One man's junk

"I saw it and thought you could use it to make jewelry on," he said. "They were taking it to the dump so I put it in the back of the truck. It came out of an old church parsonage."

This from the man who has been known to tell me he doesn't like a house full of "hodge podge" furniture.

I just kept quiet, doing little leaps up and down inside where no one could see. This is the stuff that belongs in a farmhouse after all, and being the family that rescues old buildings, animals and even a soul or two, I'm sure it will have no trouble fitting right in with the rest of the hodge and the podge.

It has an enamel top that pulls out, was obviously used in the kitchen and is even on casters and the wheels are made of wood. I wonder what Country Living Magazine could tell me about it if I sent them pictures? I'm sure there would be some great story and they'd tell me it was really old but that it was worth $50 due to it's few structural issues.

Oh well, I'm sure we can salvage it, the man can do the structural repairs and I can do a whole lot of scraping, cleaning and painting before we bring it in. Trouble is it's too big for my office, it'll probably end up in a hallway somewhere, or the mudroom, who knows.

But I leave you with the takeaway message in all of this, that lies in the fact that people that you think you know really well will still surprise you from time to time. Be happy when they do and thankful too. And, sometimes the most thoughtful gifts don't come pre-planned or in pretty packages wrapped up with bows. At times they're disguised beneath decades old peeling paint, on wooden wheels and just a little bit broken.