where there's a will there's a weigh

A Goodwill that is. Okay, I'm addicted. In Flagstaff there is a Goodwill thrift store, well actually two, but one of them is "pay by the pound". It is so awesome! It is wall to wall bins full of treasures (or junk depending on your perspective). When you get the check out everything is put on this gigantic scale and you pay by the pound. I have found many cool things here and I am in the process of training my boys to enjoy it also. When I tell the boys that we are going to Goodwill, Reed associates it with the picture of "that face that looks like it is taking a bite". My boys enjoy going through all the toys and whatever else fancies their interest that day- it's definitely a 'hands on' kind of store. Today, however, I think I reached by addiction point... I got there five minutes before 10:00(when they open) with my three boys, armed with snacks(to keep Beau occupied) and a stroller(to keep Beau restrained and shopping carts are a hot commodity there). Anyway, I got a glimpse of my competitors...there were about ten other people waiting to get in also. Who knows how long they had been waiting and not one of them was under the age of 50 and majority of them were of native american descent. You may think they were harmless and why would I call them my competitors? Well, yesterday when we were there an older lady who had a shopping cart full of kids toys and videos, good one (baby einstien and little people to name a couple). In her cart she had three different collections of little people: Noah's ark, Nativity scene, and Fire fighters. My boys do not own any of these collections (they are more into Star Wars) but that didn't stop them from oohing and awwing over her find. I blew off there remarks pretending I wasn't interested in what she found, but inside I was green with envy. You score anytime you find a big collection of the same toy whether you kids like them or not... they can learn to like them once you buy them. Anyway, we walked the store twice while I was keeping an eye on this lady. She was going through her basket deciding on her final purchases. We kept our distance, but when she set down the nativity scene in one of the bins we swooped in and snatched it. I was so pleased! Probably more excited about it than my boys. But I had scored! Okay so maybe Joseph and one of the wisemen were missing but when we got home my boys didn't notice. In fact, they played with it all afternoon fighting over who got to hold the baby Jesus. Definitely one of my better deals.