At least, that's what I'd say to Andrea, if I called her on the phone, which I never do.
But it wasn't my fault, you see. The day started out innocently enough, with the usual getting Josie ready for daycare and planning out my errands to take advantage of the glorious five-hour window I get once a week to do things like...get my teeth cleaned and buy toilet paper holders
Oh, there was the odd stick-in-the-old-bicycle-spokes: the rod in the brand-new closet that was built in the basement fell off the wall, taking five feet of pressed shirts and suits with it...but that was just a glitch.
I dropped Josie off, and set out for destination one: carpeting for the basement stairs. The store that has what I want actually doesn't have what I want, until mid-June. But, since I'd paid for parking for an hour or more, I decided to explore the area, and found a store that sold brand-name closeout stuff closing. So, I bought the toilet paper holder we needed, plus an also-needed curtain rod, and then a hand-mixer followed me home (I have been whipping cream by hand for ten years people. I went to make mousse last week for Grandma Joan's birthday, and it was NOT fluffy enough.) And then, I'll admit it - two pairs of Grandma Pajamas followed me home.
I love Granny PJ's - you know, they come folded in packages with little pins at the corners. They've often got piping, and fussy flower prints. They have baggy bums and pockets. Because that's the problem with modern pajamas - no pockets. Sometimes you need a pocket, for a tissue or a ponytail holder. I found these:
And then, because I still had time on the meter, I walked a little further up the street, and found that Goodwill was having a surprise 50% off day. Now, I've never been to this particular Goodwill, and found it as smelly as expected - but when I started passing white linen blouses and designer sweaters that made me wish I had a grown-up job again, I looked a little closer.
In the ladies blouse section, I found it - a vintage Ben Sherman shirt in a mod print for Steve. Score! And a ceramic hand by Nancy Funk - they retail for around $22 -- for $8 total.
So, ignoring that the $30 parking ticket I received from the fact that I did waste valuable minutes of my life in a lineup eight either toothless, muttering, hygienically-challenged or too-hip people long, I still felt I'd done well.
And since the next item on the "To Do" list was to pick up my new contact lenses, and if I travelled down one particular route to get there, I'd pass another Goodwill having a sale...I just HAD to stop at another.
So I did.
And that was where I found the excellent turquoise melamine bowl, and the blue suede vintage Pro-Keds, and a paint-by-numbers landscape with a deer, and a never-worn Gap cotton skirt in a retro print, and some Asian iron-on patches that are perfect for covering up spots and stains on Josie's clothes, and a brand new stuffed raccoon...
...what? The raccoon? I'll get to that...
...all for $11.
And then, since I had to walk past another thrift store to get to the car, I had t0 stop in there. Because, you see - books were on sale: buy one, get one free. And pink-tagged items were 30%off. So I had to buy that pink polo shirt, because it was brand new with the $25 Jacob tags on it - for $12, less thirty percent. And the books - they threw in one, since I really couldn't find another. Five books for $1.
So look - in the picture below. All of these items for approximately $30 (I am not counting the parking ticket).
...and the Raccoon?
It was a brand-new Webkinz, sans the tag. Stores donate them when the tags are stolen. For a little girl who doesn't care about Webkins, but was dying for a Raccoon stuffy - the timing was perfect.
On Saturday Steve took her to a Fun Fair, where she ignored the three choices offered at the face-painting booth, and chose to be a Raccoon. The bewildered teenager did her best - and after a prize of fairy wings was won, Steve and the Fairy Racoon spent a lovely afternoon together.
Josephine's been keen on raccoons lately, what with their Springly resurfacing nightly interest in Boo Boo's food bowl on the porch and the stories of how Steve's cousin had a pet raccoon as a child. They're just one of "the things" lately - there's always a "thing", and so now it's baby raccoons and how can we have one.
When I saw the $1 raccoon, I knew it was meant to be. So it came home, and I found her wings and hid it in a tree to wait for Josie's return home.
And so, for $1, her squeals of joy peeled paint; and her entertainment for the evening was set. It's all about Mrs. Bosley Ticklewhiskers now.
With the rest of the afternoon, I only did the boring errands - because after the high of finding such neat stuff, the lampshades I'd looked forward to shopping for seemed a bit dreary.
But it's good to have that done, and you cannot bring a four-year old Josephine into a lighting store with a waist-high pile of drum shades on the floor. You just can't. I'd found a vintage wrought iron floor lamp with two matching table lamps (for $15) in Buffalo a few weeks ago, and they needed shades. The teak floor lamp we were using has been moved to the new basement lair for Steve. Aristocrat did well for me, and the perfect shades came home with me for less than I'd expected to pay. Now, I look at this, as I was trying it out to make sure it was a good fit - and I'm reminded of something from my childhood.
My Polish Grandma's house:
Yes. From thence I sprung.
Now, I still have more stuff around and about that's new to me - like this mangle chair:
Which I bought in Buffalo from a rummage sale at a church for $10. I saw one at Hideaway Antiques on Queen West priced at $245 when I was buying the settee for the basement, and they were calling it a medical chair. I call it bullshit - but either way, it's a really surprisingly comfortable chair, and I quite like it. Or, I may sell it to subsidize other finds.
It'll allow me to use some of these...
...which I found at that sell-off store for 85 cents. They're perfect for the "catch and release" program I seem to employ when finding finds.
