Well here as promised is the continuing review of local thrift stores. By the way I do not work for any of these business nor attend any of the organizations who run them. Just a mom and wife looking for a good buy, and help some of the causes these groups aid.

First of all I know I wrote about Hope's Treasures here in Leesburg, but I had an opportunity to check out their sister store in Cascades/Sterling and the one in Ashburn.
The Ashburn store is considerably smaller than the leesburg branch but has reasonable amount of stock. Clothes and shoes for both adults and children. Some electronics and furniture all appear to be in fair to good shape. What I noticed is they put several bins by the front door labeled anything in here is $1. I found a brand new scrapbook in there. Prices were fair. Parking is limited. They seemed to get quite abit traffic from those who are donating. The drop off is in the rear of the building. Now the Sterling store is I would estimate maybe twice as big as thus a little bit better layout. There is a counter for jewelry and small items. there is a large selection of kitchen ware. appliances(small); Of course clothes; one of the nice things is they have a play area in the back where the kids can try some of the toys before they buy them. The one thing I saw was that their prices seemed quite a bit more than the Leesburg store. I wonder if this is because the cost of having a store in Sterling is more than in Leesburg. Anyway was a nice place to visit but I am partial to the Leesburg location.
 Now I did manage to check out one more since my last blog. I went out to Purcellville to the Restore shop.
Their proceeds go to aid Habitat for Humanity.  The building is nice the Store front was remodeled a few years back and is very modern. The have to store windows which they dressed very nicely. (See Photo). Upon entering I was slightly surprised to find a Huge selection of furniture taking up say a third of the store floor space. The majority of it was pretty good quality. Next to this was large appliances. They too seemed to be fairly new. If you're
setting up your college age kid in some sort of apartment and need furniture etc..you might consider checking this out. Now the next section I saw was, surprise surprise, building materials. Anything from doornobs, electrical outlets, wiring, all types of screws, so many things I can't list it here.
So to save some money when doing home repairs you may want to stop here.  Well that's it for today. See you later alligator!

The Family Fourth

Happy Fourth of July everyone. I hope this finds you all well. Holidays like the fourth always make me think of families. Some are lucky and have families similar to say for a lack of better example the "Brady Bunch". Some have families more like the "Simpsons". I fall somewhere in between. My goal this year is to make more happy memories. I have realized over the years it is difficult to find activities that everyone likes and enjoys. One person will like board games the other computer games. One will like swiming the other taking walks. One like crafts. One researching any topic. I must say that now that my daughter is 17 years old she has learned that doing only the things she wants doesn't promote bonding. Same with the other members of our family. So today we are all going to a Fredrick Keys game followed by a Fireworks show. Pray no rain, ok?  I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

P.S. Still working on the Thrift store blogs

Thrift Stores help everyone.

Good Morning Everyone! The subject on my mind today is Thrift Stores. With the economy being what it is are people utilizing thrift stores? Locally here in the Leesburg area there are many. I decided to help me work on my blogging I am going to visit as many as I can this summer and then do I guess a critic on them.
Please give me your feedback on this topic. Thanks.

Practice makes perfect.

Though "Practice makes perfect" is my title for today's post I am going to talk about how people help people. Boy I may get a bit preachy. Bear with me I am still a newby at this....

I wanted to share how I saw on fb how CBS did a story on a woman who lost her wedding dress in the Moore, Ok tornado. A Chik-fi-a owner (excuse the spelling) stepped up and contacted a bridal shop and paid for the dressless woman to get a new gown. I bring this to your attention and hopefully others because I think we should try to reach out to others more often. Expect nothing in return. Be grateful for our own good fortune. Pay it forward.  Love and peace to all .

The Light bulb just went off a couple of minutes ago. Today is the last day of the school year. OMG! I thought this year would never end. With my daughter living with multiple health problems this has not been your normal junior year of high school. I must say I am glad she will be a senior next year thus we are almost done with the public school system.  Being a parent with just one child getting her through school has been anywhere from pleasant to difficult to please let this be over soon. My difficulties started about 5 th grade when they began switching classes/teachers for different subjects to prepare them for middle school. When my child had a difficulty I might hear about it when interim reports came out. When I would try to email teachers they would acknowledge my email but their replies would either dance around the subject or totally ignore the question. Later my daughter would say the teacher had talked to her.  I is hard to step up and do the right thing if you first aren't aware of the problem, second not aware of the homework being assigned.
This sort of thing continued through middle school though the implementation of the Clarity parent portal was helpful. This helped by knowing what was being assigned but rarely where grades posted in a timely fashion. So if your child said she did the work at school and already turned it in you had no way to check thus again only when interim reports or report cards came out did you know what was what.  Teachers acted like it was a conspiracy that secrets were to be kept. Many never call to let parents know that there maybe a serious problem. I had maybe 1 or two in middle school and maybe 4 in the three years of high school reach out to me regarding what was happening with my girls grades etc. The other thing is when parent orientation is given its set up like the parents have all been through the school years before with another child. When I had a problem or a question it was like do I go to the counselor, the teacher, the office, the principle, the assistant principle (which one?)  and is there a certain order to follow. My daughter ended up on homebound  for the majority of this year. Talk about difficult. Teachers who were to send work home would get around to it maybe 2-3 weeks later. Talk about music. Those teachers didn't even bother. Paperwork. Getting everyone to fax mail or call the appropriate person. One division of the school (like guidance) might not know how it worked what level of assistance needed and how to get it. Making meetings and school people not showing up thus having to muddle through hoping the right thing was being done. Anyway on a good note, we have had a great counselor Ms. Connelly, multiple office secretaries, Ms. Lloyd, Ms Coons, and School administration liaison Jillian Sigmon who held my hand, allowed me to voice my frustrations, and helped me get through the year.
The system is definitely faulty but not all the people. Thanks to you all. Well this is my blog #2 and I'll get off my soapbox now. Thanks for listening and I hope this helps future parents.

Well today is the day I post my first blog. Looking forward to doing more. My goal today is to find one thing I am grateful for. I am greatful for school and Physician support staff who stepped up this year to help me with all kinds of difficulties and helped straighten everything out. Kudos to you all! xoxoxo