A Mouse, a Cookie or a Foosball Table?

It all started with a Goodwill purchase.

After more than two full days of sweaty work and a broken fitness record, I realize I just lived through what I affectionately call a “Give a Mouse a Cookie” moment.

You know the children’s book by Laura Numeroff with the playful, circular pattern where a boy gives a cookie to a mouse. Then the mouse asks for a glass of milk and then a straw (to drink the milk), a mirror (to avoid a milk mustache), nail scissors (to trim his hair in the mirror), and a broom (to sweep up his hair trimmings).  Next he wants to take a nap, to have a story read to him, to draw a picture, and to hang the drawing on the refrigerator. Looking at the refrigerator makes him thirsty, so the mouse asks for a glass of milk and then—you guessed it —a cookie!

So back to Goodwill where I bought my “cookie” that started my sweaty couple days and broke a personal fitness record. I love to pop into Goodwill when I am at our lake house. I go to look for items I might repurpose for my antiques booth, but I often find treasures to keep. Two weeks ago, I found a full-sized foosball table. We have wanted one, but didn’t want to spend the $200+ for one. So a $34 foosball table was too hard to pass up. Problem was, the Goodwill folks loaded the foosball table into our 15-year-old minivan for me, but there was no way I could unload it myself at the house.  Also there was the issue of space—price wasn’t the only reason we hadn’t purchased a foosball table. We had absolutely nowhere to even temporarily store the table…unless…

And here comes the “glass of milk” part of my story. I hired a couple of nice local firemen to come move “a few things” and unload the foosball table for me. I recently acquired a free trundle daybed from a sweet cove neighbor, but it was clogging our garage. So I spent several hours—logging enough steps to break my Fitbit fitness record!—clearing our two downstairs basement guestrooms of more scrapbooks than anyone could possibly ever fill (even with the tremendous amount of photos I take!).  

So here goes my circular story…I bought a foosball table so I had to hire two guys to move our treadmill from my crowded “scrapbook” room to what was the guestroom downstairs (no small feat!). They then moved a full-sized bed to what was the scrapbook room. They also moved two pieces of furniture that stored scrapbook supplies to two hall storage closets (which necessitated me cleaning and clearing those two closets). Then they moved the daybed from the garage to the room with the treadmill.  That way we gained two fully operational basement guestrooms and more importantly (circle ends here!) a space in the garage for a $34 foosball table!  Crazy?  Absolutely, but in “Judy” logic it all made complete sense.

But wait, there’s more…

The bonus? I donated two vanloads of stuff to Goodwill, created more livable space, filled our trashcan and exercised like crazy. On Friday, I walked 28,988 steps, 60 floors (mostly lugging scrapbook supplies to different floors of the house!) and walked the equivalent of 13.22 miles in my house! On Thursday, I logged 16,969 steps, 35 floors and 7.74 miles and I didn’t get started until 8 PM.  I also only logged four hours of sleep between Thursday and Friday! Then Saturday I logged 18,797 steps, 37 floors and 8.57 miles putting things away!

So all in all, I would say that was a $34 well spent.

Now I need to clear a spot for the foosball table in the house…wish me luck!