Ebay for the Big Good!

What do an old wedding ring, a fetal doppler, a fraternity pin and a birthing stool have in common? They are all things from earlier eras of our lives that have needed to be let go.


You probably have a place like that too; a box, a closet, a shelf, maybe even a whole room. A place you don't want to go because you'd rather not think about what is in there. You close the door, the things in there get dusty or moldy and time moves on. But one day you realize that you really need to take a look, push aside the dust, and let go.

That's what we've been doing. Beth sold her birth stool, some midwifery textbooks, and her doppler. It was kind of hard both emotionally and physically to crawl into the closet under the basement stairway to sort out these things and send them out into the world where someone can use them again. But it felt great to turn what had become leftovers from another era of my life, into extra funds for the land quest. Just yesterday I took the final box to another local midwife for her to "redistribute" to other aspiring midwives.



Brent had delved into his unopened boxes & bins too. First to go--his first wedding ring. That put money into his pocket that he traded at the farmer's market for the the sweetest apple cider I've ever tasted and the most expensive chicken he's ever bought in his life. He said it was a good trade.

Next he sold a fraternity membership pin on ebay. The money from that has put lunch money in our son's pocket, bought us lunch yesterday at a cute little cafe we found just down the road from "the land," as well as sundaes at the Frozen Custard; AND he still has some in his wallet for this week's farmer's market.

So a new endeavor is set in motion. You could call it "Ebay for the Big Good." We're going to keep purging the things that we don't need anymore but that for some reason we have held onto. If it brings us a little cash in hand that we can trade for good local food and fun, all the better. If it gives us a lot then we'll put it in our land fund. If it brings us nothing other than peace of mind, we'll send it out into the world anyway and be glad that we're really moving on.




"You think by now we’d be a little further on
For all this tumbling we’ve been through...
I feel like I’m finally getting closer to you."
--Carrie Newcomer