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.”