The Picture Post!

I was in Philadelphia at the end of last week for work.  Lucky for the admin, he is still alive, though my bosses and I would like to hurt him sometimes.  However, on Thursday night, I got the opportunity to take the train into downtown Philadelphia!  Fun!  So, needless to say, I have pictures!  I will also post another picture post with the dumpster diving treasures we've had, including our latest find tonight!

So, for the lady and gentleman who read this, I present, Philadelphia!

First up, Chinatown!  This was right outside the train station, and when I should have turned right, I looked left and saw this and had to take a picture. =)

Independence Hall!  That's right, folks!  If you look close enough, you can see Nicholas Cage, Diane Kruger and Justin Bartha (aka Ben, Abigail and Riley) in the bell tower!  I was so excited to see it!

The Liberty Bell!  Unfortunately, I was there after closing, so this was as close as I could get.  But still!!!  The Liberty Bell!!!

Ever wonder where all your spare change is made?  Here's one place!

And this is just some really cool art on the side of a building.  =)

It was pretty neat to see the places where the good ole US of A came into existence!  (Thankfully, I never saw Sean Bean (aka, Ian) running around!)

See ya in the next post!

~linds

Garbage Treasures

As some know, I love to go dumpster diving - the fine art of keeping an eye out when it's garbage day for someone else's garbage that can become my treasure, as well as checking out thrift shops, Good Will, and the like for great deals.  I've scores some cool things.  

Well, since we've moved into the house, I've had some great finds.  (I plan on posting some pics after I can take them, hopefully tomorrow after work.)  We got our futon for free.  When we were still at the apartment, a guy was moving out after only a year in there and had barely used his futon.  Unfortunately, he had already tossed the mattress into the dumpster, but the frame was in excellent shape.  I also got a small desk lamp from him as well.   The mattress we got when we were leaving for work one morning, still at the apartment, and I happen to see a young couple putting their frame in the dumpster.  I got out and asked them if they still had the mattress, and if they did, could they hold it for us until after work?  Guess what, they did!

More recent finds?  A "rocking" chair (I put it in quotes because it's not the typical chair, but you'll see that in the pics) for the three-seasons room, a plant stand, some garden tools and planters, and a wrought iron table with a mosaic top.  The top is broken, but all the more opportunity for me to put something really cool in there.  

Then there's tonight's find.  On the way home from getting our lawn mower (which was purchased from someone at work for quite cheap!) we noticed that there was garbage out.  Time to go diving!  Right down the street from the lawn mower was a guy who was having his garage floor and driveway redone.  So he had to clean out his garage.  He had a really cool shelving unit out for sale, which I would have loved to have bought but didn't have the money for.  I did get some S-hooks to use for hanging things out on the porch this summer.  As we made our way towards the house, we hit one particular street that had a great little cabinet for the bathroom!  Just needs a little cleaning up with a wet cloth, and we're good!  No scratches, no dents, no gouges, nothing!  SCORE!!!!!!

I'll take some pics tomorrow night of some of my finds and figure out how to post them on here.

Happy diving!

~linds

This and that....

I think spring is here. The temps have been slowly but surely warming up.  I do believe Mike and I will be able to get out for bike rides this week!  Hurrah!  We did open the front door and the dining room window today.  And, even though I could not get to sleep last night and got maybe 4.5 or 5 hours of sleep, we rearranged a few pieces of furniture and it's amazing the difference it made!  In the house, we have a lot of built-ins, including a huge one in the bedroom, thus eliminating the need for my dressers which I repainted about 3 years ago.  They look like they could be from Pottery Barn or the like.  So I was a little bummed about that when we moved in, but believe me, I'm not complaining!  Anyway, we had originally decided to use the taller, 4 drawer dresser to hold our dvds and movies, while the longer, shorter, 6 drawer one could be used in the dining room as a buffet or something.  The tv was sitting on a small unit I got from a gal I used to work with, and Bonk (my parakeet) was on something I got dumpster diving, a fave hobby of mine.  I had the idea to switch a few pieces around:  the long dresser would now serve as the "entertainment unit" if you will, with the tv, dvd player and DVR units on top and the movies in the drawers.  The tall dresser that had formerly housed the movies would be moved into the kitchen to serve as......well, I'm not sure what, but whatever.  The old entertainment unit was moved to the corner where the tall dresser was, Bonk was moved to that, and his old table was moved in front of the window with a few of my model horses and our iPod Hi-Fi sitting on it.  Move a couple pieces of art around and voila!  The living room looks completely different and completely put together!  I'll have to take a couple of pictures when I get the little things picked up and post them.  I couldn't believe the difference moving a few pieces around made!

In other news...... I'll probably be going to Philadelphia over my birthday next week - hurrah.  Please note the gigantic amount of sarcasm with that exclamation.  More on that as I get details - yeah, I don't know much about that yet.  On the plus side, my birthday is next Tuesday!  Yay!!!  There really isn't a whole lot else going on.  

Any questions?  Post them or email me!  In the meantime, I think I'm going to get into bed a little early to make up for the severe lack of sleep from last night.  Here's hoping for a good 7 or 8 hours of sleep!

~linds