Goodwill Gives Us Reason to Dance

Yay, Goodwill 50%-off Storewide Sale!!! Both Goodwill locations!!! I've mentioned before how much I heart Goodwill, and I heart Goodwill 50%-off storewide sales just that much more. I hit the west-side Goodwill at the crack of 9:00 am and the College Mall Goodwill right after I was done with that one--fanatic, I know, but I buy almost all of my recycled crafting materials at Goodwill, and almost all our family's clothes and household goods, etc., so the storewide sales are serious stock-up occasions for me.

The kids, of course, always make out like bandits, but it's interesting, always, to see what comes up and who gets what. At the last storewide sale back in June, for instance, I only bought the girls a couple of shirts, but today they totally scored:So Will got a velvet dress, formerly of the Children's Place, a stripey long-sleeved shirt, a dinosaur shirt (cause she needs more of those!), a black turtleneck, a batik shirt done by a local artist that I can't BELIEVE I found at Goodwill (If I ever found one of my quilts I'd sold back at Goodwill, I think I'd be really upset) but was a total score because I can't really afford the shirts new, an old-school Mr. Happy shirt that was probably around when I was Willow's age, a Darth Vader shirt, a dance outfit, and a cutie little green dress with big green buttons.


Sydney never needs as much as Willow, because she has the "benefit" of hand-me-downs, so I generally just buy her something if it's particularly awesome, such as a Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer long-sleeved shirt, or embroidered Mary Janes, or an awesome embroidered jacket, or black cowboy boots (that will fit next summer, perhaps?), or a skull-and-crossbones T-shirt.

Is there anything cuter than a bad-ass baby?

In the past I've gotten most of our family's adult, "professional" clothing at Goodwill, but this time we only made off with one pair of nice work pants for Matt and a vintage top for me:

The category of crafting/interior design was a big hit, though, with another bunch of T-shirts for quilts (probably none for Strange Folk), a bunch of wool sweaters that are already cut up and in the basement next to the washing machine waiting to be felted (it would be nice if I had time to work some of these up for Strange Folk--Matt really wants me to sell some of my felted wool stegosauruses, but I don't have any already made up), and a big mirror that I plan to put on the wall in the girls' room as part of a dress-up area for them: We didn't really get a lot of toys for the girls--Willow picked out a toy pony (of course), Syd picked out a wand, and I bought them a set of dinosaur flash cards (of course) and an addition to their Lincoln logs collection:

Our goal is to eventually be able to build an entire Lincoln logs civilization, don'cha know?

The biggest score, however, occured at about two minutes past 9:00 am, when I practically shoved two tween boys into a clothing rack so that I could get my hands on something that I have been waiting YEARS to find: A DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION MAT!!!

While I later hit the College Mall Goodwill, Matt and the girls hit the mall to buy a used copy of Dance Dance Revolution (which we'll return later this week for, ideally, a better copy and/or a better price?), and all evening we took turns busting the kind of moves that only our family can bust:

Hopefully, this Sunday will be unlike last Sunday in that our power will stay ON, and hopefully we'll take enough breaks from Dance Dance Revolution to buy an EZ-Up and freezer paper stencil our Pumpkinbear T-shirts. And find a King Kong DVD for my class this week. And get the car fixed, on account of our turn signals don't work. And get my bike fixed. And...mmm, take a nap, perhaps?