The First Full Weekend Of November

Well, we're still a little behind on our blogging. This post is for the first full weekend of November. We will be caught up soon! 

The first full weekend of November was upon us and it was still pretty warm outside. The last few weeks have found us visiting some outdoor sales which should have almost disappeared by now but the weather has allowed them to continue on. You would think that would have given us more sales to attend. It hasn't. The sales have been pretty weak for the most part and we have not been able to make that up in numbers. There haven't been that many sales of interest. When our list of Saturday sales were drawn up, we found another very short list. Nonetheless, we were optimistic, as always, so off we went to find unexpected treasures...we hoped! 

Our first sale was located just one town away and was advertised as an estate sale with "vintage items" and it listed "walkers" as one of the items for sale. There were no pictures in the ad but we were hoping that this was one of those quiet sales filled with great old items. It wasn't. It turned out be an outdoor garage sale with little of interest except a few very overpriced items. Sale #1 was a bust. 

Sale #2 was in the same town and was run by one of our favorite tag sale companies. There was a line when we arrived but we were willing to wait to find the "vintage Christmas" that was listed amongst the items. Our wait outside was only fifteen minutes.

We spotted this repro radio in the garage. It was not for the sale. This belongs to the tag sale company and is a familiar site at all of their sales.

The basement was big and there was a lot of searching to do down there! 

We spotted a mounted pencil sharpener in that basement and that always seems to be a good sign! 

The house also had a main floor and a small upstairs to search. There were a few Christmas items but none were what we would call vintage. Still, it was a worthwhile stop as we left with records, books, cookbooks and an old pink crochet octopus toilet paper holder. 

Sale #3 was an annual church rummage sale which, like most church rummages sales, are not what they were years ago. We left with a pair of cookbooks. 

Our final sale was at an "all vintage sale" which had no pictures in the ad. It did mention "Christmas" but was on its second day. We arrived to find another outdoor garage sale. This was run by one of the flea market vendors we know. There were no Christmas items of interest but we did find a book and some cookbooks of interest and they came home with us.

It was a short day of saling but it did give us more time to visit Monica's dad at her childhood home. We always try to stop by after saling and we always have a nice time there.

Here are the things we found on a short saling day:

Cookbooks

Books

A pair of 7 inch records

Some record albums

More record albums

And more record albums

A vintage crochet pink octopus toilet paper holder. The daughter of the decedent was at the home where we found this. She said that her aunt made it and that it been on the bathroom shelf forever! 

Saturday may not have been filled with sales but we did find a few nice things. More importantly, the weekend was filled with time spent together. Nothing could be ever mean more! 

Halloween Weekend

This post is for the weekend of October 31st and November 1st, 2015. We are almost caught up! 

Halloween fell on a Saturday this year. It would be a good year for the trick or treaters who would have all day to get their bags filled with candy. It would not be a good day for salers. Many estate sale companies took off that day, knowing that their foot traffic would be considerably lighter. We combed the ads for sales, anyway, but found none to our liking on Saturday. We did, however, find one of interest on Friday and we knew that we could make it there before they closed. That sale would begin our weekend.

Friday's sale began at 9 a.m. and we would be at work. The sale was listed as "antiques and entire house estate sale" and that was enough to catch our attention.  There were no pictures in the ad so we weren't sure what to expect but we did know that we could get there before they closed the doors at 5 p.m. and we were anxious to see what we would find. Monica was happy to start the saling week and just as happy that the work week had ended.

The garage was the first place we looked and we saw this great box for a vintage automatic skillet. Alas, it was empty! 

Our indoor search was limited to one main floor with four different rooms. The house was being renovated so everything was laid out on and around tables in the middle of the rooms.

Monica was very happy to find some things quickly! 

It was definitely an old house and this old pink bathroom still stands there but probably not for long. The house was being renovated and this will probably be one of the casualties.

It was a good stop and we came home with a vintage jewelry box, a vintage slicing knife, lots of vintage glasses, some vintage greeting cards, some memorabilia from the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair and several other things

Saturday arrived and it was Halloween! We did not have to rush to put up our decorations. They had been up since the first weekend in October

Honeycomb decorations

Blow mold pumpkins and trick or treat bags

We tried to fit them in wherever there was room

Sometimes, the spacing was a little tight! 

We spent the afternoon trick or treating with the kids. Peter was a pirate, Marissa was a vampire and Shannon was still in her soccer uniform from her morning game.

Their sacks were ready to be filled with candy

Monica dressed as a leopard lady while Rob just wore the appropriate shirt for the day

We went trick or treating in town where all of the stores gave out candy to the kids. Well, Rob may have gotten a couple of pieces of candy too! 

Almost every store participated, The streets were crowded!

Unfortunately, this store was "close"

In town, Rob got to hang out with Elvis! 

When we got home, we had to carve our jack o'lantern. We normally do this a few days before Halloween but we have been pretty busy so today had to be the day.

This was our pumpkin this year. He was a fine representative of the pumpkin world

The carving of the pumpkin

The pumpkin was gutted. He didn't feel a thing. He was just in his transformation stage

We roasted the pumpkin seeds

Meet Jack O'Lantern! 

Spooky! 

Sunday arrived and we saw one sale of interest. It was a few towns away and the description read "entire contents" and "50's and 60's furniture. There were no pictures but it sounded promising

We arrived to find an outdoor garage sale and one that did not have much. We left without anything. We stopped to get some breakfast and then went home where we did some errands, barbecued (Rob will continue to barbecue every weekend until the propane tank is empty) and found some time to relax before beginning the workweek again. 

We only went to one sale this weekend that had anything of interest but we found lots of good things there. Here is what we brought home:

An old New York vacation guide and some souvenirs from the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair. The postcards are attached to scrapbook pages but we will figure out how to carefully remove them

Some vintage greeting cards; all from 1959

A vintage Pyrex bowl

A scarf from the 1939-1940 New York World's Fair. It needs ironing

A vintage Hawaiian scarf. It REALLY needs ironing

A vintage jewelry box for Monica

Vintage Pussy Willow glasses with matching spoons that are still sealed in their packaging

A close-up of the side of the box that has the Pussy Willow glass set

Two old wall hangings, a vintage slicing knife in its box, a pair of ceramic cats and a vintage shot glass (with black cats)

Although the saling opportunities were scarce, our weekend was action packed and filled with great memories of the times we spent together in our adventures amongst the ducks. More memories being made every day. More memories being made together. 

A Three Day Weekend And A Farewell To Palace Of Wong

We are still a little behind on the blog. This post is for the week ending October  25th. We hope to be caught up soon!

Another three day weekend had arrived. We have saved enough days to extend a lot of weekends. Beginning in mid-November, there will be no full weeks. All of them will be shortened by vacation or holiday. It will give us extra days to go saling...or extra days to decorate for Christmas. For now, we were just thinking about what to do with this extra day in October. We didn't have to think too hard.

Our saling adventures began on Wednesday this week. There is a semi-annual church sale that we always visit. It always begins on a Wednesday and so do we. This church sale, like so many others, does not have the type of things that they use to have but you never know. We met there after work and searched through, and beneath, all of the tables. There wasn't much there but we did come home with a couple of small holiday decorations. 

Friday came and our weekend began. We definitely wanted to go saling and these clown booths were at one of the sales. Rob would have loved this. Monica...well, not so much. We did not go to the sale that featured them but we did find three other potential sales. One stood out above the rest and that would be our target. If we had time, we could try to stop at the others. With a destination set, off we went!  

Sale #1 was run by one of our favorite tag sale companies and was almost an hour away from our house. It was advertised as a moving sale where "all goes". The pictures of the sale showed that the house had a lot of old things inside. It was worth a search.

The basement had an old bar and Rob searched behind it thoroughly. The basement had a great old floor too! 

There was a mounted pencil sharpener in the basement and we always consider that to be a good sign.

The main floor had a great pink bathroom, pretty much untouched by time.

The bathroom floor was great!

We spent an hour searching through three floors and came away with lots of old cookbooks, a pair of tiki idols, some old honeycomb holiday decorations, a record and a few other things.

By the time we were done, we decided to break for lunch and then go home to relax a bit. We had another sale planned for the evening and neither of the other two daytime sales seemed all that great. We were also hungry now. We knew where we wanted to go.

Krisch's Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlour has roots going back to when it first opened in Brooklyn in 1920. In 1955, it moved to its present location in Massapequa. It is not exactly as it was since it first landed here (the windows were, certainly, not painted then) but much remains from its origin in this spot.

Their great neon signs remain from their creation in 1955! 

The booths are designed to look like they stepped out of the 1950's

The table pattern is boomerang and, while it is repro boomerang, it is still boomerang...and that's good! 

The counters and the stools are great...

...as are the tables and chairs. A lunch of a cheeseburger and fries tastes even better when surrounded by this! We have been here before and we will be here again! 

On Friday evening, We had the annual sale in Monica's hometown to attend. Monica has gone here every year since she was a kid. The sale used to be held in December but it was moved to October last year. Although the sale runs on both Friday and Saturday, we always are there for the opening on Friday night. 

We had to race the horses in the playground to get to the door first! 

We did! When we got inside the door, we were amongst the first ones there

There were lots of tables to search and search we did! When we were done, we left with an old Pyrex dish, lots of booklets, some DVD's, a Chinese Checker board for 1938 and a few other things.

If our hands weren't full, we might have stopped at the playground. We love that they still have these old metal playground toys like the horses and this one above. We both remember this from our childhood. Rob used to call it "the turtle" because it reminded him of a turtle's shell.

When Saturday arrived, we had six sales on our list but none that were spectacular. We did, however, have a special guest aboard. Lenny, Monica's brother-in-law, said he would come along for the ride when we had stops nearby and our first three sales were near our house (Lenny lives one town over from us). Today seemed like a good day to invite him and he anxiously came along.

Sale #1 was run by a tag sale company that we know and there was absolutely nothing in the description of the sale that drew us here but the pictures in the ad showed an older house and, on a day where the potential sales looked very weak, that was enough to make the list.

We really liked these shelves in between the two rooms. Lots of goodies could be displayed there!

This lampshade was really cool, too. Starburst!

We would have loved to pick up this but there were some serious chips on this. One of the elves had a missing ear. We passed on this.

There were lots of trains for the train collectors of this world. Lenny posed for a picture with them. Since none of us are train collectors, these did not come home with us. What did leave with us was a baseball game from 1971, some records and a small ceramic cat.

Our second stop was at a church sale nearby. Church sales are definitely not wat they used to be but are always worth a look. Monica and Lenny were ready to see what was here. 

The sale was primarily outdoors. While there were plenty of tables, there were not a lot of things for us. We left with two larger ceramic cats and a vintage pin for Monica.

Our third stop was at a tag sale run by one of our favorite tag sale companies and we knew, in advance, that we would not find anything for us here. We went, simply, to say hello to our friends at the tag sale company since they were in our neighborhood. It was great to see them. We left empty-handed, as expected.

The second half of our day would be spent forty minutes to our west and it would be without Lenny who we would bring back home but not before stopping for breakfast together. It was great to have him aboard and we know that he will come with us to future sales.

Sale #4 was another church sale and, as a bonus, their thrift shop was open. There wasn't too much here but we did find one ceramic Christmas angel and that came home with us.

Sale #5 was described as "entire unusual contents" and listed "60's furniture" and "Christmas" amongst the items. There were no pictures in the ad but the description was interesting enough to draw us here.

There was an old bar and Rob wasted no time searching it! 

There was also a mounted pencil sharpener. That was a good sign! 

There were three floors to search and the description of the sale was pretty accurate. We spent a good amount of time here and came away with some old New Year's Eve noisemakers, a record, several old holiday honeycomb decorations and one amazing halloween die-cut decoration from the 1950's. It was a good stop! 

Our last sale also had no pictures in the ad but the words "antiques" and "old books" appeared in the description and since it was just a few minutes from the previous sale, we figured that it was worth a visit. The sale was run by the owner of a tag sale company that we love but it was not under her company's banner. It was a garage sale for one of her employees. There wasn't a whole lot here but we did find a great aluminum pitcher and cup set from the 1950's and a pair of records.

Here is what we brought home this weekend:

Some records

Some more records

Some DVD's...three DVD's filled with Rocky and Bullwinkle episodes, The World Of Sid & Marty Krofft (with episodes of H.R. Pufnstuf, Land Of The Lost, Sigmund & The Sea Monster, Lidsville and more), the original Batman movie from 1966 and Here Comes Peter Cottontail (the 1971 Rankin Bass special).

Pet guides from the 1950's and 1960's

More pet guides from the 1950's and 1960's

Cookbooks

More cookbooks

Holiday honeycomb decorations in their packages

More holiday honeycomb decorations

A Halloween die cut decoration

An old ice pop making kit, a vintage pin for Monica and some Easter decorations

An aluminum pitcher with six aluminum cups from the 1950's

A 1971 baseball game, some old New Year's Eve noisemakers, a ceramic "December" angel (marked Japan), a small bottle brush tree and a Pyrex dish

Ceramic cats (all marked Japan), a rubber duck, two tiki idols (made in Hawaii) and a wooden Chinese Checker board from 1938

Saturday evening, October 24, 2015, was the last night that the iconic Palace Of Wong was open for paying customers. It had been around since 1967 and was one of our favorite Chinese restaurants.

On Sunday, October 25th, they opened their doors for a free buffet for their loyal customers so that they could say goodbye. We knew we needed to go...and we did.

We saw the giant shark in the dining room

Rob tried to tame the shark

The waiters also tried to tame the shark

Finally, the shark was subdued! 

The little bar station that was the home of the tiki mugs that we always drank from when we were here. Most of them were missing.

The remaining tiki mugs and a whale in between

We will miss the wall hangings in the dining room

We'll miss all of the signs on the outside of Palace Of Wong

We will miss the neon cocktail lounge sign

We will miss the iconic neon Chow Mein sign

We will miss David Wong, the owner.

We will miss the amazing Palace Of Wong

Goodbye, David, and goodbye Palace Of Wong. We will miss you. Thank you for all of the great memories!