One man's trash...

Or in this case, one family's trash is another family's treasure! 

 

My children and I took taekwondo lessons for several years, each of us achieving our black belt plus degrees, but then things got to where they didn't want to continue with lessons and my schedule filled up so I wasn't able to go regularly.  So our TKD gear has been in a pile in our front hallway for many months now.  We don't use our front hallway often, so it became a good storage area.

 

My husband has wanted me to go through and find a better place to store the gear so that our front hallway is open again. I decided I would do just that for Day 17's giving.  Most of the gear went right into the trashbag because the children have outgrown it so even if they began lessons again, they would need new gear. Mine was wearing out, and last summer I had tried to return to training but once school started, it just didn't fit, so I know I won't be training again any time soon.  But while I was sorting through the gear, I found a couple of items that can be passed along to others because it wasn't used-up nor compromised in any way for its performance.

 

That's where the trash part comes in.  We have a family that we often hand things down to, and one of their sons is a beginning in TKD lessons.  They are about to purchase his gear, so we gave them the pieces that are "optional" gear that can be re-used.  The family was happy to get these items because it's that much less they'll have to spend!

 

So my gift for Day 17 was cleaning out the front hallway, something my husband really wanted!  And the bonus was being able to take part of that and give it a second life with a family that can use it.

 

And speaking of treasure, a coworker emailed me today that she had two bags of shorts for me to have for my sons if they could use them. Turns out they are just the right size for where my guys are.  She said she didn't know why she hadn't thought of me for handing things down to before now.  Somehow I think my participation in the 29-days-of-giving (which she doesn't know about) set some karma into the universe. What's great is that I was thinking that I needed to get the boys some new shorts for the summer. And now I don't have to!