Saling In The Summer

Summer has arrived and we had the second weekend in a row of beautiful weather. With no more of our own yard sales to set up (for at least two years, we hope), it was time to set our course for saling but first....a new $5 or Less store opened up only moments from our house and we had to take a look around, didn't we? We arrived Friday evening and it had some really interesting stuff! There were some items that would have fit right in on the pages of the Archie McPhee catalog and then there was the candy! 

Candy! Botan Rice Candy, Sugar Daddies, B.B. Bats (banana flavor), candy cigarettes and razzles. Oh...and the Clark and 5th Avenue bars. These two were Rob's dad's favorite chocolate bars as a kid. They were sitting beside each other and Rob smiled at the memory of his Dad and the smile these would have brought him.

So, Saturday morning arrived and we set "sale". Our first planned stop was a local one that Rob said sounded very familiar. It was along the water about 10 minutes away and, as we pulled up, we recognized the house! We were there earlier this year and they had nothing that interested us so we did not go inside. We pulled down the street though to look at the water. It was a nice view!

So, after stopping for breakfast, we moved on to our second stop!

This sale was run by some people who own an antique store east of us. This was very different than most houses we visit. Normally, we have a pretty good idea whether it will be a good stop after looking at the first room or two. The first three rooms showed us nothing at all (except for one cool early 1960's coffee table). Then we hit the garage and we found lots of great Christmas items! The upstairs had some great vintage books, a couple of records and a few more Christmas items. This proved to be a great choice for us! 

The bathroom was blue with an old tile floor.

Rob looking through some records. There is a second old coffee table behind Rob and leopard couch pillows. We didn't get the coffee table or the leopard pillows but we did get some other couch pillows at this stop.

Our next stop was at very cluttered house with lots of old items. It was an estate sale run by the family of the deceased. We picked up a variety of items here included a wooden shadow box, some vintage cookbooks, some vintage greeting cards and various miscellaneous items. The prices were very cheap.

As we moved on to the fourth stop on our list, the street sign looked promising...

Welcome to Sherwood! Picture Errol Flynn from the movie "Robin Hood" as he appears in a Bugs Bunny cartoon. "Never worry. Never Fear. Robin Hood will soon be here". Well, as it turns out, there was no welcome. There was no sale and the people did not even appear to be home. We may have mistakenly copied down the wrong date. Well, never worry, never fear, another sale will soon be here...and so, off we went to our next stop.

Our next stop. We had never heard of a company called "Red Tag" but we were pleasantly surprised to find familiar faces. It is a small company that decided to change their name. The lady who owns the company knows Rob does "Mr. Ed" impressions and always asks him to do them. Rob always reluctantly agrees. 

Look at the cool vintage pink vacuum cleaner. It was pretty beat up and we did not get it but we did get a few good things. We stopped at one more garage sale on the way home but it was a quick stop and there was nothing for us. 

After a long, hot day, we napped, then Rob barbecued steaks and Monica prepared the side dishes. We spent the early evening walking through town, stopping for Italian Ices and enjoying the night.

The town streets are always well lined with beautiful flowers

A view of the town Movie Theatre from below the marquee. 

Our town...Babylon

Some of the items we got on Saturday:

Another wooden shadow box that matches a few we already have.

Some throw pillows from the 1960's. Rob had the exact same ones in his house when he was a kid but they were a golden color.

LOTS of Christmas items. Many ceramic pieces made in Japan, lots of plastic Santas with his reindeer, a wooden Christmas mail holder made in Japan and some knee huggers and a pixie!

A Christmas mailer from Penneys from the early 1960's, a popcorn Santa and a hanging Christmas decoration with a knee hugger.

Some old Christmas banners

Lots of vintage cookbooks

Some more books, some vintage greeting cards and a couple of old cardboard Halloween decorations.

Lots of old playing cards

Some old glittery drink coasters, a Susie Sad Eyes doll, a 1963 plastic wolfman figurine, some old plastic bridal party figurines and a bear dish detergent topper that we both had in our house as kids.

A large vintage drink umbrella, a Fuller Brush letter opener, vintage birthday candles and cake toppers, an old bottle opener (looks like Jimmy Durante) and an old flip book.

A rubber coated drink stake. We have several of these and pick them up whenever we see them. Perfect for placing your beverage in during outdoor parties.

Some records

It was a great Saturday. We spent most of Sunday working in our garden, shopping for our fruits and vegetables and doing things around the house. Oh, and of course....

We did make sure our mannequin, Sharon, got redressed in summer attire!

Yard Sale Weekend...The Day After!

We had a four day weekend, highlighted by our yard sale on Saturday and all the preparations beforehand (see the previous post for details). One day left...Monday...a day we both chose as a vacation day. A day for just us.

With no estate sales in sight, we started off the day going to Thrift Shops. This was our first stop and one we go to often. We did not get anything here today but we did empty our car of six boxes full of donations. The ladies who work here are all so nice and are very excited to get donations (believe it or not, some just don't want donations at all!). We still have another six boxes or so and we will donate those to another Thrift Shop in the near future. 

This was our second stop, another Thrift Shop located right next door to the first one. We sometimes find things here but not today. 

Our third Thrift Shop, another one we go to sometimes. We got a Christmas record, a cookbook and a Darth Vader cake/jello mold pan!

It was pretty hot outside but we live on Long Island and there are lots of opportunities to drive down to the shore to cool off! 

Another Thrift Shop we browsed in. There was nothing for us here. We stopped at several others before and after this one. Many were closed on Mondays! :(

Time to cool off again! We stopped at a park that we go to sometimes. Pretty scenery, a small lake, lots of birds and some shade!

Ducks on the move!

Geese and ducks at rest!

Goose and duck in one! A Duck Duck Goose!

He behaved like a goose

The ducks didn't seem to care. They had seen his kind before!

A little carving on a fallen tree to let people know we had been there

One more Thrift Shop to visit. They rarely have anything but they did today...two records.  This one is in town. We love to walk through town on nice evenings and is just a three minute walk from the lake we visit often...the one we like to call "our lake". 

We walked through town, got an italian ice and then posed with Nipper, The Plesser's Dog. Yes...he has eyes but I guess we covered them! 

After a late afternoon nap together (we were still a little exhausted from the Saturday yard sale), it was time to get some food from one of our favorite places, All American Drive-In. It has been there forever and we try to go a few times a year!

All American Drive-In!

Lots to choose from the menu!

Burgers and fries for each of us. A chocolate shake for Rob and a Root Beer soda for Monica! 

All American makes us happy! 

We stopped at the docks closet to our house on the way home. It is only about 2 miles from our house. The docks had been pretty heavily damaged during Hurricane Irene in 2011 and then destroyed during Hurricane Sandy last year but they have been fixed and are better than ever! 

One of the houses across the docks. Many were very, very seriously damaged during Hurricane Sandy. You can still see the work-in-progress on some of them.

Another boat that The Professor won't be able to fix!

Beautiful evening clouds! 

Enjoying the view with the wind in our hair!

Visiting the wooden fisherman that sits along the docks!

The day was exactly what we planned it to be...a day for us to share together...amongst the wooden fishermen...amongst the geese...and always amongst the ducks!

Oh...and here is what we picked up thrifting today:

Some records and a book...

...and a Darth Vader cake/jello mold pan! We will use him to make a "Luke, I Am Your Father's Day" dessert next year!!!

Yard Sale Weekend!!!

Hmmmm..."yard sale weekend". That could be a description for almost every one of our weekends but this was OUR yard sale weekend! Since last July, we had been planning on getting rid of some stuff that we no longer wanted and no longer needed. Some of it was household items or old clothes that we no longer needed and some were items we actually found at garage sales years ago that no longer held any value to us. For whatever reason, we just never found the time to have the sale or, when we did, the weather forecast told us that our timing was not right. Well, finally we decided to do it. Saturday. One day only! We had boxed up enough items to bring to Monica's sister's house (about four blocks away which is where we would hold our "multi-family" yard sale) and took vacation days both Friday and Monday to extend the weekend so we would still have time for "us"  We advertised on craigslist and created a few signs for the local yard salers out there and we were ready to go! But first, we had Friday!

Since Saturday was OUR garage sale day, we decided to look for any estate sales that were happening on Friday. We were very, VERY good not to look at Saturday's ads at all! We did not want to think about what we might be missing! We found two sales on Friday in neighboring towns so that made our hunting a little easier! 

This was the sign for the first sale. We knew the Tag Sale Company as we have been to several of their sales and we sometimes find things and sometimes we don't. Aside from some records (we got 12 albums), there was nothing for us. 

The sign for the second sale. It was another Tag Sale company that we knew and there was not a whole lot here but we did find a few items including an old scrapbook from the 1930's with lots of greeting cards and gift tags lightly attached to the pages (we both LOVE old greeting cards and gift tags). The scrapbook, alone, made the trip worthwhile!!! 

There were several scraps of material with designs on them in the second sale. Monica was holding up one of them being a clown for the camera! ha ha!!!

We spent the remainder of our day running errands, doing the food shopping and laundry, stopping at a Thrift Shop (we couldn't resist...it was on the way home),putting the final touches on our yard sale preparation (including hanging the signs) and picking up some Chinese Food for dinner. We did have to wait until early evening to hang the signs because of a passing shower but once the showers passed, the weather would be perfect and the rainbow above our house told us so!

The rainbow! 

  

Here are some of the things we found on Friday:

Some Christmas records...

...some more Christmas records...

...and some MORE Christmas records. Well, we had these already but they were in such great shape (better than the ones we had)! And then we got...

...some more records! 

A few more items including some cocktail stirrers (the plastic ones are wedding stirrers from 1949 and have a martini glass design at the top), a Siesta Ware mug from Storytown in Lake George, NY (where Rob went with his parents when he was a little boy), an unopened deck of cards with the "Hills Supermarket" sticker (the supermarket where Rob went with his parents and grandmother when he was a little boy) and old Christmas card display clips in its unopened package.

The scrapbook from the 1930's, filled with greeting cards, gift tags and pictures they cut out from magazines!

Here are some of the greeting cards inside the scrapbook! 

We got up early on Saturday, brought the remaining boxes to Monica's sister's house and started setting up at a time that we thought would be comfortable and unrushed.  Lo and behold, the early birds set upon us about an hour before the start of the sale. Although we were still unpacking, we did not turn them away. Our goal was to get rid of some unwanted items and make a little money. The early birds are usually good buyers anyway so, although this added a lot of pressure,  we let them search and one couple spent about $70. We had one small group of people in the early afternoon that we actually caught trying to steal from us (they put an item in a pre-packaged $1 bag and tried to hide it from us). Rob took over all the remaining negotiations with them and held firm on every price we gave them, choosing to let them walk away rather than accommodate the thieves. They did give Rob the price he asked for on a few items after they tried to negotiate and walked away from other items. As they left, Monica heard them say they would return after the sale had ended to get the items they wanted for free (thinking we would put them out on the curb at day's end). We did not. We are donating the leftovers to local Thrift Shops. In the end, we made almost $300 and got rid of some unwanted stuff but it was a busy, busy day...so busy that we completely forgot to take any pictures!!!! Our next yard sale will be...um...never! It was a long day and a lot of hard work! Maybe we will forget the stress by next year! 

On Sunday, we spent Father's Day at Monica's sister's house with family. It was fun! 

Rob and Monica's dad listening to doo-wop music on Youtube. Monica's dad knows just about every doo-wop song ever and has so many of the original 1950's records on vinyl. He even has the concert programs from all of the Alan Freed shows he saw (and other shows) including shows with Buddy Holly!  

Three our of the four days from our four day weekend completed. We saved the last day to just have fun, enjoy the weather and each other's company. More on that later!