Treasures!

If you don't live in Delta, you may not know about the annual Spring Clean Up.  Everyone is allowed to place whatever they don't want out on the curb.   Items such as broken furniture, old couches, baskets, electronics, sporting goods, toys, and so on are left at the end of the driveways.   I personally view the items as junk and look forward to when the good people who collect our garbage take it all away.

Many people, like my son Matthew, eagerly look forward to this clean up and enjoy searching for items they can recycle and put to good use.   Matthew happily trolled the neighbourhood earlier this week and was thrilled to find hockey sticks left out for garbage, that he could add to his collection.   He also found a net too... that surprisingly was in good shape.  

What I did not expect was a decrepit picture of a tree framed in brass from the 80's that he enthusiastically brought home and thought would look good in our living room.   It bothered me to crush his excitement, but I  had to politely say that we had no room on the walls and requested that he take it back to the curb.   Hours later I had to have a talk about lice when he brought home a bunch of ball hats that were well worn, turning brown and stunk.   My boy and his love of collections - hats, Pokemon and Yugioh -cards, hockey pucks, cards and sticks, sports team t-shirts, Smurfs from McDonalds (yep, we have em' all), and the list goes on!

I had a chuckle to myself when he called me on my cell phone Monday afternoon and asked me not to park in the garage.  He was bursting to tell me he had organized his hockey stuff in the garage and did NOT want to have to clean it up.  He begged me to park on the driveway.   Below is a picture of some of his new found treasures...   

These extra sticks and net will come in handy in June when he has is hockey themed 9th birthday party.   Yes, it is still two months away, but Matthew has already created a list of who he wants invited, written his invitations (I won't let him deliver them yet!), created a schedule of the road hockey tournament he wants to take place, and has asked me to design t-shirts for the players.   He also continues to seek ideas for his hockey cake (which I will make) on the internet.   Matthew's love and ability in sports certainly did not come from me... but his passion for planning and organizing parties - what can I say - he is his momma's son!