The Mysteries of Spring

Ooooh, it was a big weekend folks – went out on two days and spent ten whole dollars. This alone would tell me Spring is here – the blooming daffodils and forsythias and cherry trees are just the icing on the cake. (Of course, the icing often is my favorite part of cake!)

I stopped at a moving sale on Friday and picked up some DVDs. My 600+ movie collection has gotten a workout over the past year. 

Then I met up with my friend Lysa at an estate sale down the street from her house. It was billed as ‘huge’…and wasn’t. But I went away happy. It was a family run sale, and we were ably assisted by an adorable girl about 12 years old. She was friendly and helpful and clearly very proud of her grandmother who had lived there (she’s now moved to Seattle). Wish I knew her name – I'd certainly vote for her when she’s ready to run the world in a few years!

I love books on paper sculpture and all their books were free.

I can't say I was looking for solar lighted house numbers, but I was willing to gamble a dollar. It's still charging so I don't know if it works yet. Fingers crossed.

But I have been looking for some shelves to put in my carport next to the potting bench, to hold pots and such. I had saved a search on Craigslist, and just as with beds, there are a lot of ugly and overpriced ones out there. But there it was – exactly what I was looking for. 

And it's even cute.

Finally, I bought a couple of original paintings. One was by the lady who had lived there (there were several of hers), an Oregon seascape.

I hung it on the wall underneath another very Oregon scene, a little study of tree tops. As I did, I thought now all I need is a valley picture.

I really love the other painting from that sale. When I rearranged my guest room I ended up with a blank wall where a bookcase had been and hoped I'd find something big to put there. And I did. I'm a sucker for wheat, I think it's just beautiful and for years had a bouquet of some I picked when I lived up in Wenatchee, Washington. And here was the wheat I love, along with a nest of robin eggs to remind me of the baby robins that were hatched on top of the light fixture on my deck last summer. It's a really textured oil, signed and dated ’72 and clearly from that period. 

The style reminds me of Brian Wildsmith’s art, like these.

On Saturday, KK and I went out for an hour or so. Some of you may recall I some pictures of a sale back in February of a house jam packed with collections, mostly china. Well, they unearthed another 1500 boxes of stuff from the basement and had a second sale. We were there on the second morning and there were still a zillion pieces. 

It’s a big old house and every room had shelving on all the walls and tables down the middle and all were jam packed, mostly with china lamps and figurines and teapots. I didn’t even bother to go down into the basement. Actually, I thought this box was the cutest item in the place.

Didn’t think there was a single thing I wanted, but on our way out through the back yard I spotted a wind chime. I've never passed a wind chime without making it ring, and this one was surprisingly mellow. And only a couple of bucks (probably the least expensive thing there), probably because it appears to be homemade. Some rusty wire, 

an old funnel and three pipes, 

some kind of game ball as a ringer 

and an embossed piece of tile for the sail 

and voila, you have a wind chime.

We checked out a couple more places. The first was the kind of sale where you roll your eyes as your leave thinking why on earth did they bother? – and I don't say that very often! But our last stop netted a mini jackpot. I've been looking for something to hold my silicone lids to free up space in the potholder drawer, and there in a free box was an adjustable rack to hold a roast that seemed worth trying. (I don't need it for its original use since I've been a vegetarian for almost 50 years.) Looks like it will work.

This odd Japanese utensil was marked a quarter and I thought I can use it to scrape stuck-on stuff from pans before they go in the dishwasher. Guess its intended use is in cooking rice, so maybe it will be dual duty.

And then on another table I spotted a small framed painting, also priced at a quarter. Original signed art…and here’s my Oregon valley scene I was thinking I needed!

Even better, when I went up to pay my fifty cents, she said, “Oh, just take them.” I told her she’d just made my day. I think I made hers by taking the Japanese mystery utensil!

A Million Thanks

Early last Saturday morning something momentous happened on my blog.

There’s a good chance you’ve never noticed the counter at the very bottom of the page. It sits there quietly adding a digit every time someone visits my blog. And early on Saturday morning, someone visited and the counter ticked over to…one million.

Now, I know there are sites out there that hit that number in days, or even hours. Took almost 13 years here (next week is the blog anniversary). But for a site that has never advertised – or accepted an advertisement – and remains true to the focus on having a wonderful time paying the least you possibly can for practically anything, a million visits makes me very happy.

A million is big. A million hours equals a tad over 41,000 days. A million days is 2737 years, 10 months, 6 days and a few hours. The height of a stack of dollar bills would be as tall as a 30+ story building. (I'll take my share from the bottom, please!)

A million is a whole, whole lot. And of course I've never counted, but I bet I've had close to a million laughs and moments of satisfaction and amazement over what can be found when you go out thrifting. Whether you favor garage or yard sales, estate sales, rummage sales or thrift stores, the sheer entertainment value is priceless. And that's not even counting all the good stuff you can add to your life for a tiny fraction of a million dollars.

So I send a million thanks out to all who have come along on this journey for the past 13 years, with double thanks to those who have left comments.

And now let's get started on the second million!

She Shoots! She Scores!

I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure the dreaded 2020 is not over yet – 2021 seems to be channeling the spirit of its predecessor quite nicely, thank you. I actually wrote this post over three weeks ago, but I dawdled a bit on posting it…which was a mistake.

The first glitch was that we had an ice storm. From what long-time residents tell me, this was an ice storm like no one had seen here before. If there are Hundred Year Floods, then this was the Hundred Year Ice Storm. First it rained, then the rain got colder and colder, and turned to liquid ice, and coated everything. Everything. Salem is known for our beautiful trees, and every tree had an inch or more of glittering ice on it. Which weighed them all down, trees were bent to the ground. And then – they started to break.

Huge limbs started falling in the night. Whole trees split down the middle. Birches and oaks were especially hard hit, and a lot of huge oaks were completely uprooted. Power lines, tangled in the huge street trees, started coming down. And transformers began to explode. I heard four or five in the area around my house go before there was one more large bang – and the lights went out.

My electricity was out for five days. My gas furnace needs electricity to ignite, so no heat. I was able to manually light burners on the stove to cook, which is a very weird experience in the pitch dark. Thank heavens for my headlamp I bought for early morning trips to the dog park. It got colder and colder. After the second night, I begged a bed from my ex (his apartment had only a brief power outage) and the dogs and I slept over there. When they crews finally came and reconnected my block, I went out and clapped and cheered for the guys. I hope I never take heat and light and convenience for granted again.

However, the fun was not yet over. The city looked like a war zone – in fact, the WWII memorial downtown looked like a battle had just taken place there. Cleanup crews were out immediately, and it's only the last few days that the sound of chain saws and wood chippers has not been constant. Part of the collateral damage was that the Internet was knocked out. And even when it showed they had fixed the storm outage in my area, I still had no WiFi. I'm not particularly proud of the fact I was more fretful over not having any Internet for three weeks than I was about not having power. It's a little scary, how much of our daily lives depends on the Web. It didn’t help when they failed to show up for the repair appointment I had a week ago, and I had to wait five more days for another appointment. In fact I was in a right old snit about it. I send out huge thanks to my friends who listened to me whine during that week!

We are more or less back to normal, and Spring is getting closer; in fact, there are daffodils blooming in my yard. Perhaps it was 2020’s last hurrah. Let’s hope so!

With that explanation for the delay, let me take you now to the post I wrote in those more-innocent days of three weeks ago…

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Driving home from the dog park Thursday morning I noticed a big Estate Sale sign leading into my neighborhood. Even though it was early, barely eight o’clock (we hit the dog park at first light), naturally I followed the sign, which led me to a street 3 blocks from mine. I went on home with Zoë and after feeding the gang, checked Craigslist for more info on the sale. Sure enough it was there, along with a listing for another sale back in my old neighborhood, and that one had a Picture of Interest.

Back in October when I had knee surgery and Marcia was staying with me, I put my queen size bed in the guest room and moved the twin bed for me to use. Much easier to get in and out of than the larger and higher one. I liked having the bigger bed in the guest room, so I decided to part ways with the pair of twin beds in there and get a double or queen instead. That room has a rather large closet – in fact it is just about the size of a twin bed, and so I put a bed in there. 

It was quite cozy and I enjoyed sleeping in there from time to time, but as I've gotten older and creakier it got harder to do things like change the sheets. So I moved the bed out of the closet and have now turned it into my cozy reading nook.

So…I have been looking for a different bed since fall. Saved a search on Craigslist so I see all the new listings, and let me tell you, there are a lot of ugly beds out there! I looked at that estate sale listing and saw a possible candidate, so I headed out, all masked up and keeping my social distance.

When I got to the sale, I chatted with one of the workers while I looked at a few things on the driveway, and I noticed a footboard and side rails for a bed. Asked her if they went with the headboard I'd seen in the picture and she said she didn’t know for sure, her boss at the estate sale company handled the furniture. “He’s the one who knows about that, things like what kind of feet are worth more,” she said. My heart sank a little, sounded like he might actually be an expert, and when I went inside I saw that some things were pretty pricey. Couldn’t locate the headboard in any of the bedrooms, but then I realized they had moved all the furniture into the living/dining room. And there it was behind a couple of ottomans, a double headboard just the size I've been wanting.

When I got close, my heart started to go pitty pat. I could see immediately this was a midcentury piece, either teak or walnut, possibly Danish. I've never seen anything like it (and I've looked at a lot of midcentury furniture since I bought my MCM house). 

Though made of wood, it appears to be woven – the top rail is carved, I'm sure by hand, to look like thick straps going over.

This thing is absolutely exquisite, and I knew I wanted it – if I could afford it. I tipped it toward me so I could see the price written on a piece of masking tape, fingers crossed.

Are you ready?

Five dollars. Five dollars. Holy yard sale gods. I about fainted…but didn’t want to take the time to pick myself up from the floor. I started wrestling that puppy out from behind those ottomans. About then the lady I'd talked to on the driveway came in and asked me if I wanted her to take it out for me. I managed to keep myself from jumping up and down with joy as I let her take it, saying I wanted the footboard and rails too.

I did a quick turn through the rest of the house, and emerged with a little splurge – a $4 Noritake hen with lovely details

plus a $2 original watercolor that’s been nicely framed. 

Let’s just say I was distinctly unimpressed with the knowledge of the ‘furniture expert’ who priced the bed, but perfectly happy to make such a score.

As it happens, I was even less impressed with the man when I stopped by the other sale on my way home. Turns out both were being handled by the same estate sale company, and I'm sure the "furniture expert" was the guy who seemed to be in charge at the second one. The guy in the garage greeting people – and not wearing a mask. In fact he appeared to be boasting about it to the person who went in just before me. Unlike the first sale, this place was way crowded, and I left almost immediately. If I had felt any twinge of remorse over my bargain with the bed (okay, I really didn’t!) it would have vanished after seeing him.

So my guest room is on its way to a new look. I still need to find a mattress and bedding, but that’s an adventure for another day. I've searched and searched online to try to get a line on the maker of the bed, but have found nothing comparable. So it may be quite rare. I found a stamp on the back that seems to be a date, “Aug 18” but the year is blurred, I think it's something like 1965. And ‘waln’ hand written, so it's probably walnut. But even though I haven’t found a match for it, perusing eBay and other sale sites convinces me I found an amazing deal, one of my best ever. Hop over to eBay and do a search for ‘midcentury headboard’. Let’s just say that none of them are priced at five dollars!