Say Cheese and Die

These Saturday mornings are so much fun for Carol & me. We visit. We wander around gazing at gardens and finding ideas for plants and front porches. We wax rhapsodic over tiny little cottages and rail against the icky McMansions popping up in our neighborhood. (Although Emily has told me that I have to stop that. She says I have no business complaining about big houses.) Most days the garage sailing is incidental. So when we find great stuff like we did today, it's really just icing on the cake.

You may recall past blogs about "The Jewelry Lady". We found her again today. I can't resist this woman's stash of stuff. The interesting thing about her is that she's never in the same place twice. We can't figure that out...next time I see her I'm going to just ask. In any case, today I bought these three pairs of earrings and a little sterling seahorse for $23. Aren't they pretty? The little glass ones are something called "Rainbow Fluorite" which sounds oddly like a toothpaste brand. Possible gifties all.

Another pretty little picture frame, and a cute green vase: $1 each.

An iron plant stand for $5, and really, it's not every day you come across a boingy little pelican made out of steel drums. $1. The people who sold me these two items had a whole island theme going on. Three-fourths of their stuff was studded with seashells. They had a giant pile of stuffed flamingos, and pillows with palm trees all over them. I almost bought (I kid you not) an old paint-by-number flamingo scene. Very kitschy. But it was $30, so I restrained myself.

Last but not least: more Goosebump books for my classroom. Look closely and you can see the "cheesy" titles. The one pictured has my favorite cover. My boys love this stuff. R.L. Stine must be in touch with his inner eight-year-old. We should all be so lucky.

Major Find

This is just a quick post to show off what Joe considers to be a major find (golf pun intended): A Nike "Storm" golf jacket. The seller told me it was a $200 jacket (believable, since I bought Joe some Nike rain gear for Christmas which was pretty pricey), that he had only worn it once (also believable...I think it was just too small for the guy, who was pretty BIG), and that I could have it for $5. Sold.

Joe put it on (it fit perfectly), zipped it up in front of a full-length mirror and immediately did one of those invisible golf club swings that he's always doing. Happy, happy, happy.

For me, nothing quite as exciting, but still useful. A pair of brand new cozy slipper scuffs and a nicely bound blank book in case I ever actually sketch anything again.

Happy Sunday!

Replacement Day

Wicker furniture, bread machines & blue glass. That's what kind of day it was today. I steered clear of all those. Instead, it was a good day for replacing old icky stuff: Pyrex bakeware in much better condition (sparkly & new) than my old pieces; dish towels without stains or rips; coffee cups with no chips and just the right size; another nice big glass vase. My sister, Terry taught me this trick: buy vases at garage sales so that when you pick a bouquet for a friend, you can include the vase as part of the gift. Much classier (despite the name) than Classico spaghetti sauce jars, which is what I usually end up doing.

I also found these cute little tequila glasses. Personally, I try to stay away from tequila, (it makes me really stupid), but these and a bottle of Patron will make a nice presentito for somebody. And the little garden turtle gizmo for $1 was too cute to leave behind.

I bought this little set of books for a specific kid in my classroom. I worry about this one. He carries around big fat chapter books, but he can't read them. He wants to be able to, but he's just not there yet. These are shorter and more manageable, but still look like 8-year-old boy stuff.

The rest of this stuff didn't actually come from a garage sale, but a church rummage sale. Last year Emily & I went to what turns out to be an annual event at the local Presbyterian church. We went on the "preview" day, Thursday afternoon, and make out like bandits. Emily pretty much outfitted her entire kitchen, and I bought a beautiful red wool coat from Talbot's. So when Carol & I saw the signs last week we decided to do the "preview" again. Carol got there first and texted me: This place is a zoo.

These Presbyterians know how to do a rummage sale. I've been to Catholic church sales and the Armenian Orthodox Christian sale (yes, who knew?), but the Presbyterians leave them in the dust. So I found Carol (she was easy to spot...she was wearing a top hat) and this time (knowing the drill from last year), I left her slogging through God knows what and headed straight to the "better" clothes section. Here are the things I bought: a black & white print shirt from Chico's, (I can hear Emily snickering about that one, but hey...I'm 57), a long elegant green t-shirt from Eileen Fisher, a lightweight cardigan from J. Jill, a nondescript but good color pullover, and a floral print cashmere sweater. They all fit and they'll all be actually wearable. So in keeping with today's theme, I'm replacing some old worn out stuff from my closet.

Seashells, Shirts, & Charlotte's Web

Try saying that three times fast!

Today was a day of many seashells. Every house we went to had at least one seashell-related item. We saw candles shaped like conch shells, pillows with seashell motifs, crystal scallop shell dishes, little framed paintings of sea shells, and a big bag full of actual seashells...which we bought for $5 and then divvied up when we got home. Carol even bought a big glass jar to keep some in. I will probably put mine in the famous Estimate Jar.

Here is the rest of Carol's haul: a rug for outside her patio door, a lovely hanging hurricane candle holder, a big beautiful turquoise pot that a silver agave will soon be moving into, a set of yellow chicken plates, not to mention a big ceramic chicken...and various and sundry other little doo-dads including My Fair Lady just because she hadn't seen it in forever. I think she spent about $23.

Most of this stuff came from our first stop: a lovely house tucked way down at the end of a long hidden driveway. The woman clearly doted on her teenage daughter, Courtney, whose name was emblazoned on many items now lying around on the driveway for sale. Courtney, it seems, isn't happy with her current high school situation, (private), and doesn't like the (public) option in her own neighborhood...the neighborhood where her mom has happily lived for twenty years. So they're selling everything to move to the neighborhood that Courtney (I'm guessing she's about 15...the extremely icky years) prefers. I would not know any of this, by the way, if Carol was not with me. In any case, for reasons we did not discover, this woman had boxes of brand new Topsider deck shoes, Teva sandals, all kinds of brand new women's stuff that was too overwhelming to even pick through, and neatly folded brand new men's shirts for $5. I found a nice Columbia one for Joe. (The t-shirt is just a good gardening shirt from a later sale. )

I bought more books. Next year it looks like I will have at least 35 students, and I am already short when it comes to dictionaries and copies of Charlotte's Web. And bird stickers...too perfect to pass up! The Dickens' Christmas books are probably going to be gifts. Lovely copies, both of them. (And by the way, you may want to read A Christmas Carol again...it's funnier than you might remember!) I also found this beautiful book of Georgia O'Keeffe's flower paintings for $8. Oooooohhh.

More chairs! These turned out to be perfect for sitting by the barbeque, where the bricks are bar height, and where somebody is always standing around chatting anyway. Now they can sit around chatting. $10 for both.

We will try them out tomorrow while we're celebrating Joe's birthday...if it's not raining!