THRIFTING BETWEEN THE STORMS

We had a wild and wooly week weather-wise. Rain and blustery wind from Monday to Friday, even a tornado watch one day! (Practically unheard of here.) So when Saturday was as clear and sunny as the weather predictions promised, everyone was both delighted and amazed. And I hope we’re all appreciating this sunny weekend, because tomorrow the rain is supposed to start again.

It felt great to be out with the top down on my car, scouting out those signs tacked up at corners that lead me to treasure. I met a couple of dogs this week, a yellow lab who was shopping with her bike-riding owners, and this older gent:
As I tried to get a picture, I said something about putting him on my blog. One of the guys having the sale exclaimed, “Shadow! You’re going to be on the garage sale dog hall of fame!” You’d almost think he was familiar with my blog.

One sale seemed to be several families who had set up their wares together. I chatted with one of the husbands about remodeling; he was putting out leftover tiles to sell and that started us off. He said their house had been a foreclosure and they’d pretty much had to gut it and start over. That wasn’t the case with our house, but it was over 30 years old when we bought it and needed some systems updated. We did a classic “might as well” remodeling. It started with needing new shower doors for my bathroom. My husband said, if we’re going to do that, we might as well take down that unfinished pine paneling in there too. Then it was, we might as well do the shower stall in the half bath. And on and on for about $25,000 worth of might-as-wells. Which is a chunk of change, but the cost-per-wow has been worth it—we’ve loved and used everything we put in. And isn’t that part of why we thrift, so we can afford things like fixing the house?

But I have to admit, I do still think of my bathroom as having a $25,000 shower door.

This weekend’s adventures were nowhere near that expensive, coming in at a mere $6.75. Several of my finds fall into the category of glass:

Three storage jars with air-tight lids. Originally from Ikea, where they are not terribly expensive, but buying them on a driveway means I got all three for less than half the price of one at the store.
I've already filled the smaller one with kosher salt.
I absolutely love these handmade drinking glasses. They feel great to hold, quite substantial though they’re not very large. I especially like that they’re all slightly different.
This set of six Crate & Barrel Christmas glasses was admittedly a splurge, but they’ve never been used and for a dollar I'm able to feel I'm living large.
Moving on from glass, we have the blue category:
I'm ridiculously excited about this silicone spatula. Hmmm, must be a sign of extreme middle age, to get excited about a spatula. I want to rush right into the kitchen and start mixing up pancakes.
And it looks fabbo with my other colorful utensils.
Then there is the new-in-box personal fan.
I think it must have been a gift; even though the box says it comes without batteries, this one was fully loaded and operational. I'm crazy about it on my home-office desk; the blue against my orange walls is positively zippy.
I've been looking for some small containers for loose tea, and this pack of four plastic containers with blue caps will work just fine until I find something more exciting.
Finally, defying categorization other than 1) useful and 2) cute we have
1) almost full box of large white envelopes (I didn't think the bit of blue on the box was enough to put it into the blue category!)
and 2) another addition for my children’s-literature-toys collection.
This is the bunny from the book Guess How Much I Love You. I checked online to see how much these guys sell for; evidently it originally had a smaller bunny to hug, and the pair sells for—can you believe this?!—almost $40. Sheesh!
My husband took one look and asked, “Are they still making the Trix-are-for-kids rabbit?” You’ll probably have to be a certain age to understand that reference!

I finished hand-sewing a rod pocket onto the quilt I got a couple of weeks ago, and we hung it in our bedroom. We’ve had a vintage double-wedding ring quilt there since we moved in about eight years ago. Before:

After:
I'm really loving the change; the old quilt was beloved but this is much more vibrant. Isn’t that curvy leaf border terrific?