Pastrami on Rye

St. Patrick's Day has come and gone. The little corner of our living room, neatly adorned with decorations celebrating St. Patrick, will be cleaned up by the last weekend in March to make way for the Easter decorations. Elves, leprechauns and shamrocks will be packed away. Plastic, ceramic and cardboard bunnies, eggs and lambs will emerge from other boxes and be carefully arranged to celebrate the first holiday of the Spring season. We hope it brings with it some warm weather. We have had the occasional glimpse of the weather we hope to see with April approaching but, for the most part, it continues to be a much colder than average March. 

Monica made a delicious corn beef and cabbage meal for us on St. Patrick's Day (with potatoes and Irish soda bread too) and there was plenty remaining for leftovers during the week. With corn beef fresh on our mind, we started talking about pastrami and how we had not eaten a good old pastrami on rye sandwich in longer than we could remember. We would have to seize that opportunity when we had a chance. 

For now, we had to put pastrami out of our minds and focus on Saturday morning saling. We also had to put last week's lack of success out of our minds. This week, we hoped, would be different. We narrowed our list down to six stops. Two looked more promising than the rest so we decided to go to those first. We were anxious and we were excited!

We arrived at our first stop, a sale run by a very small Estate Sale Company. They do not run too many sales but we are always happy to see the owner. His sales are not well advertised but we have gotten some great things from him, over the years, at a very, low price. There was nothing in the ad that caught really caught our eye other than his name. That was enough.  

******We interrupt this post for a very important message. Many of the pictures taken on this date were not of the highest quality. Rob left the camera's setting on "night" which was how he set it when he last used the camera. He completely forgot to re-set it. His mind must have still been thinking of "pastrami on rye". We apologize for the picture quality. ****  Now...back to our post

The house had a main floor and basement to search. There were many signs of older times. The television has probably sat like this since the 1970's...on a metal stand and with aluminum foil on the antenna to enhance reception! We found a few treasures amidst the debris and took home a few Christmas items, an old box of shoe polish and some other items of interest, all for $5. It was a good first stop but we were ready for the next one. 

We arrived at our second sale and we were excited. Not only did the word "hoarder" in the description of the sale excite us but we ran into a friend at the sale (pictured above with Monica). He works for several different tag sale companies as a helper and he is always entertaining.

The front door gave us a good feeling about the contents inside. Look at the door. Monica is peeking through the glass

Look at that starburst doorknob! There was one on each side of the door but they were not for sale at this time.

There were an incredible number of rooms inside. This was the basement floor. We had four messy rooms to search downstairs and we spent an hour and a half in just the basement alone! 

This section of the basement had some great old cabinets and boxes upon boxes to search on the floor (and in a nearby closet). Monica was pretty happy! 

The room was once used as a downstairs kitchen and it had a cool old stove built into the wall!

There was an old bar in the basement and Rob searched its contents thoroughly! 

Laying amongst the rubble was this great kitchen room divider cabinet...

...with a great countertop! 

There was an old pink bathroom on the main floor. There's Monica in the back searching the cabinet drawers for hidden treasures

Look at the floor in the bathroom!

This was a great stop. We were here for 2 1/2 hours and found lots and lots of great things amongst the rubble. Christmas items...Easter items...books and magazines...vintage greeting cards...and much more. It made up for last week! We were so satisfied that we decided to skip the remaining four stops on our list. None of them looked very promising anyway and the nearest of them was 30 minutes away. Rob had a different plan. 

 As we drove in the general direction of our house, Rob had his eyes open for a place that looked like it might serve pastrami on rye...and we found one. It was a nice delicatessen with tables and chairs inside. We got our sandwiches and had a leisurely lunch. Saling, pastrami and spending time together...it all adds up to a great day. 

Here are some of the things we brought home:

One record. This cover made us laugh

Some vintage greeting cards

Some books and magazines

Old Dennison booklets, a Howard Johnson's children's menu from 1960 and cardboard cut-outs of Pebbles and Bam Bam, dated 1968

Some old Christmas stockings

More Christmas stockings. Made in Japan and unopened

A New York World's fair kerchief from 1964-1965

Sealed packages of cowboys and indians (though Rob refers to them as "cowboys and Robs")

Some great "ponytail" teenager items for Monica

Some new hats for Monica

Some vintage Easter stuff. The Easter basket in the back center is still in its package and marked Japan. The Paas set on the back right is unopened. The books in front are Paass books

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Playing cards from United Airlines, green stamp books, a spoon rest made in Japan, Halloween trick or treat bags (newer), a New Year's Eve noisemaker and a vintage set of activity books

A vintage plastic coconut glass,a Hamburglar glass from 1978, an old netted outdoor candle holder, a honeycomb pumpkin, a tiny plastic baby, two Christopher Robin giveaways from 1970's cereal, a vintage pig walker toy, a Schlitz salt and pepper shaker, a vintage pony squeak toy, some Christmas dancers and a pair of vintage St. Patrick's Day elves.

Art-ee-fun set, a vintage Thanksgiving plate and "super crayons" (which Monica had as a kid

Lots of vintage Christmas items

More vintage Christmas items

A Garage door cover in its package and made in Japan and a vintage cookie mold set, still in its package

More vintage Christmas items

It was a great week for saling....and always a great week because we spent it together.

This was our adventures for Saturday, March 22nd. Our account of March 29h is comng soon. Spoiler alert...we did great! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Another Saturday and another opportunity to go saling. The battle between the lion and the lamb is ongoing. It was a balmy 65 degrees on Tuesday but the lion roared, once again, by week's end as wind chills were in the single digits on Thursday morning. Saturday's forecast spoke of a day that would see high temperatures in the mid 40's and that seemed pretty good to us! 

We gathered a list of six potential sales on Friday night but whittled the list down to four by Saturday morning. One sale was 45 minutes away from the next closest sale and another just looked like a waste of time upon second glance. None of the sales looked really good and showed only the slightest potential but it was what we had and we had been lucky lately so...off we went

We chose to go to this sale first, simply because it was separated by 20 minutes from the next closest sale (the other three were in a cluster). It was not the sale that we thought held the greatest promise but it did advertise "old bikes, records and collectibles" and we thought it would be worth a shot. There were few rooms to search and we did not find much. We walked away with four records and got some breakfast before moving on to stop #2.

Our second sale was run by a Tag sale Company that we know

The front doormat told us that the house was once occupied by Chuck and Marilyn. Unfortunately, Chuck and Marilyn did not hold onto their good stuff. There were a few rooms but none housed the things we like. One old baster (made from Pyrex glass), a deck of cards and some old cake toppers were the lone items we found. Two stops...two disappointments. The third stop was the one we thought would be  the best of the bunch. That stop was next on our list.

In the meantime, the day was getting warmer and the sky was filled with "warm weather" clouds. We know that these can fill the sky all year round but they just look like the types of clouds that fill beautiful summer days and it reminded us that Spring would soon be here despite the picture that the leafless, bare limbed trees painted.

Stop #3 - "Nana's house" as the ad described. It was run by Nana's descendants. It was a very quick stop. One floor to search plus the garage. Nana did not leave a lot of good things behind. We bought an old roll of shelf contact paper for 50 cents and hoped that our last stop would bring us better luck.

The sign, as we approached sale #4, warned us of zombies.

It should have warned us to move along and not waste any more time. "Grandma's attic" held nothing of interest at all. 

Four sales...four duds. We had been lucky as of late but not today. Still, it was a beautiful day, we were together and that, alone, makes it a good day.

Here are the things we brought home today:

Some records

Cake toppers, a turkey baster (with its original packaging), a deck of Pan Am playing cards and a roll of contact paper.

In the evening, those same beautiful clouds from this afternoon adorned the sky but now, they were illuminated by a beautiful full moon

Since it was a three day weekend for us (we both took Monday as vacation days so we could extend the weekend), we decided to go out to eat and chose one of the old Chinese restaurants near our house. 

We each had one exotic drink served in a Tiki mug (a scorpion and a zombie). We always share our drinks so we can each enjoy both of them

The food and our new friend made Monica smile!

On Monday, we turned our attention towards the Irish. St. Patrick's Day is here! We are making corn beef, cabbage and potatoes and they are in the crock pot right now! 

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all of you from the both of us and our little leprechaun friend! 

Spring Ahead

Spring ahead...the weekend.we move the clocks ahead and lose one hour in trade for an extra hour of sunlight at the end of each day (we'll forget the hour of sunlight we lose in the morning). "Spring ahead" could just as easily be the perfect description of how the weather made us feel. This past week was, once again, very cold. Temperatures rarely broke the freezing mark and, one morning, the wind chill was below zero. We even had snow flurries one day. But Saturday was different. Bright sunshine and warmth. Springlike. Finally! It reached 58 degrees on Saturday and it was almost warm enough not to wear a coat at all. It officially becomes Spring next week and the lamb has shown his face. 

We had six sales on our list for the day; all of which were run by tag sale companies. That's a bigger list than we have had in recent weeks. There was no time to waste...off we went.

Our first stop was to our east; the only stop on our list that was to our east. We had two sales on the list that we felt showed the most promise and this was one of them. The other one was in a cluster of four sales so we figured we would make our way westward after this house. This one was advertised as having "50 years of accumulation". We were excited to find that the house had three floors and plenty to search. It was a worthwhile stop and we came home with some records and a few Christmas items at a very low price.

Off we went to stop #2 and, along the road, we saw this spinning vent atop a pole. We see them occasionally on old houses but never just sitting on a pole. We have no idea what it was venting but we never call them vents anyway. We always refer to these as "jiffy pops".

We arrived at our next stop and encountered the dreaded line. While Rob snapped the picture, Monica rushed to secure our spot in line but not before waving to the camera. This was the other sale that we felt might be a good one. 

Look at the door! We loved the starburst doorknob backer. We have three of them but this one was different. Rob was ready to find a screwdriver if it was for sale but alas...it was not. Anyway, the line moved quickly and we were inside in 15 minutes and when we got inside...wow!

Great turquoise metal cabinets

This radio was built into the wall...and it worked!

More turquoise cabinets beneath the stove

It was a vintage General Electric stove

In the basement, there was a great refrigerator

The inside was turquoise and white

There were so many great things to see inside this house and it was fun to have the opportunity to see them. Unfortunately, aside from the appliances and furniture, there was not much else. We did manage to get some vintage Tupperware, a great salt and pepper shaker, a couple of records and one Indian Red crayon.

"Indian Red" was one of Crayola' colors until 1999. At that time, Crayola renamed this color "Chestnut", perhaps because of the perception that the name was politically incorrect. In reality, "Indian Red" had nothing to do with Native Americans and was actually named after a pigment used in India as paint. Rob is one-sixteenth Cherokee Indian and it has become a running joke that we should gather any of these that we find. We keep them in a crayon can along with some very old crayons and with the Crayola crayons labeled "Flesh". Up until 1962, Crayola had a color called "Flesh". In response to the Civil Rights Movement, it was renamed "Peach". With that naive thought process, they still could have had three distinct flesh colors, in order from lightest to darkest: "Winter", "Summer" and "George Hamilton".

After stopping for breakfast, we made our way to the third sale on our list. Three floors and lots of rooms, many of which had nothing of interest...except the basement. 

Although the sale had gone on for hours, there were boxes in the basement which looked like they had not been searched and in those boxes were Christmas stuff...lots of great Christmas stuff. We spent about an hour here and came home with some great Christmas stuff and a vintage apron for Monica.

Stop #4 was literally two minutes away and that was good because we got almost nothing here at all. Two records and that was it. 

It was getting a little late and we had two stops left. It was still very sunny and it was warm. Both of our cars were begging to be washed. So, we decided to go to just one of the two remaining stops and then go home to wash our cars. The choice was easy. One of the sales on our list looked pretty weak. We decided to skip it.

 After a 20 minute drive, we arrived at our last stop of the day. It was described as "set back in time". It was an accurate description of the interior of the house but our visit here was pretty short. 

There was a basement bar and we found some cocktail stirrers we liked behind it. Unfortunately, a search of the house did not yield much. Aside from the cocktail stirrers, our haul here consisted of just a few records and one book. We rushed home, washed our cars and took a nice, late Saturday afternoon nap together. It was a great day but an exhausting one! 

Here are some of the things we found today:

Some books

A 10-inch and two 7-inch records

Some children's albums

Some more records...

...and some more records!

Of all the records we bought today, this was our favorite cover. It made us smile to see that the little boy had such an important job. Then we got sad when we realized that...

...the poor little boy would lose his job a few years later to someone more qualified.

We also found some great popcorn Christmas decorations

Some great vintage felt decorations, covers (tissue boxes, toilet paper rolls, etc) and a Christmas card holder, all made in Japan

Christmas stuff including some Hazel Atlas Christmas mugs

More Christmas stuff...

,,,and more Christmas stuff

Some Easter decorations

A great vintage apron with cocktail glasses and cherries on it

A vintage sweater for Monica

Cocktail stirrers, a beer stick, two Valentine pixies (made in Japan) and a rubber duck

Netted candle holders, Tupperware containers, a TWA toiletries bag and salt and pepper shakers

It was a great Saturday where the day was filled with adventures and the air was filled with Spring but it was very brief taste of Spring. Sunday's high temperature was only 38 degrees. 

Aside from a quick drive to the store to buy some vegetables, we spent Sunday indoors, having our big weekly Sunday breakfast together before concentrating on what we needed to do around the house. Life amongst the ducks might not always be glamorous...but it is always filled with smiles.