Sock Monkey anyone?

I am totally giddy this morning.

Yesterday I went out to my mom's for a few hours, her parents and brother were in town. I hadn't seen them in awhile and they had never even meet L. Do you ever have those moments when you wonder "how could I be related to these people?"

My mom made burgers with chorizo in them topped with red pepper puree and caramelized onions and jalapenos. (She is not on my Meatless Monday bandwagon.....yet) They looked delicious. I did take a taste of the puree, yum. My dear uncle didn't even know what chorizo is....how are they siblings?

Anyway, when I got home My Guy had mowed the lawn, done the dishes (we don't use our dishwasher anymore...) and cleaned out the closet. Let me tell you, I have been hounding, pleading, begging, nagging him to clean out the closet since January. And, all of the sudden he finally did it yesterday. There are four paper sacks of clothes sitting in our hallway waiting for me to do something with them. Now, most of the time I drop them at Goodwill or the Wardrobe. I have tried taking them to a second hand shop in town, and they do buy some of our stuff occasionally. But it is pretty depressing to watch them rifle through all of our stuff and reject most of it. I guess we just aren't cool enough.

This is where My Guy and I differ, well, one of the many places. I see all of this *stuff* as money spent and he just sees it as *stuff* he doesn't use that someone else could. I have a hard time letting go of things because I usually know what I paid for it and never feel that we got full use out of it. Which is why I am loving the garage sale and thrift store purchases, but more on that later. It also helps that I have not bought anything new since January, well nothing that wasn't a necessity. With, of course a few guilty exceptions. Ooops.

This time I have decided to dig through it and see if I can find alternative uses for any of it. And I am not talking about rags. (although I am sure there are a few white tees in there that have carpet scrubbing in their future) I already spied something made of heavy corduroy....would that make a good bean bag for E? I love to unravel sweaters and use the wool for pants over L's cloth diapers. Wonder if there are any wool sweaters in there? Curtains out of the old man's clothes may be a little much. Let's see what I can come up with.....