Goodwill Outlet Shopping

Ever since the "hottest male singer" question on Saturday's meme, I have been thinking I forgot Lenny Kravitz. So... Bob Schneider and Lenny Kravitz.

 "Good morning!"

Wow. He cooks, too.

Laura said not to write about yesterday's field trip in my blog, so here ya' go... Whenever she calls me and opens with, "Wanna go to the 'hood with me?" I know we're going somewhere that's not the Arboretum, but won't be anywhere near "the 'hood." The only time I've been in the 'hood with Laura is when she was teaching there, back in the day.

I've been wanting her to take me to her favorite Goodwill store in town. It's sort of like an outlet, where the donated items that other Goodwill locations don't want is sold for $1.30 per pound. While the store is east of I-35, it's in an industrial park, not the mean streets of Pleasant Valley (where Jeff and I lived when we were first married... in a student apartment complex where the worst crime was the music our upstairs neighbor played).

Anyhoo... it is a fun place to search bins for treasure. Laura's best find so far was a brand new, in the box Cuisinart waffle iron for $3!

The only problem with the store is that it is quite dusty, between the not-so-clean household items that people are wildly tossing around, and the clothing that people pull out and immediately shake to see, which pops fibers and dust into the air. I had been giggling when we got there that someone had a surgical mask on. Later, I was thinking Goodwill could probably sell them for a quarter at the door and make a mint.

There's a process where employees restock the bins, where they open and close sections at a time. People wait by the sections about to open and all Hell breaks loose when they finally let everyone in. It's like a stampede. I preferred the areas where people were casually sifting through stuff after the crowd died down. That's probably why I only ended up with one item.

I think the best thing to get there is furniture. Most of it is broken, but if you are into woodworking, you can get incredible deals on things that just need a new leg or a fix on a busted corner. They had tons of nice chairs that just needed reupholstering and/or refinishing.

It's the location on Burleson Rd., if you want to take a look!