THE THRIFTING GODS GOT THE LAST LAUGH!

I admit it, the joke was on me. It wasn’t last weekend I was destined to find absolutely nada at the myriad of sales I went to—it was today! Yup, not a thing, in spite of a couple of neighborhoods with lots of sales. To top it off, I started on Friday with a biggish estate sale, so I had two days in which to find nothing.

The good news is, I don’t care a bit! Still had a blast, and feel wonderfully frugal since the only money spent was for a bagel and cream cheese. And I had a dollar-off coupon for that.

Yesterday’s estate sale was not as creepy as the one I went to back in May but it shared some of the same vibe. This one too had creepy broken dolls for sale, along with a number of other things that were broken and useless. I perfectly understand one man’s trash etc.—but even as frugal as I am, I still think some things are just trash!

I did have one favorite moment at Friday’s sale. I was looking through things strewn over the back yard when a crashing sound made me look at a shed attached to the house. A young couple had dropped a picture and broken the glass. I could tell from their demeanor they were not going to ‘fess up to the people running the sale. When I went in there to look around, crunching on broken glass was quite unpleasant, so before I left I found one of the sellers and told him there was broken glass all over the floor back there. His response was classic: “What about it?” I told him rather tartly that it was a safety hazard and it should be cleaned up. “Oh,” he said.

Today was a lot better. Hadn’t been at it very long when I pulled up in front of a sale, and as I got out of the car I heard, “I know you! You bought our patio furniture!” Indeed we did, our amazing ten dollar purchase of a love seat, two chairs, cushions and table that we so enjoy on the patio outside our family room. I was pleased to be able to tell her how much we have appreciated it, and that getting it at that price was a big part of the fun.

A few sales later I noticed a couple of other ladies shopping who had a Wheaten terrier with them. Turned out I've been to sales at their house at least twice and taken pictures of their dog. And down the street at another sale I petted a cute little boxer, and it was one I took a picture of about six months ago. Then again, before I left this neighborhood, I got to talking to another lady and she remembered giving me some of her fresh catnip a couple of years ago. “There’s a sprig of it on the driveway,” she said, pointing. “The neighbor cat comes over about four o’clock every day for kitty happy hour. I guess he saw us setting up this morning and figured the joint was open early.” Here she is with her cat Gracie.

I also enjoyed petting sweet Lady, a Samoyed/Husky mix.
I have a soft spot for Samoyed mixes, because we had one for many years. Casey was a Samoyed/pointer cross. She pretty much looked like a polar bear with spots.
Yes, that is me with sweet Casey—thirty-five years ago! This was our “Little Breakfast in the Big Woods” moment.

While I made no purchases this week, I did take a few pictures of things I didn’t buy. I may regret this non-purchase ever so slightly:
Chicken slippers. They were only a buck, and I was a leeeetle bit tempted—but I know that wearing something like this around the house would drive my dogs absolutely nuts.

I thought this box at the estate sale was a hoot. Don’t you love the part where it says ‘Throw dust away the modern way!” And it's delightfully scented—or it was fifty years ago.
Here are a few of the creepy dolls on offer. What kind of person thinks they can get $6 for a doll with demented eyes and no arms? Next to the dolls, this struck me as about the most macabre thing there.
I often give my tongue a bit of a brush when I'm doing my teeth. A sonic tongue cleaner with 7 agitator ribs and 2 scrapers sounds like overkill. Possibly literally. Ig.

Perhaps the thrifting gods just wanted to wean me gently from buying stuff for a bit, since I won't be able to hit any sales for the next two Saturdays. I'm kind of excited about the reason…we’re buying a house!

It's still a few years until I will retire, but we’ve been talking about trying to find a house we want to retire to now while house prices are down. We started looking a couple of years ago. We had already decided we will move back to Oregon. After some looking around we settled on the Salem area. We found an absolutely wonderful agent to work with—her agency only represents buyers, so there’s no conflict of interest like when they are also trying to sell property. (Seriously, if anyone needs an agent in that area let me know. This woman is fabulous.) We looked at a bunch of houses more than a year and a half ago, then something came up and we put the whole project on hold. But there was one house we had really liked, and we kept talking about it regretfully. Imagine my amazement when I found out it was still on the market! There have been some ups and downs to the saga (including the present owners accepting another offer the day before we arrived to look at the place again!) but evidently this house is supposed to be ours. We’re scheduled to sign the closing papers on the 23rd.

I'm determined to spend a few nights there before we have to find tenants to rent it, so I'm heading up to Oregon next week. I'll be on the road the next two Saturdays, so no garaging. But I'll have more pictures of the house when I get back. Meanwhile, here are a few shots of our 1957 Midcentury Modern beauty:

Doesn’t look very big, does it? Looks are deceiving! It's built on a hill as you can see from the back view...
…and it's twice the size of our present house. And—it has a tennis court!
Even weirder than the fact of it still being on the market is that the folks we are buying it from are also librarians. What are the odds of that?

So I'm pretty excited. Keep your fingers crossed that we will find excellent renters!

THE THRIFTING GODS COME THROUGH

Those thrifting gods. They are such suckers. Seriously, all you have to do is leave your house on Saturday morning utterly convinced that this is the day you will find nothing. The only sales you’ll run across will be those crappy ones with signs that promise a huge sale (or hugh sale, as I see more and more) and then end up being two bald tires and a candle stub. So you figure oh well, doesn’t matter, I'll just run my other errands and call it a day.

The thrifting gods cannot stand this. Just to show you, they start throwing great deals at you right and left. Which you of course snap up, and then lay on the gratitude. Gosh thrifting gods, I sure was wrong this morning! You guys are the best!

They love that.

And admittedly I love the deals they threw at me this morning. As well as this little cutie.

Couldn’t get much of a picture of him because he was so intent on sniffing my shoe. I'm sure he knows all about my pets now.

The thrifting gods gave me some fun sellers too. I had to chuckle at the guy who said what a perfect day it was for their sale. He gazed up at the completely gray sky, shivering a little in the cool morning air. “Perfect,” he said. “It's not raining.” Okay, that works for me.

At another sale I noticed a bunch of trophies for sale. Not your usual guy-with-a-baseball-bat or football type trophies. These had strutting majorettes on them. And hanging on a rack nearby was a whole collection of little pleated skirts and majorette sweaters. One of the trophies was marked 1979, so these are like 30 year old outfits. Must have been stored really well; they looked new. I asked the lady having the sale if she had been the majorette, but no, it was their daughter. “Our son used to be so frustrated,” her husband told me. “He’d work all year in Little League and if they were lucky they’d come home with one trophy at the end of all that. And his sister would go to one competition and come home with seven or eight trophies.”

I think I'm on the brother’s side in this one.

Later I complimented a couple on how empty their garage was, telling them they may be the only people around besides my husband and me who can park in their garage. (Does it not seem a tad ironic that most people put boxes of stuff they don’t use in their garage, and park their multi-thousand dollar cars on the street?) They started laughing, and told me they have not yet moved into this house, and that’s the only reason the garage was so clear.

So what did the thrifting gods deliver unto me today? I paid up $11.85 in tribute to them, and in return I received:

Two vintage Coach bags. These will probably be resold.
Something I've been wanting for a long time, a bird bath.
I don’t much care for the concrete type, and this looks like it might be interesting. If I can get it out of the packaging. I opened one end to take a look and it's so well wrapped up I just decided to take it on faith.

In a practical vein, I picked up all these light bulbs for two bucks.
From the same sale, this possibly less practical but completely delightful vintage tea towel. Needs an oxy soak, but I had to give it a good home. It's made of that wonderful, absolutely smooth vintage cotton that feels so good to the hand.

I'm getting an awfully good collection of candle lanterns and if this one—complete with large unused pillar candle—had been more than a nickel I might have passed it up. At that price, it's mine.
From the same five-cent box came this silver server. Don’t think I've ever seen one this shape.

It was terribly tarnished (don’t know if that shows up in the picture) but five minutes with the silver polish shined it up nicely.
The guy I bought it from looked at it and wondered if it was a cake server or a pie server. Then his eyes lit up. “I know,” he said, “lasagna! Or brownies! Yeah, brownies.” By then I was so hungry I had to leave.

I've got to go through our collection of rugs and weed out a few, so I can justify bringing this home.

Wool, hand hooked, one buck. Mine. Thank you, oh thrifting gods.

My stash of interesting soaps has dwindled, so I was pleased with this find.

Nice Van Gogh notecards.
Word game, which will go live in a library. Should be fun for the after school crowd.
These last two finds came from the same sale, which seemed to be an estate sale. There were two things this person evidently loved—the color purple, and Dalmatians. There were purple dishes, candles, bedding, plates with violets on them, I can't remember what all. If you could manufacture it in purple, it was here. And there were Dalmatian books, and figurines, and salt and pepper shakers, and costumes and on and on. The only thing I didn’t see was a purple dalmation. And my two purchases fell into neither category. The first was this vintage afghan.
Okay, I admit there is some purple in it. Feels like wool, and I'm sure it will be warm because it weighs a ton. I weighed it when I got home; it's nearly six pounds. Which may not sound like a lot, but you try lugging around a floppy six pound weight while you’re shopping on a driveway. But I love the colors, the design. And as soon as I laid it on the bed to take a picture I discovered it is a kitty magnet.
My other find was a framed picture.

Cattails are something I just like. Thought this was a nice picture, with cool wood used in the frame.
When I got to the car with it I noticed this on the back.
So it's not just a picture, it's an etching! I think I'll hang it up near the scherenschnitte piece I got a few weeks ago and let them feel special together. And I was thinking it would be fun to design something to put on the back of yard sale finds…“We hereby certify that this authentic Yard Sale Find is warranted to be used and free of packaging.”

Let me leave you with my favorite overheard conversation this morning:
Husband: “Have you seen my sunglasses?”
Wife: “No. Um, I sold a pair for fifty cents a few minutes ago. Hope they weren’t yours.”

WHEELING AND DEALING

To be strictly correct, there wasn’t really any wheeling involved in what I've been doing, but where I come from that’s always the way you say it. Wheelin’ and dealin’. To say you’re dealing has a different connotation entirely.

Don’t you just love the English language?

In any case, I just finished a little high-finance over on Amazon.

Needed some more rechargeable batteries, found some there that sounded like what I wanted. Granted, I can buy regular batteries very inexpensively at the 99 Cent Store, but I hate throwing them away all the time. (They don’t last very long in my Wii remote.) The rechargeables are a better deal all around. So I put my chosen batteries into my Amazon cart, and I was $7 away from free shipping.

Now, this free shipping thing is probably a gold mine for them. I suspect that most of us start shopping immediately for another item or two so we can get that free shipping. I admit it, I sat here at my computer trying to think of something else I needed. Or really, really wanted. Because you know me—it has to be something pretty vital for me not to wait to find it on someone’s driveway.

The interesting thing was, I couldn’t think of anything! Of course there are books I'd like to have, but I'm a librarian for heaven’s sake. I have over 2 million books at my disposal any day of the week, for free. Thought about that 10” springform pan I've been looking for, but they were way more than $7 and it's the kind of thing I like to handle before I buy. All bakeware is not created equal. I'll just keep checking at TJ Maxx until the springform of my dreams appears. It had to be something I'd really enjoy that cost as close to seven bucks as possible.

Finally had a brainstorm, and started looking at magazines. Yup, lots available to subscribe to, and they count toward your free shipping. Of course many are pretty pricey too, but I had recently checked out an issue of This Old House and quite enjoyed it. The price was $12 for a year—but they’ve got this special deal going and there was a $5 discount. Bingo!

So, if I had bought just my batteries and paid for the shipping, the total would have been $22.04. The batteries plus the subscription with free shipping and minus the discount came to $23.75. So as far as I'm concerned, my subscription cost only $1.71.

Wheelin’ and dealin’.

SLITHERY SNAKES, A KISSY BUG & THE EARLY BIRD

Another very fun morning on the yard sale trail. Beautiful sunny fall day, chilly at first but warming nicely as I went on. Talked to nice folks, nice dogs, nice snake…

That’s right. I said snake. I always say you never know what you’ll find on driveways on Saturday morning, and today is further proof. Absolutely the first time I have seen a snake for sale at a yard sale! If you feel about snakes the way I do about bugs, you’re going to want to scroll quickly with your eyes barely cracked open until you get past the pics. For the rest of us, let me introduce Snickers.
I believe they said she is a ball python. This family is moving to Nevada and decided to give up snake keeping, though the mom said to me, “We’re asking a hundred, and if I don’t get at least seventy five she’s coming with us.” Somehow the emotional attachment to a snake does not seem the same as that with furry creatures (though that may be just my fur bias showing). Snickers’ original name was Sergeant Slither, until they found out he was a she. (I did not ask how they discovered this. After all, I had a girl kitty named Tim many years ago.) The mom said she suggested they change the name to Sergeant Sally Slithers, because a girl can certainly be a sergeant. But her boys decided to go with Snickers.

I may be off candy bars for a while.

The morning was not without its fur people. Billy turned out to be a girl as well.
Six months old, pound puppy, anyone’s guess as to parentage. I asked what kind of dog she was and the girl petting her cooed, “She’s a Great Big Soft Kissy Bug.” The Kissy Bug swerved over to me and got in a goodly lick on my ear. I thought she lived at the house having the sale, but turned out her family live down the street and they were taking a walk. I heard the dad ask how much the stuffed toys were, and when the answer was “a quarter,” he gathered up an armful. “We let the dogs play with them until they shred them, then buy a new batch at another yard sale,” he said. When I returned to my car I saw them heading down the street. Billy the Kissy Bug pup had a purple toy and was shaking it as she went. I heard the dad saying in a really satisfied voice, “Three dollars for all these toys!”

When I walked up to the last sale of the morning I heard a high pitched whimpering from the garage. Hercules just couldn’t wait for me to get close enough for some petting.
Don’t be fooled by this deceptively scary-looking mug. He’s a total sweetie pie, a bulldog/boxer/kissy bug cross. Another pound puppy, much loved by his long-suffering (literally) owner. She told me he’s so strong that she’s broken her ankle twice while walking him. It was quite a struggle to find a restraint that would let her walk him. She finally tried a ‘pinch’ collar and that was working for them. Lest you think he was being cruelly treated, I think this style exerts much more even pressure on the dog’s neck than a choke chain. It's not something I would use, but she tried a number of other methods first. And he was one happy dog.

Speaking of happy dogs, remember the terrier mix I wrote about last week, who needed to find a new home? I emailed my children’s librarians about her, and Rebecca, who has a soft heart for terriers, called Abby’s owner. She learned that they had seen an apartment that would let them keep Abby, so we think all is well. Whew!

Didn’t buy much this morning, only four items for a total of $4.75. Found another children’s librarian door prize—a sea creature drawing book.
A DVD I’ve heard good things about.
A large candle lantern for the yard.
And my favorite—this sweet Christmas decoration.
It's a 2005 piece by Nicole Sayre. Have to admit I wasn’t familiar with this line, but evidently her pieces sell for $50 to $100 retail. I am quite smitten with him, the goofy little smile and the dictionary-page hat.
He’s about 11” high, and the box he’s standing on adds another 3”. Inside the box is an extra little ornament, I guess in case one gets broken—kind of like that extra button sewn into the side seam of a piece of clothing.
One of the ladies at the sale where I bought him told me they’d already sold a lot of stuff, people had been there at 6 a.m. I said I leave my house about seven; earlier seems uncivilized. She said something about early birds, so I recited this little poem by Shel Silverstein:

If you’re a bird, be an early bird
And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.
If you’re a bird be an early bird.
But if you’re a worm—sleep late.

WAGGY DOG AND WIGGLY CAT

Saturday morning started off with a bang—on my head. I was getting cash from the ATM and a piece of it fell on me!

I was so startled I let out an expletive a lot louder than you might think a middle aged librarian would do. Which alarmed the older gent passing by, and if by any chance he’d been thinking of ATM robbery (which he most likely was not) he moved off quite quickly. I'm thinking of sending a slightly huffy email to the bank, suggesting that they secure their signs more, well, securely.

But almost immediately the morning improved. A nice lady was walking by with her greyhound. This is Russki.
She’s a retired racer from Texas (a dog who has run 45 miles per hour!) who is now a beloved pet and a blood donor. Her lady said she’s a universal donor (I never realized dogs have blood types) so she gives blood which is sent to vets all over the world. What a good dog!
Met two other nice dogs. Bailey here saved me from a little bit of embarrassment.
After I left their sale I drove to a couple of others, and followed some signs around a few corners, and approached a house where I saw a big yellow lab. Wow, I thought, two in one morning—and then realized it was the same sale and I'd approached from a different direction. (Not the first time I've gotten lost in the winding streets of a housing tract.) So I did a quick U-turn and was saved from showing up at the same sale twice.

But this is the dog I really want you to meet. Abby. Because she needs a new home.

Wish my pictures were better, but she was so happy and wiggly that she just could not hold still for her photo op. One of the ladies having the sale asked me if I wanted her, and I assumed she was joking, but she said no. They are moving to a place where dogs are not allowed, and I think it’s breaking her heart. I got her phone number and said I'd ask around, you never know. So seriously, if any of my Southern California readers know someone who needs an adorable terrier mix, let me know.

Almost everything I found will be heading to my office with me Monday morning. The only thing that’s staying home are these Bunnykins pieces—a pair of two-handled mugs…


…and this bank. I'll probably sell them, they’ll make wonderful gifts for Bunnykins fans.
These fun pieces will be door prizes for children’s librarians—some soft fish stuffies and a cute frog puppet (for next summer’s Make a Splash program)…

…and this fabbo cat pull toy. Have you seen these? Some of my libraries have the dog version for their after-storytime play groups, and the kids love them. They wiggle when you pull them. Even my husband was charmed.

I asked the lady how much, and she said if I could figure out how to fix it I could just have it. The front wheels were loose. So of course I said I was game to fix just about anything. I've glued it back together, and Steven says he’ll add a screw to make it really secure.

This light-up Christmas house is not going to work with me…
…but the innards are!
At last I can fix up this nightlight I found back in February.
At least this time I didn’t have to smash the piece to get the light out, like I did when I fixed up my Pooh nightlight.
Angelina Ballerina will be joining my troupe of children’s literature toys,
along with this adorable little mouse.

I'm sure he’s book related, just can't think which one!

Since this cup warmer has two heat settings, I'm hoping it will keep my tea a bit hotter than the one I've been using.
And I'll be making my tea in this fun little Bodum pot.

I was amused when the earnest young man explained to me how it works, that you put in loose tea and so on. I did not tell him I've been brewing tea since before he was a gleam etc. or say anything testy about grandmothers and sucking eggs (he very likely would never have heard the expression and think I was quite peculiar). And hey, he asked fifty cents for it. At that price he’s allowed to tell me how to make tea.

I spent $4.50 in all, which seemed pretty inexpensive until I talked to my mother Saturday afternoon. She’d been out garaging with my sister, and she only spent $1.25. Bet she didn’t get a tea lesson though!

KITTEN NOSTALGIA

Those of you who go on regular thrifting ventures know how much strength of character it sometimes requires. Not for the things we buy—for the things we don’t buy! The cute things, the clothes that almost fit or are almost the right color, the things we’re sure we will fix up. But sooner or later you learn that you absolutely cannot take home everything that catches your eye. Even if it's in the free box.

Even if it's a cute little kitten!

Yes, this adorable ten week old baby was offered to me this morning, but I was strong. My resolve was aided by two factors. One was the amount of money I've spent this year at the vet on my existing menagerie of two cats and two dogs. The other was the fact that when I held this little guy he did not purr. I'm a sucker for a purr (though even if he’d purred like a buzz saw I would still have thought of those vet bills and resisted). And as cute as a baby kitty is, I'm not in the market for one. Now if he had been an elderly cat (and purring) we might have had a different ending to the story. I adore geriatric pets. I melt over silver tinged muzzles. We’ve been lucky that most of our pets through the years have lived to ripe old ages. But one of our best cats was at least twelve when we adopted him.
This was our Puddy (he came with that name attached). Homely old dude, wasn’t he? But what a sweetie pie. He belonged to friends in Oregon, and had outlived all their other pets, and couldn’t be inside because of their allergies. So we brought him back to California with us. He strolled into the house, calmly said hello to our other pets, and settled right in. I've always claimed he was my husband’s 50th birthday present, since he arrived during Steven’s birthday week. We got a lot of mileage out of an elderly cat as a 50th gift. Way more fun than those obnoxious black balloons and over-the-hill jokes, and he was an excellent role model for growing older.
Puddy was with us for about three years. He’s buried in my backyard, and a Mexican sage robed in purple fronds waves over his resting place.

PUDDY SONG

You should always say ‘yes’ to a Puddy.
A Puddy’s a wonderful thing.
They’ll purr for you in the autumn
And summer, and winter, and spring.
They lay by you in your bed at night
And sing you a soft lullaby
And during the day, they’ll get in your way
And crouch where you want to walk by.

You should always say yes to a Puddy.
A Puddy’s a wonderful guy.
They’ll smile with you when you are happy
And mop up your tears when you cry.
They eat whatever you give them,
Then bump your head with their nose
And when dinner’s done, they lie in the sun
In a perfectly artistic pose.

So always say yes to a Puddy
If a Puddy should come to your door.
He’s wise and he has much to teach you
And a Pud can't be bought at the store.
Though at first you might think you don’t need one
And you try to say no, not for me.
You’ll never regret a Pud as a pet
Just try one, and then you will see.
So I hope that cute little kitten found a home today. But I've got my eye out for a worthy successor to the Pud.

Lest you think I spent the entire morning being noble and not buying anything, I’m afraid that was not the case. In fact once again I spent a fabulous sum…$15.75! But you’ll see that I got my money’s worth:

Several ten-cent Mary Engelbreit cards.
I think I might frame this one.
A couple of DVDs…
…and CDs.
This odd looking contraption is used to hold an umbrella at the beach or a sporting events. I got it thinking it might work to hold up one of those glass totems (made of glued-together vases and glass plates) in a flower bed. If not, it will make a terrific Goodwill donation.
Bought these earrings solely for the posts…
…so now those blue beads I found a couple of weeks ago can be earrings.
You know I'm big on repurposing, right? Well, I'm repurposing these kitty treats…
…into doggie treats! I need to do some clicker training with our two dogs and these should be good rewards. Kitty food is one of their favorite things—next to bread.

Cast iron frog doorstop. He might be in for a paintjob.
Found another piece of vintage Winfield china, the coffee pot in the Dragon Flower pattern.

Not sure what I'll use this sweet lace collar on. Maybe I'll just leave it on the vintage velvet swing coat that my dress form often wears.

Finally, this was the deal of the day. Twelve pairs of the best undies in the world, brand new, still in their packages. Woo hoo! And even better is knowing that buying just two of these at the suggested retail price would have cost more than I spent today on everything I found.
At one of my last stops, another shopper was trying on a crocheted hat. I told her she looked really cute in it, and the older gentleman helping with the sale said, “We will have to give you a commission!”

101 THINGS TO DO WITH A…

It's been a big weekend here at the Castle of Fifty Cents. I got to go garaging two days instead of just the usual Saturday and found fun stuff and fun people both days.

Friday’s outing was to posh Newport Beach, not my usual area for sales. I'd taken the day off from work and was in the mood for a mini-vacation, which around our house can be as simple as taking a different route home. (We’re simple folk.) I saw an engaging, chatty ad in Craigslist, noted that it was near a favorite nursery, and off I went.

I managed to miss the turn to the complex where the sale was located. It only had a traffic light and an enormous street sign overhead, so I didn’t see it. But I don’t get lost—I’m just taking the scenic route. When I arrived I saw an older gent sitting in the doorway of a garage full of stuff, and figured it was his sale. Turned out he was actually a shopper! But we chatted a few minutes and he told me about another estate sale not far away. The seller turned out to be a friendly lady named Sheila who delighted in touring me through her stuff. She used to be an antique dealer, and some of her prices were out of my league, but not all. I picked up this picture…
…which she said was ten dollars. Not an enormous amount for some, but you know I try to live up to my name! At first glance I thought this was a painting, but a closer inspection revealed its true nature—scherenschnitte! Yes, this is cut paper; signed by Friedrich Kaskeline who according to what I could turn up online was pretty well known for this kind of art.
I love paper art, and when I turned over the frame and saw this on the back I was a goner.
I asked Sheila if ten was her best price, and she went down to five. Deal! I also bought this fun vintage doll from her. She’s about six inches tall and carrying a book, how could I resist?
I love her painted cloth face, and all the details of her costume.

And her arms, legs and neck are wire, so she can be posed different ways.
As I was chatting with Sheila and the gentleman shopper I mentioned my blog and gave them both my card. He chuckled over the name. “Lord Quarter bows to the Queen of Fifty Cents,” he said. I could practically see the plume on his cavalier’s hat as he swept into a courtly obeisance. The Queen of Fifty Cents was immensely flattered at his homage!

I made my nursery visit (Roger’s Garden’s deserves its own post, it's quite an experience) and went on to the estate sale that Lord Quarter had recommended. Only spent a dollar there, but it was worth going to see how the proverbial other half lives. Actually, while a very nice house, probably dating to the early Sixties, it wasn’t ostentatious. But the location, with views of Balboa Island and Newport Bay, would be the reason for its price tag. Ready for this? The house is for sale for a little under $3.5 million. And it’s been sold. Zowie.

My big buy there was these four sheets of music, evidently cut from some vintage children’s magazine.



Don’t you love the nursery rhyme illustrations? Now I have to keep an eye out for some frames; I want to hang them as a set.

They had a lot of vintage and antique items at this sale. I loved this box, and the phrase 'weeny spit.'
Two dozen weenies cooked at once—gotta admire American ingenuity.

This morning I arose and checked Craigslist to see what was on offer. I was amused to see there would be a “Neighborhood Hugh Sale.” Not the first time I've seen a Hugh Sale advertised. That Hugh, he gets around.

I got excited when I realized one of my favorite neighborhoods was having its annual sale today. I have a practically Pavlovian response to sales in places where I've gotten stellar deals in the past. The first thing I ever found in this neighborhood was a complete set of brand new cutting disks for a Cuisinart food processor, complete with rack, for two bucks. And since a few months earlier I had scored a brand new Cuisinart for eight bucks, I scooped those puppies right up. Still using them just about every week. So I was ready for action today. Which turned out to be good, because I had to be pretty nimble-footed to avoid being run over! I was crossing the street behind an SUV that had paused to peruse the sale I was heading for, and just as I got behind the car it started to back up. I yelled, waved my arms and leapt forward simultaneously. The guy driving got out and came over to apologize, saying he just hadn't seen me. Then he got a twinkle in his eye and said to the elderly couple having the sale, who’d witnessed the whole thing, “I've got one of those pedestrian cameras on the back of the car. It's got crosshairs and everything. Don’t know how I could have missed.” I twinkled right back at him that I wouldn’t have been worth very many points, since I'm such a wide target!

Ended up in a long conversation at another sale that started with a chat about my car. I told this nice lady she should get her own convertible, and she shared her fantasy with me. She said she’s going to wait about ten more years, then she’ll quit coloring her hair, let it go completely white, and buy herself a white Corvette convertible with gray leather interior. I can just see her! I hope she won’t wait that long to get her dream car—or to let her hair go natural. I'm probably strange, but I love the gray in my hair.

The prize for the most cheerful sale of the morning goes to the one with absolutely tons of cards and scrapbooking materials. “You must have robbed a stationery store,” I commented to one of the sellers, and she nodded. “Yup, in the dead of night,” she said. I told her it must have been a dark night and she couldn’t see what she was getting, and when she got home she found she didn’t want any of it—hence her yard sale. “That is exactly what happened,” she agreed, laughing.

I always was a good guesser.

In two days of garaging I spent $26. Wow, that’s a lot this time of year! Those big ticket items like $5 vintage artworks add up, don’t they? Here’s the rest of my loot:

Winnie the Pooh cookie press. I've wanted to try one of these for ages, and for fifty cents I can. If I don’t want to keep it, I know I can hand it off to a children’s librarian. This may be the only one of these that has ever actually been used; there’s a little cookie dough clinging to it.

This very silly Halloween rabbit was a bit of a splurge, but she makes me laugh.
Brand new, in her box, hang tag on her arm. My husband’s expression was so horrified when he saw her that I had to assure him I'll take her to my office.

His horror increased when he saw the suggested retail price. Of course even as a splurge my price was nowhere near this!
I was really only interested in this Crate & Barrel bowl, but the mug got thrown into the deal. Love the color—way nicer than my picture!
Couldn’t resist these Lucite drawer pulls. No idea what they’ll end up on.
Had to search for the fabric tag on this piece, which is in the side seam just under the sleeve! But as I thought it is 100% cashmere. Felting is in its future.
These two glass bowls fit together nicely. I'm going to try again to have a terrarium. Wish me luck. The last time I tried, the plants died as fast they could.

Fun little rooster rug to use in my bathroom.
I love this tennis racket. I'm hoping to move up from Wii tennis one of these days and play with a real ball.
This ABC thingie will go to a children’s librarian.
And here is what I bought from the stationery store heist: a bunch of cool cards…


…some shark scrapbook thingies (planning ahead for next summer’s Make a Splash Summer Reading Program)…
…a set of little gift boxes…
…and this awfully cute frog chalkboard.
While I was putting the piece of chalk into the little plastic bag on the back of the frog, a young woman near me read out the title of a book laying on the table: “101 Things to Do with a Casserole.” The guy with her met my eyes and we both cracked up. “A hundred and one?” I said. “What do you do with a casserole beside eat it?”

He mulled for a moment. “Give it to the dog?”

I nodded. “Or throw it away. That’s three…but a hundred and one?” We both shook our heads and said, “Nah.”