Big Day in a small town...

We doubled the population in town today as folks gathered for our pastor/neighbor/friend's auction.
You may remember me mentioning here that Alex went to Florida with some friends, Roland and Jeannie from church. These folks raised their own three kids, and frequently hosted exchange students in the same program we do. They were also foster parents. They travelled to Florida every year over Christmas break, taking along whichever exchange student or foster kid they had at the time, and usually a few extra friends. While they were there this year, they started sniffing around for jobs and got themselves hired at a boy's ranch. When they got back, they invited their children home to pack up some family heirlooms, filled the van with bare essentials, sold their house lock, stock and barrel to our pastor, and followed their calling to Florida. They spend 8 days on duty and 4 off; we get email updates on the off days that its going fine, but its a brand new world, even for a guy who knows everything...
We have a small church in a small conference, and our pastor is expected to be bi-vocational. Bob has been a carpenter/handyman for many years, and so has Roland. Bob also has a couple rental properties. The auction cleaned out years of accumulated tools bought for one project, duplicates, and other stuff a couple inching closer to retirement can afford to do without. There was also a real lesson in what can be left behind. Rol and Jeannie spent years acquiring beautiful collectibles, but they left them all behind in a heartbeat, and really don't seem to miss any of it (except Rol has found a couple projects around the ranch he wishes he had his tools for; I hear they have Home Depot in Florida, too...) Oh well, if you can't take it with you when you leave this life, you might as well not pack it along to Florida, either.
I made it home spending only $63, which is good for me at an auction. I got some trunks for my international travel-themed entryway/piano/no useful purpose room. I paid $5 for a bridal shower's worth of corningware and cut glass. I paid $4 for two baskets of stuffed animals to get the two brand new laundry baskets. I made the kids give most of the stuffies away, but they had just as much fun with that as they did with the stuffies. I bid $3 for a floor fan, but got a really ugly footstool and some carpet squares lumped in with them. I'll put the footstool out by the firepit to use until its old and rotten enough to throw into the pit. It's all good.
Off to work again, then hopefully get something done around the house.