SWEET PUPPIES AND SMELLY PENCILS

“Where are you going?” my dog Edward asked Saturday morning.
“Out looking for yard sales. It's Saturday.”
“But it’s going to start raining,” he objected. He likes it when I stay home with him.
“How do you know that?”
“The fluctuations in barometric pressure make my tail wag,” Edward said. I looked at him. His tail was wagging.
“But Edward, your tail wags all the time. It doesn’t rain all the time.”
“Other things make it wag too,” he admitted. “Like food, and cats, and when you say my name—”
“True.”
“—and smells, and water, and food, and toys, and scraps of paper—”
This could go on all day. He wags a lot. “Excuse me, I have to go before it starts raining.”

Edward’s tail was right. It did start raining after an hour or so, but I put the top up on my car and that made it stop. A few minutes later I stopped at a sale where a guy was looking at the sky. “Guess that was our downpour,” he said. I explained about closing the lid on my convertible and making it stop, and promised to leave it up for a while. It's the least I can do to keep the garaging fun going.

That was the sale after the one where a woman in her mid thirties held up a lacy bikini she was selling and said ruefully to her friend, “This was the teeniest bikini I ever wore. Those were the days. Four kids later and you’d never know it.”

Another sale was a whole driveway full of stuff belonging to three ladies who were neighbors. One of them kept looking around and saying, “I've got to get this organized. This is such a mess. It is driving me crazy.” Her two friends were not bothered at all (I bet she’s always saying something drives her crazy and they’ve learned to ignore her.) She kept bustling around, and we were chatting a bit, so finally I told her I go to lots of sales and hers was no messier than anyone else’s, and she didn’t need to worry about organizing it, she could just relax. She seemed a bit relieved, but started fretting about a bag of pens and pencils that someone had offered her a quarter for. So then we had the conversation about how sometimes it's better to have a quarter than to have a bag of used pens at the end of the day. This segued into a general discussion about the right way to bargain at yard sales. One of her friends, a largish lady sitting in the garage in a comfy pair of jeans and roomy purple shirt, started to laugh. “I don’t know what it is,” she said, “but we can go to a yard sale together and I'll ask how much something is and they’ll say two dollars, and then she comes up right behind me and they look at her and say here honey, you just take this.” I nodded wisely and told her I knew what it was—she just had to stop dressing so rich. She looked down at her purple shirt and cracked up.

It was a fine day for dogs (besides Edward; it's always a fine day for Edward). First there was Rocco.
He was a very well behaved Westie, and turned out he is blind. Which brought back a lot of memories, because the dog I had when we got married went blind, so we were seeing eye people for a number of years. This was Casey, our Samoyed-pointer cross.
Next I came across Oreo.
Oreo’s people were minding their sale and eating omelettes, and Oreo’s attention was fixed firmly on their plates. When she saw me taking her picture she gave a little growl, clearly telling me to back off from the eggs, they were hers.

At my final stop I met this little sweetie.
Gidget is a 14 week old Lab, and a very good girl. She is already house trained, and she lost her first baby tooth Friday. I got to hold her and we went shopping together in their garage.
It's absolutely true…happiness is a warm puppy!

I spent $7 during the morning; nearly half of it went for this extravagant buy:

Smencils. Yes, pencils that smell. Made from recycled newspapers…but packaged in individual plastic tubes. Perhaps a little unclear on the idea of saving the earth. The lady I bought them from said they were a fund raiser at her kids’ school. “I paid a dollar each, and we sold them for two dollars,” she said, but she had four buckets left and was selling them for a quarter. I asked her how much for a bucket, that I'd like to give them to my children’s librarians. Yes, I shamelessly played the children’s librarian card, and will continue to do so, it works like a charm. Plus it's true. We settled on three bucks, and she made sure I got the fullest bucket. Looks like there are about 40 of them, so at our next children’s librarians meeting I'll give at least one to everyone.

I thought these bookends were awfully cute.

They’re made of cast resin that’s covered with some kind of flocking so they really are, well, warm and fuzzy.
Haven’t decided if I'll keep them in my office for a while or give them for a door prize. Hmmm, they’re heavy enough I could use them for door stops!

I do plan to give away this belt. Figured the sea shells would make it appropriate for someone to use during our water-themed Summer Reading Program. I can see a teddy bear decked out with this as a spiffy headband.


In the realm of the practical, my husband will find a use for this box of printable postcards.

Couldn’t resist these vintage linens, from puppy Gidget’s garage. Brought home six beautiful tissue linen, hand-embroidered place mats.

Wouldn’t they be lovely stitched together for a little curtain, with sunlight streaming through? Also bought a lavender linen tablecloth, hand embroidered and beautifully hemmed…


…plus 12 matching napkins…
and 12…what the heck are these little things? They are ¼ the size of the napkins.
Too thin for coasters. For your bread plate maybe? You can see how often I set a formal table.

I bought this sweet little pin from the lady who was fretting over her messy sale.
I love the bunny painting and the dangly thingies. When I got home I went online to see if I could find out anything about the artist. Googled the name on the back, and got a hit that sounded like my pin, so I clicked on it. It was a seller’s page on Ecrater. Hmmm, I thought, that’s where my sister sells her stuff. I looked at the seller’s name. Midcentury Marilyn.

My sister.

Small world!

LATER IN THE DAY EDIT: Guess I was confusing in that last bit about my sister! She's not the artist, that is someone named Marjoleine Bastin. My sister sells vintage stuff, and she found the same pin in Oklahoma that I found in California. Sorry to have been unclear...guess just because I knew what I meant doesn't mean everyone else does! I still think it's amazing we both found the same thing!