Wise Men Still Seek It

I've had the entire week off. Two of those days were furlough days: in previous years I would have spent last Monday and Tuesday having parent/teacher conferences. But not this year! Budgetary constraints axed those babies, along with seven more days, for a total pay cut of 5%. I am not complaining. Those conferences are stressful for me, and the week was like a little mini-vacation: home alone with nothing to do but cook, clean, read, and walk the dog. (Not necessarily in that order.) I haven't actually left the house (except for dog walking) for two days. Ahhhh. I love that! But you can't garage sale from home (well, you can, but it's really not the same.) So this morning, despite the chill in the air, I decided to take a little spin through the neighborhood. I wasn't really expecting much because of the holiday, so it was surprising how much was going on.



Since Phil (my stepson) moved out last month I've been looking for little bedside tables for what is now back to being a guest room. I was hoping to find a set of two, but no luck so far. I did find one today, which seems to work fine, at least temporarily. The table, lamp, and picture frame came from the same front yard for a total of $10.







There are always picture frames at garage sales. Always. You should never, ever spend real money on a picture frame, even if it's at a discount place like Ross or T.J. Maxx. I never spend more than $1 for them and although you sometimes have to weed through some icky ones, there is always a good selection.





More kids' books. Third graders love the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. My single set is always out on loan while someone else is waiting for them. So these are back-ups. The Pigeon books are by a very funny and inventive children's author named Mo Willems. They are really for younger children (I'm trying to convince my friend Debbie, who teaches first grade, that Mo Willems needs to be an "Author of the Month"), but eight-year-olds still appreciate the humor. And of course, the Grinch needs no introduction. This copy is in excellent condition. I don't think anyone has even opened it! Room 18 will take care of that in a few days when all my Christmas books come out. All these books and the picture frames were loaded into a big box and purchased for $5.


The cards are some of those square ones that require extra postage. But since they each say "2.95" on the back and I paid $2 for all four of them, I guess I can spring for the extra stamp. Some lady had an entire rack full of them. I kind of wanted the rack more than the cards.




She also sold me the "item of the day": the Jesus bag! It's brand new and it's tag says it's an "overnighter" made from "95% post-consumer material." It even has a big red zipper. I love it! I paid $6, but it's tag says $27. It's made by Blue Q, and the tag line on the bottom says, "Wise men still seek it." I know I do. Almost every Saturday.

Feeling Lucky

My friend Carol has finally returned from a long stay in Vermont. She brought some kind of good saling vibe along with her! It is a beautiful fall day here and there were so many sales we couldn't possibly get to all of them. We read in the Penny Saver (remember the Penny Saver?) about a "world traveller's estate sale." Today was the half-price day. Excellent.

So this old Aunt Gretchen died at 93 recently after a long and happy life travelling the world collecting cool things. Carol bought a lovely little painting from Iran, Gail got a very classic-looking statue of the Virgin Mary, and I bought a this little bronze grasshopper for $6. Aunt Gretchen's niece told me that her aunt had always kept it by her bedside for good luck. I'm not a fan of grasshoppers. In fact, I beat two of them to death with the end of my hose earlier in the week. I had actually intended to set him outside near the plants that they are always chomping on as a sort of guard. But maybe I should do like Aunt Gretchen instead and keep him next to my bed. There were many really beautiful things for sale: lots of small Laguna Beach oil paintings, many pieces of crystal, a lovely silver tea set on a big tray. None of it was really my style, except for the house itself. I could have packed a few bags and moved right in...grasshopper and all.

We met another charming old lady down the road. She had lots of old jewelry and elegant things. I couldn't resist these two little elephants that she had displayed in a glass case. They are both from India, a place she loves and has visited twice. I bought the little green one first. He is brass on the bottom and looks to be covered in cloisonne. He was $4. I carried him around in my hand for a while and kept coming back to check out the other one. Those two little riders with their pearl-spangled cover were too much for me. It's made out of a combination of things, including silver on the bottom. I paid $25 for it, which I didn't feel too badly about. Joe handed me that exact amount last night, his winnings at golf yesterday, and told me to take it yard-saling. So there you go...it was meant to be. Here's a photo of all of these little guys next to an original box with nut crackers & picks in it ($1) so you can see their actual size.

There were many more goodies out there! Carol bought a really beautiful rustic-looking coffee table for $15 (unfortunately I helped her get it home without getting a photo.) I found a big pile of plastic envelopes (26 in all...almost a classroom set) which I spend a fortune on buying new every September. I use them for book-borrowing. $5. I paid $2 for more cute little fallish place mats, and somebody gave me Nora Ephron's last book, I Feel Bad About My Neck for free. But here's the real find: whiskey!

We saw a sign on one of my favorite little streets: Shady Lane, which is almost as adorable as it sounds. We pulled up to find a driveway covered with more Christmas crapola than you have ever seen gathered in one place outside of a Michael's. Evidently they have recently sold (get this) a 100-foot yacht. (Maybe the recession is over.) Every Christmas they decorated it with hundreds of garlands and lights and trees and .... well, you get the picture... for the Newport Beach Christmas Boat Parade. None of the three of us are interested in any more Christmas crapola (as you will remember from last week), however, back in the garage we spied a table full of brand new bottles of liquor. From said yacht. $10 each. Those we were interested in. I bought one of Carol's favorites (Dewar's) and one of my own (J.D.)

Got my grasshopper and my Jack Daniels. I'm definitely feeling lucky now!

'Tis the Season?

This morning every garage sale had Christmas crapola for sale. Every one. Is there anyone out there who needs more Christmas crapola? Really?

I did find a couple of things amidst the festive falderal.

An Anne Klein jacket for $2. Maybe with black pants or skirt...

it's greenish, of course. (See last week's post.) Two more scarves,

which I need about as much as I need more Christmas crapola...but

for $3...well, I couldn't resist.

Jenga Xtreme! "Edge of your seat fun!"

It's for my classroom...and it does look fun, more like "Spread out on the floor fun."

Finally...a doggie toy for my sister's recovering tripawd. (See http://poochsmooches.blogspot.com/)

She deserves something

nice...probably something nicer than a 50 cent, garage sale, nondescript, tubular, wild animal.

But there it is.

Now I need to keep it away from my own wild animal:

here she is.

*By the way...I'm being extra careful today not to make grammatical errors. However, I have a tendency to use a lot of .... which I'm sure drives my serious writer type family members completely crazy. Anyway, when I used the spellcheck, it did not like the words crapola or falderal. Am I misspelling those? I don't think so! Of course, it rejects doggie and tripawd as well.