Monday, June 22, 2015

Just Friday

The weekend would be an extended one as we were were off from work on Friday. We both took a vacation day to extend the weekend. We try to create a long weekend once per month. The week long search for sales took on a greater sense of urgency as we had one less day to search and one more day to go saling. We saw four sales on Friday that showed a glimpse of potential and that became our itinerary for the first day of our weekend. Friday morning arrived and off we went! 


Our first sale of the day didn't begin until 10am and we had time to go out to breakfast before arriving here. The sale was about thirty minutes from home and we chose it because it seemed to have the most potential. It was described as a "cleanout" and as "packed" and the pictures in the ad pointed towards an older home and that sounded good to us. The sale was run by one of our favorite tag sale companies and we were looking forward to this one. We arrived about five minutes after the sale was open and there was no line outside. If this sale was held on a Saturday, we suspect that we would have had to wait.


There were three floors to search and, in the basement, we found a mounted pencil sharpener. That is usually a good sign!


The kitchen was filled with knotty pine cabinets and the countertop, itself, was pink.


This old hamper was sitting in the basement. It was really cool but it was also damaged. We have a similar one in black in our house.


This old cabinet was sitting in the basement and was in really good shape. It was made of wood and we prefer metal. We have a great metal one in our kitchen that we actually bought from this very same tag sale company.

We spent over an hour in this house and found plenty of areas that required digging. Our excavation turned up some great Christmas things, lots of cookbooks and a few more things. Our decision to make this our first stop was a good one.


Our second sale was at a house described as a "collectibles hoarder house" and the ad said to "prepare to dig". We arrived to find a sale run by someone we know who works for more than one company. He always gives us good prices.


The house had two floors to search and this interesting bar was in the bottom floor. It was cluttered, as were many of the rooms, and, so, the "prepare to dig" suggestion was warranted. Unfortunately, there was nothing of interest to us behind the bar or on this floor. 


The main bathroom looked pretty much as we believe it did when the house was built. Almost all of it was pink...


...including the tile floor.

This one-eyed creepy doll was found amongst the rubble but it did not come home with us. What did come home with us was an old monkey doll, some old postcards and some Pan Am playing cards.

It was at this point that we decided to cut our saling day short. The other tow potential sales were a bit of a drive and they had much less potential than the first two sales. Besides, it was mid-afternoon, the day was hot and we were starting to feel sleepy. A nice afternoon nap sounded pretty good to us...and so that is exactly what we did!

Saturday arrived and our list of potential sales was...empty. There were one or two sales that we could have tried but they were at least 45 minutes away and didn't really excite us. We decided to skip our normal saling adventures on Saturday and go get some breakfast in town before running a few errands. Our choice of breakfast spots was pretty easy.

Glen's Dinette is just five minutes from our house and has been around since 1948.

You can eat at the counter on stools if you wish.  They have been here since the beginning.

There are lots of choices on the menu and the food is always good! 

We love the souvenir cups but did not buy one. By the way, do you see the boomerang tabletop at our table? It's great! 

Next door, there was a line of pink flamingos sitting outside of the store. Coincidently, while writing this post, we just heard that Don Featherstone just passed away. He is the creator of the plastic pink flamingo.

The flamingos looks pretty sad. They must have known he was sick. Rest in peace, Don Featherstone! 

After that, we made our way to a local thrift shop to donate some more clothes that belonged to Monica's mom. We pass a few other thrift shops on the way there but we always choose to donate there because they really appreciate the donation!

Oh...did we say that we pass a few thrift shops along the way? Actually, we stopped at all of those thrift shops along the way so I guess we did some Saturday saling after all!


We saw a mounted pencil sharpener at one of the thrift shops and this is usually a good sign but not on this day. We didn't find a thing!


Well, we did find a shirt for Rob with this one its front. It was brand new and, for $1, he could not resist it! 


Here are some things we found this weekend:

A record

Cookbooks

More cookbooks

Some old magazines and some old books

Some old postcards

Pan Am playing cards, a plastic rain bonnet holder, a key holder (made in Japan) and some old bowling patches

An old monkey doll with a fez. It has a tear on its left shoulder but Monica will sew it

Two ceramic snoopy Christmas decorations and a ceramic rabbit. All three are marked Japan

A Napco 7 piece Santa Boot Tom & Jerry set. The box is damaged but all of the pieces look brand new. 

Some ceramic Christmas decorations and a creepy Santa. All are marked Japan

A plastic Christmas boot, a ceramic Santa candy dish (marked Japan) and a Mrs. Claus

Reindeer (all marked Japan) and some old plastic Santas

Sunday was Father's Day and we were ready to make our second annual batch of "I Am Your Father" Father's Day brownies!

We started with our Darth Vader cake pan (Wilton 1980)

We mixed all of the ingredients and poured them into the cake pan

After baking in the oven, voila...it was ready! 

Our "I Am Your Father" Father's Day brownies were brought to Monica's sister's house where we had a great dinner with Monica's family. We brought Luke Skywalker with us. He is the original from 1977 and we found him at a sale this weekend too!


The kids had a great time outside even though it was very hot and humid!

Monica, Monica's dad and Monica's sister enjoyed the day as did everyone there. 

The weekend went quickly even though it was a three day weekend for us. Saling adventures, time for family and time for us. It was time well spent! 

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Staying Close To Home

Last weekend, there didn't seem to be a whole lot of good sales out there. There have been so many weekends this year that have lacked that "can't miss" sale yet we have had some really good saling weekends. We are always hopeful. 

This weekend looked especially short of potential winners. We had a list of possibilities and, since none of them guaranteed that we would find anything there, we chose to maximize our potential by picking as many sales as we could that were close to home. Maybe quantity would help. Hopeful, as always, we began our journey.


Our first stop was at a tag sale at a church that has a thrift shop in town. Plenty of tables...plenty of nothing for us. Next!


Our second stop was also a tag sale at a church. There were plenty of tables outside and the thrift shop was open so we had two opportunities to find something here. This church is in the town next store and we always go to their annual sale. A quick look at the tables and through the thrift shop left us without anything to bring home except a few puzzle books for Monica's dad which we picked up for him. Next!

Our next stop was in the same town as the second church sale and we weren't sure whether we had one or two sales to go to in that location. There were two sales listed on that street; one that gave the actual street address and one that did not. The descriptions were different but we weren't sure. The one with the exact address was described as an estate sale with "60 years" of stuff. What we found was an outdoor garage sale with very little there and absolutely nothing of interest to us. We moved on to the next sale which was, in fact, a separate sale. It, too, was an outside garage sale with not much to search but we did find two vintage ceramic poodles and they came home with us.


Sale #5 was described as "vintage inside and out" and that was enough to draw us there. The lawn was packed with stuff for sale and the inside had a main floor that was open to search. Unfortunately, nothing here interested us and, after this fifth sale, we still had a very empty car.


Sale #6 was a sale run by a tag sale company that we like a lot. They only average one sale a month but we have had success at their sales. They are often too brief in their sale descriptions so we never know what we will find. Although their ad would not have drawn us to their sale on its own, we went simply because it was their sale.


There were two floors to search and we found this pencil sharpener in the basement. This is always a good sign and, based upon the way the day had gone so far, we needed a good sign! 


The main floor had this great pink bathroom! If you look closely, you will see a very scary spider in the top right corner of the bathtub. Rob caught it in a container and released it in the backyard.

We did not spend a lot of time here because the search was pretty quick. It was our best stop on a very modest day of saling. We came home with a few nice Christmas items, a record, a book and some other things.


While our list had run out, we did make one other stop. The animal shelter, nearest the last sale, was having a tag sale. We made a quick stop to support a worthy cause. We picked up two packages of clown noses (because you never know when they will come in handy) and an Our Gang DVD.


Here are some of the things we got that day:

A record

Clown noses...22 of them. We will find a fun use for these!

A book on Space (published during John F. Kennedy's presidency) and a vintage package of corduroy patches. 

Christmas things; all marked Japan

On Saturday night, The Feast of St. Anthony was in town and we always go just to walk around. Lots of rides, lots of games and lot of food. Although we did not go on any rides this year, we did take advantage of the food opportunities! 


The meatball heroes were great! 


On Sunday, we were incredibly productive, doing so many things that were on our "To Do" list. One of Rob's most pressing items was assembling the new barbecue we bought. Although, it is not vintage, it is something we needed and Rob was anxious to break it in.

By late afternoon, Rob was barbecuing cheeseburgers for dinner and, lo and behold, this angry blimp flew over the house! We think that he was angry that he was not invited to the barbecue! He passed over quickly and we enjoyed the first creations from our new grill!

Next weekend, we will have a three day weekend as we both took a vacation day on Friday. Who knows what adventures we might have? Not us, but we'll be patient and see. It doesn't matter all that much. What matters most is that a three day weekend means one extra day spent together...that is all that really counts!