carrier


3. Manual push lawn mower


4. Non-working electric string trimmer


5. Washer drum (found buried beneath pile of wood!)


6. Old grody folding table


7. Long green metal drainspout


8. Three padded office chairs with wheels


9. One set of venetian blinds (many bent louvres)


10. Two sets of long cloth blinds (with cat-chewed pulls making them not work well at all)

It was amazing how fast the stuff disappeared. Everything was gone within hours except the first two items, so we'll have the official trash collectors come for them. One scavenger we watched take a bunch of stuff did so while on his cell phone the whole time, somehow dextrously getting long and/or heavy items into a van while on the phone.

Sometimes it seems wrong to support the scavengers this way, but hey, if they can get some cash (or use) for my trash and I don't have time to deal with it, I'd rather they have it than just send it to the dump where it occupies precious landfill space.