It's Easy Being Green

It was raining (again!) this morning, so there was no reason to go out saling.

I decided to dredge up some oldies but goodies.

Today's focus: green stuff.

Not "green" as in reduce, reuse, recycle...although garage saling certainly qualifies.

We're talking the color green. I have sort of a thing for it. In piles of useless dreck dragged out onto driveways my eyes will always seek out the green stuff. In a quick walk around my house here's what I came up with:

The lamp is one of a pair that I bought for $10 at a school rummage sale.

I had to buy new shades for them, but otherwise they were perfect for my front room. Those pale green glass goodies sitting next to it were purchsed together for about $5. does anyone know what that jug is for? I just thought it was kind of pretty.

I think I paid $2 for this tall turquoise green vase. I love it.

There are a lot of vases here...it's ridiculous really. Most of them were very cheap. The one that I paid real money for (ok...$20) is the art deco looking one sitting with the jade green bowl ($1)

and the olive tray (also $1). I think I paid $10 for the big green bowl full of sea shells, and another $10 for the set of four fruit bowls that I have sitting on my kitchen counter. The little hand-made ceramic pot sits on my mantle and holds matches. The bright green pear is very heavy and made of marble. It's a nice paper weight for notes, bills, etc for the many people who get mail at our house. (But that's another story...or another blog.)

Then there are the green clothes, green jewelry, green linens, and green dishes that I've picked up.

There's a reason that sock monkey is posted for my profile photo: he's green.

Drizzly

It's drizzly and cool this morning. Good morning for reading the paper and drinking coffee.

I started the laundry, read the first section of the L.A. Times and then headed out on my own.

I saw some great stuff at a house nearby on the very snootily named "Private Road". This is a little dead-end of a street with their own community swimming pool and little park right in the middle of their cul-de-sac. The backs of the houses look out over the nearby Back Bay. Lovely.

The garage sale in question had beautiful antique quilts, lovely mirrors, many interesting architectural pieces, and a really pretty red damask scarf. Unfortunately there was nothing available at a garage sale price. Pillows (which were admittedly, kind of nice) were marked $25. Please. The aforementioned scarf: also $25. Once in a while I'll pay real money for something, but this place was over the top. There were people swarming over the place, too. I heard someone say that it had all come from some giant flea market in Massachusetts. Maybe if I had flown to Massachusetts and visited this flea market myself I would've paid $25 for a scarf, but not on somebody's driveway.

I headed out to a public road where I ended up spending $1.

Here's what I bought:

I know. It looks boring. But it's a lot of useful stuff! Teachers have to write a lot of thank-you notes. Kids and parents are constantly bringing you little things and you have to be a good role model and write a little note. Anyway, it's just polite. And who doesn't need brand new magnetic grocery lists? I usually pay $1 for one of those at Michael's. As far as the little picture frame...I should really stop buying picture frames because I have way too many of them. But they're nice for little gifts for people. And the price was definitely right.

OK. It is kind of boring.

Great Weather, Poor Saling

It was a beautiful fall morning here: crisp and clear. A lovely morning for a little drive, but unfortunately, no goodies to be found.

So I'll just have to wax rhapsodic about past garage sale finds instead.

This little reading corner is at the top of our back stair case. It's a very strange little triangle-shaped space which once housed my desk & computer. Now that our kids have (mostly) grown up and moved away, we have actual bedrooms available for things like desks & computers! Hence the "reading corner". Except for the book shelves, which were here when I moved in, everything else came from garage sales. The big cozy chair was $10. It has a little tear on one of its arms, but we're sort of rough on stuff around here anyway, so it doesn't really bother me. I bought the floor lamp at a sale so long ago that I can't remember how much I paid for it, but I'm sure it wasn't more than $20. The funny thing is that I have two of them in the house, exactly alike, from separate garage sales. The little side table cost $15. That is something I was actively hunting for: it needed to be just the right height to work with the big cushy chair. The carved wooden window piece was $5. It's broken on one side, but still pretty cool. I bought it with absolutely no idea how I'd use it. I wandered around the house with it and discovered that it fit perfectly over this little window. The wooden tapestry hanger was a gift from my friend Carol, who travelled all over Asia last spring. The green scarf hanging on it came from a garage sale in Arkansas. And last, but not least, you can see two little Royal Doulton mice. They're called "The Flax Weavers." I rescued them from a particularly icky garage sale in San Diego a lot of years ago. They were sitting like little lost souls among grimy piles of old tools and junk, and the young man who sold them to me clearly had no attachment to them. I think he sold them to me for $1. (Out of curiosity, I just looked them up online: it turns out they're from "The Bramblyhedge Collection." The Flax Weaver, the adorable little guy in blue pants, is priced anywhere from $175 to $300. Lily Weaver, in the charming dress & cap, is going for about $195.)

The book shelves in this reading corner, of course, are packed full of lots more garage sale finds: books! But that will have to be a whole different topic for another day.

Tesoros

We've been having unusual weather this week. Ridiculous heat (now that it's officially fall) and monsoon-like showers. There was a little far-off thunder this morning, which did not deter us.
There were a few intrepid sellers armed with tarps out there.

Here's what we found:


More books for kids. Skippyjon Jones is an enormous hit in my classroom, even though my daughter thinks he might be a "leetle beet" racist. He is a Siamese cat who pretends to be a chihuahua. When he enters his semi-magical closet, he begins to speak in his "very best Spanish accent." There are a series of SJ adventures and my third-graders, who, by the way, are mostly of Hispanic ethnicity, love him. And, I admit, I love to read these aloud. Always good to have extra copies.




I actually found an adult book of interest today. Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. I've read In the Heart of the Sea, which was excellent.






It must be pillow season: I got this really nice black bolster for $4.








I found a slouchy, soft wool sweater, big & boxy in my favorite shade of green. It will be nice if it ever cools off around here. $2.


Uno tesoro mas: this green beaded bracelet for $2.


Hasta la vista, muchachitos.