HOLIDAY WEEKENDS…BAH, HUMBUG!

Three-day holiday weekends usually mean a radical drop in the number of yard sales around here, and that was certainly the case this time. I bought two items at the first place I stopped and that was it. If only I were more psychic...I've got a cold and it would have been nice to head home after buying those two things. Which of course I could have done, psychic or not, but those of you who are thrifters will understand the thrill of the chase. It's my form of gambling. You just know you’ll get a big hit if you keep going. And of course you’re way more likely to do that if you’re gambling on garage sales and not in Las Vegas!

I had a meeting with two of my new children’s librarians on Thursday and they asked me how to get started going to garage sales. Neither of them had ever been before, which seemed strange to me, but then my mother took me to sales as a child. (I think it's equally strange that there are people who do not go to their public library—all that great stuff to use for free!) So I gave them a quick tutorial on getting started on their garaging careers, while warning them that pickings on a holiday weekend might be slim. I guess it could be daunting to walk up to a stranger’s house and start looking at their stuff. I just hope they didn’t run into anyone like the grumpy woman I heard saying to her daughter, “These shoes have a $40 price tag on them! Why didn’t you take them back to the store and get the $40 back?” I glanced over in time to see her take them away from the lady who wanted them and refuse to sell them to her. Got in my car and left. I try never to spend any money at sales with a nasty vibe!

Had one other weird moment. There was a sale strewn down a sidewalk, and a guy walking a dog had just come up. The woman running the sale started cooing at the dog, and mentioned she was dog-sitting at the house where the sale was. Then she said since the neighbors had put up signs for their sale, she’d decided to pull some stuff out to sell too. Now, I can't help wondering…if she was the pet sitter and it wasn’t her house, was it her stuff she was selling, or the people’s she was sitting for?

I spent $1.50, and brought home these two fine items:

M.E. cup and saucer. I liked the ‘have tea with the Queen’ bit.

Cup warmer. I was doing interviews with a couple of colleagues last week and something was said about these, and one of them had never heard of such a thing. Hope she didn’t rush off to Target to buy one, since I plan to send her this!

You may remember that a couple of weeks ago I got some clip art disks sans one of the books of thumbnails. I started going through them and have found some pretty fun pictures. The ones I like best I'm just saving to my computer, like:

This is the new wallpaper on my computer!

Next weekend is one of the four per year that folks can legally have yard sales in the town I live in. (Luckily none of the other towns around have that rule!) So I look forward to more sales being available to me—not to mention renewed vigor in my health. Summer colds—bah, humbug!