Big and little frugal tools

As my campus was gearing up for the beginning of the semester, one of our department coordinators announced that a departing professor had abandoned shelves in the hallway: did anyone want them?

I said, yes please: my husband's books are overflowing the rag-tag collections of homemade shelves I'd assembled.

So she put a post-it note on the shelves with my name on it. Even better, she arranged to have a hand-cart sitting next to the shelves.  So I walked the shelves four blocks along our neighborhood streets, from the campus building to my house.  Hurray for hand-carts!

 

A couple of days later, I passed by a free pile of clothing that included a top that is exactly the kind of thing I like to wear.  Well, almost exactly: when I put it on, I realized the tag in the neck was super scratchy.  So I spent a pair of minutes with my trusty seam ripper, removing the threads that stitched the tag to the shirt,  . . . 

. . . and now it's exactly exactly the kind of shirt I like to wear!

Ahhh, tag off!

When I was overseas for nine months, I really missed the free piles that grace the streets of my neighborhood here back home.