Thrifty Finds!

Last week I mentioned we acquired a new iguana. Since then, Midori has been adjusting to life in captivity - no more running around the neighborhood all willy nilly looking to jump out of a hedge and scare the bejesus out of that poor elderly lady up the street. Midori has also been to meet Dr. Bruce (our vet). Dr. Bruce gave Midori a clean bill of health...now HE (yep, it's a boy!) can share space with the girls with no fear of spreading cooties. A little antibiotic ointment on his nose gash for 2 more weeks and he should be good to go. In case you're wondering...little Midori weighs 4.3 lbs and he is VERY well behaved. He wasn't fond of the 2 dogs in the waiting room, but he didn't mind the poking and prodding from Dr. Bruce or being held down be the vet tech. I guess this vet tech is starting a second career cause he had to be at least 60! He didn't seem to be afraid of the lizard...most of them are. LOL. Midori was kind enough to poop in the cage (and not step in it and smear it everywhere) just before we took him in so we took that to lucky Dr. Bruce who proclaimed him to be parasite and bacteria free...all for the low low price of $55.  There is truth to the saying "there's no such thing as a free..." While we were in the waiting room with a lady and her red nose pit, a guy comes in with an unleashed brindle pit with a fishing hook stuck in it's nose. He's immediately more concerned with trying to set up a "date" for his dog and the red nose pit to make some puppies. The nice red nose pit owner said "what the hell is wrong wit'chu, she's spayed and I ain't into that". Someone please explain to my why male pit owners want to keep breeding these dang dogs?!  Pull up your local humane society or shelter and check out their dog inventory. 3/4 of the dogs they have are pits! STOP people, just STOP. Kudos to the red nose pit lady for not going there.

You're probably wondering how that fits into "Thrifty Finds" - well, it doesn't. But this does! Midori's new home! 

Yeah baby! Now i've had iguanas for 15 years now and this is my first REAL reptile enclosure. Real meaning not built in my garage...er my dad's garage...I don't have a garage. Yet.

Do you believe in fate? Karma? Random Acts of Kindness? Yeah, so anyway, a few days after getting Midori with no action on anyone looking for him, we figured we were going to have to build another cage. He's young and very active. So that was the plan. One day at work I went thru the drive thru and on the way back to the office decided I should stop in the junk store (Community Thrift Store). I could make it on the way back...quickie in and out trip. So I run in with my hot food still laying in the passenger seat of the car. Wander across the back wall looking for anything I can't live without, on to the furniture department...what the...are you kidding? Are you SERIOUSLY kidding me?! Right there in the middle of the very crowded furniture section is a cage. I have never seen a cage in a thrift store. Once in awhile a cat carrier...or a small wire dog kennel. But a CAGE?! Not even a cage - a real life enclosure! I immediately text a picture to Mr. Paisley - which he doesn't get because AT&T sucks at delivering picture mail in any sort of timely manner. He'll get it some random Wednesday at 3 am.  So I call him - lucky for me he actually answers the phone. "Should I get it?" Duh of course I should, not really sure why i'm even asking, but felt like I had to. Plus I drive that fancy little Mustang and this thing was NOT going in my car...so I got some guy in a red "CREW" t-shirt to write me up a ticket (gotta have a ticket for anything in the furniture dept) and went up front to pay...be back in a few hours with a truck. So it's way huge-er than I thought and we had to move a book case and now trying to figure out what to do with the ottoman (or Automan as dumb people on Craig's List like to call it). Oh right, the thrifty part. I got this thing for $59.99 - or $63.50 after tax...tack on another $4 because I didn't have $60 in cash on me so I had to use their ATM which cost me $2, plus my credit union charged me $2...so $67.50! #1 I couldn't build one for less than $100, #2 this is from Cages by Design it's like the cage of all cages if you have reptiles or large birds.  In fact here's a link to this cage 48x48x24 Hybrid It's just the center section - no stand or hood. No fancy background either. You did click the link right? That cage is on sale right now for $768.95. So I just saved $700! Un-freaking-believable! Mr. Paisley is going to build a stand for it with a storage cupboard underneath to hide the iguana junk. Remember the karma / fate comment? Well when I got the CREW guy to write my ticket - he pointed out a sticker on it. Evidently someone else bought it and didn't come back for it. You have 48 hours to pick up stuff, then it's back on the sales floor. They must have put it out right after my last visit because it had a pick up date of 6/4 scratched out.  My lucky day!

Obviously we still have to get the climby things in there and build a dish holder so he doesn't dump his water everywhere...photos of Happy Midori in his new home will turn up on the blog of course.

My next thrifty find is not nearly as exciting...but here it is.

When I left for work the day AFTER trash day, someone was throwing out a table that was in quite a few pieces. I knew I wanted the legs. Note there are only 3. How long do you suppose they held on to a 3 legged kitchen table? This was one of those butcher block, rectangular deals that you pull apart and the leaf folds down in the middle so you don't really have to store it....so I don't think it worked well on 3 legs....weird. I snagged the 2 boards as well...I might need them. Remember the 2 cabinet doors I picked up a couple weekends ago? :-) 

I have a project in mind. We'll see if it works...if not, I have 3 sweet spindles to use for some random project. Like slap a birdhouse on top and put it one in the garden or attach a wooden craft round to the top and a scrap to the bottom and make a plant stand...they have a million uses. Silly people that just toss them in the trash. 

So FREE! Can't get thriftier than free.