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!