Garage Sales

I was up early and out the door by 7:15 this morning, off to the local yard sales. There were no yard sale ads in the newspaper this week, but I went out anyway because there are always lots of unadvertised sales. People just put up signs on corners, or at the entrance to their subdivisions, so on any given Saturday, there's always a few sales.

There were more than a few today, but none of them were so earth-shaking. I found a beautiful wicker chair that I would've bought for our porch here, since all my wicker is now up at Mayberry. The lady had marked it $48..... no way would I pay that much for a wicker chair (antique or not) because I usually find them for less than fifteen dollars. I did ask the lady this morning if she would take less than her marked price, and she said she'd go down to $45. I thanked her and said no.... and I started back down the driveway. As I walked away, she told me "You know, there's ten dollars-worth of white paint on that chair." I just looked back and smiled. Sometimes it's better to say nothing at all if you can't say something nice.

I found a lot of Mardi Gras beads this morning... bags and bags of them, for quarters each (per bag, not per necklace). I bought them all, thinking I would put them into my closet for next Halloween and give them out to the kids who come trick-or-treating. I've done that before and the kids just love those beaded necklaces.

When I got home and opened up the plastic bags, though, there were so many purple and green Mardi Gras necklaces that I decided to save the green ones for our St. Patty's Day lunch-- we did that last year and it was a lot of fun. I found green beaded necklaces at Hobby Lobby and put them by everyone's place setting and they all loved them. So now those green Mardi Gras necklaces are in my St. Patty's Day box. Sometimes it takes just one thing to get a party started.

The purple necklaces are now in the closet where I keep all the stuff for our Halloween parties.... these necklaces were more ornate than the orange and black necklaces that I had bought on eBay for this past Halloween party. I put aside one purple-beaded necklace for myself--- to go with my black & purple "When I Am an Old Witch I Shall Wear Purple" costume... and the rest will be given out to all the ladies at our next Halloween party. (And this is how my closets and storage cabinets get filled up with holiday things, and everyone who comes to our parties will tell me "You always manage to find such fun things!") -- Even with taking out all the green and purple necklaces, I still have a bag filled with colorful Mardi Gras beads for the trick-or-treaters next year.


Funny thing with the cats the other day...... my husband had been watching television in the TV room and left his socks on the floor near his chair. As each of our three cats came into the room, they inspected those socks. ShadowBaby was first.... he sniffed around the edges of them and walked on by, walking around the socks in a wide circle as if he didn't want to get too close. Which is so typical of ShadowBaby... he tends not to bother with things that aren't his or things that he has no interest in.

When AngelBoy walked up to the socks, he gave them just one delicate sniff, then turned his back on them and started to bury them by scraping his paw against the carpet. He gave a few back-scrapes of his paw, looked around at the socks and saw that they were still there, and he tried to bury them once again. When he looked at them a second time and found them still not buried, he walked away and curled up in the farthest corner of the room. Typical for AngelBoy.... this prissy, picky cat would have no use for dirty socks.

Mickey Kitty was the last to see the socks, and he gave them a sniff and immediately rubbed his little head on them, and then rolled over on his back so he was on top of the socks. Being that my husband is the one who found Mickey in the park last year and carried him home, my husband is his hero and Mickey will rub his head against my husband's pillow, his towel, and now even his dirty socks. Which proves the theory that one cat's dirty socks is another cat's treasure.