I Won! I Won!

By the time we moved into Northern Views, we had been able to inherit a dining table, two lounge chairs, a refrigerator, a rice cooker, a sandwich maker, 2 14" TVs, a queen bed, 2 single beds (plus one more coming), a box of plastic containers, a couple of frying pans and other useful items for the house. This was augmented by our introduction into the FreeCycle yahoogroups (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FreecycleSydneyNW/) which enabled us to acquire a table, a shelf, some speakers, some plates and other household items for free.

However, in spite all the generous hearts we encountered, we were still in dire need of a washing machine and chairs. So these were the items we would look for when we visited garage sales and logged on to eBay.

Though I failed to win the washing machine, I continued to try my luck at other things in eBay, adding odds and ends to my WATCHING list.

(Everyone knows women LOVE to shop for bargains.)

After a bit of window shopping, or should I say 'eBay surfing', I finally won some things.

These are some of the items I got for the house.

I wanted desperately to get this particular vacuum cleaner model.

It was being auctioned off by someone in Perth. Perth is a long way away from Sydney. It is so far, in fact, that it is in a different time zone from us (same time zone as Manila). But I really wanted this model that I went so far as to email a good friend in Perth to bid for this item on my behalf. Unfortunately, someone had placed an automatic bid much higher than my approved budget plus the fact my budget was slashed by the estimated postage to ship the thing from Perth to New South Wales.

Oh, well, you win some, you lose some.

So focusing on what we'd won, here they are in their new home. The table cloth is actually a Qantas blanket we bought at the Wesley church garage sale while the "rug" is likewise a blanket I got from Vinnies. The beautiful tulip placemats and cork hot plates were passed on to us by relatives of relatives. The tile trivets in the middle were part of odds and ends we got from a FreeCycler who passed on amps, speakers, clothes and some other household items we are now using.