Hooray for FreeCycle!

Awhile back, I posted about the need I've been feeling to let go of some stuff around here. I'm making a bit of progress on this front, with miles to go, of course.

To help with my efforts, I joined the local FreeCycle message board. If you're not familiar with FreeCycle, it's an international organization dedicated to keeping stuff out of landfills. Local chapters host message boards where members can post items they no longer need or items they would like to acquire. Everything must be free. A couple of weeks ago, I posted a waterbed frame that we had tried for months to sell. Several people wanted it and it was gone within a couple of days.

Today, someone I connected with on FreeCycle is coming to pick up this freezer which we've had in our garage, unused, since we moved here 15 years ago. (Believe it or not, we actually moved it from our old house, and we hadn't used it there, either!) I'm very excited to see it go to a new home where it will be used to store vegetables and fruit from the homeowner's garden.

I'm looking beyond FreeCycle to lighten up, too. Last weekend, a refugee family from church picked up two overstuffed chairs we no longer needed. They were excited to get them, and I was very happy to see them go. (The only glitch in that transaction was the hole I knocked in the kitchen drywall as Daughter and I lugged the chairs up from the basement. Oops.)

A couple of weeks ago, I delivered several boxes of magazines (and a few books) to a local book sale collection site. It felt great to rid myself of the weight (both literal and psychological) of it all. Now I have lots more room on my basement shelves.

Check out the FreeCycle website to see if there is a group in your local community. If you're like me, you have a lot of things that you're not using and cannot (or don't want to) sell. Someone will be thrilled to get what you no longer need.

And it's a great feeling to lighten up.