yard sales, oct. 3.

Solid day yesterday.  I know the day will come soon when I’ll look in the paper and see only a few ads for yard sales, but the season is still going strong in Raleigh.  Josh was in town again after missing out on the last few weekends.  He made up for his absence by buying a lot of books.  That’s pretty much what he does anyway.

When we started dating, he went to yard sales with me because I was his new girlfriend and he wanted to impress me.  He was not used to getting up at 8 AM on a Saturday.  Love is sweet like that.  I was glad to have a buddy along, but I figured there would come a day when the honeymoon was over and he would tell me to have a good time before he went back to sleep.  This hasn’t happened yet.  In fact, I suspect he likes it now, and mostly because of the books.

Books are cheap and plentiful at yard sales.  Most of them are popular fiction novels, and he’s not interested in those.  But sometimes you’ll run across a seller who has good taste in literature.  Now he’s mostly interested in the old books.  It’s pretty cute to see a man get excited about a disintegrating copy of O. Henry’s collected stories.  He found a set of those this week at a Methodist church sale.  He actually already had part of the set from some previous sale, but now he has completed his collection.  They’re in quarantine right now, which means they’re sitting in a bunch of ziploc bags to kill off any wee beastie feasting on their pages.  He said he found them sitting innocently among the Robin Cooks and Dan Browns, and he was terrified that someone else had already claimed them.  The poor dear doesn’t realize that most people are far more interested in Dan Brown than O. Henry.  He was grabbing them when a woman came up and asked if he was going to buy all of them.  His heart sank, because he just knew that she was going to tell them that they were already sold.  Instead, she offered him a box to make them easier to carry.  Methodists are such nice people.

From across the room, I saw him in the book section, carrying a box and I sighed.  Every time he brings back a box of books, I have to tell myself that I have only myself to blame, because I introduced him to this thrifty habit. 

Of course, at the time, I was also carrying around a box, because I have a weakness, too. 

I found a box of greeting cards for a buck.  I poked through them a bit until I verified that some of the cards were interesting, and then I claimed them.  I picked up more at later sales.  Finally, at an estate sale, I got a set of Hummel stationery.  I will not be keeping all of these cards, only the ones that are worthy.  I cleaned out my stationery collection a couple of weeks ago, and I got rid of enough cards to fill that box twice.  Of course, I kept enough to fill three or four (or five or six?) of those boxes.  My excuse is that cards take up a lot less room than books.

I picked up a couple of jewelry storage devices.  Josh calls the earring holder on the left an illuminati jewelry box.  It spins, just like a department store display.  The tiny coat rack is for when tiny people visit during the winter and need someplace to hang their tiny coats and tiny hats.  Until then, I’m hanging necklaces on it.  The earring holder was fifty cents and the necklace rack was a buck.

The earrings you see were picked up at yard sales this year, though not all this week.  I love yard sale jewelry:  cheap and interesting.  The ones in the tip row are little pink cameos.  I took pictures of them, but no good ones came out, and I was too lazy to try again.

Some wavy teal metal guys.  I wear these with things that don’t have any teal in them at all, because I’m edgy like that.

And cute little bathroom signs.  I don’t usually care much for earrings which don’t exactly match each other, but I make an exception for these.  Look, they’re dancing!

And here’s a bunch of other stuff. 

The thing in the middle is a pouring pitcher with a cork.  I don’t really understand what the cork is about or why the neck of the pourer is so short.  But it’s a charming little thing. 

These are a couple of vintage book covers.  I know I said last week that I don’t like book covers, and I don’t.  But these were so groovy looking and cheap, I bought them with the purpose of giving them away.  The covers are sitting on a lap desk, because you never know when you might need another lap desk.

The canisters contain puzzles of old stamps, organized by type.  One has Historic Landmarks, another Ecology and Natural Wonders and the last has American Presidents.  Jigsaw puzzles and stamps:  two dorky hobbies combined!  I got those at a church that was having a bag sale, so I just stuffed everything that was mildly interesting into a paper grocery bag and paid $2.  I also ended up with some sweaters, wooden spoons, a cheese slicer, more greeting cards, some old linens, and a few VHS tapes.  Josh found some carved Mexican chess pieces.  We spent fifteen minutes trying to come up with a complete set.  Considering all the pieces look like Easter Island heads, it was a little difficult determining what a king should look like.  The horses were easy, though.  Even on Easter Island, horses look like horses.

And my favorite thing from yesterday is this lamp.  It was $2 and the woman said she had owned it for 25 years.  I know there are people in this world who are able to resist that kind of temptation, but I am not one of them.  Right now, it’s in the guest bedroom, illuminating the unmade bed.  I took more pictures of it, but these were the ones that showed the least amount of messiness.  Like the old adage says, it’s easier to crop a picture than to clean your house.