Les Misérables 10th Anniversary Performance

I went into Goodwill today with low expectations. It's the weekend after Black Friday and although I don't think Goodwill offers any insane sales since everything is already low priced, I wasn't expecting to find much. When I was looking for DVDs, I was thrilled to look up at the VHS shelves above and immediately see this. I'm not even sure my VHS player works anymore, but only costing $1 I felt it was more than worth it.

The Phantom of the Opera (Original London Cast Recording), Only Not Really

I was so excited to find this among the Hannah Montana and American Idol CDs. What a GEM. It's pretty old and I'd have something new to listen to and sing along with in the car. I opened it to see no CDs inside. I decided to hope that maybe they kept some of the CDs up front, so I went to the register and found they didn't. My cashier wanted to pitch the box and booklet but I asked if I could keep it, so they let me. Now I have the nice box and booklet but nothing to listen to. It's unfortunate. I wish the person who had stolen the disks would have just bought it for the $2 it cost, but I guess now I have a nice festive CD holder for my car.

Les Misérables (Original Broadway Cast Recording) on Cassette

As an avid musical theater (and Les Mis) fan, I was ecstatic to find an old cassette of the show among  the other ancient tapes. Even if it didn't work, I figured it would be worth the .50 cents for the little booklet inside. I brought it home to find that it was in perfect working condition- I listened to the show three times through that night on my parent's old player. 

Pandora's Box

There's no real story behind this one other than I thought it was pretty and it only cost $1. There are still sticker residue marks on the bottom that unfortunately I don't think will ever come off, but at least they aren't sticky anymore.

Fruits Basket (Vol. 1)

I was introduced to this series in the fifth grade by my best friend at the time, and quickly fell in love with the characters and the story. I read I think 11 of the 23 volumes before my friend stopped supplying me with each issue as she received them from her older sister. I forgot then all about the books until my freshman year of high school, when I had a dream about my two favorite characters. The next two years I constantly thought about how I'd like to read them again. I didn't realize the impact they'd made on me until way after I'd long forgotten them.

I went to Goodwill one fateful day with my mother and my eyes grazed the cover as I was walking past a shelf. I couldn't believe my luck- I had thought just before finding it that they'd never have one of the series in stock. It was bent but cost me all of a quarter (.25 cents!!)  Discovering Fruits Basket in the store is what led to me wanting to continue going to Goodwill looking for more of the series, which eventually led to me looking for other things too. I found this book last year and haven't found any other installments to the series since, but I will continue to look in hopes of getting lucky again.