Don't You Just Love...

when you buy something at a thrift store and it turns out to be even more fabulous than you originally thought? I'm not talking about money, per se, but just in general!

I bought these great little bird prints at a thrift store on Monday of last week. It was during the President's Day Sale so everything was 50% off. I scored both of these for a mere $2.90! I love old pictures like these. Normally I find pictures of flowers which I love but I think I like the birds more! And I especially love(d) the chippy green paint on the frames!





When I buy these little gems, I almost always take the backs off of the frames so I can check out what kind of paper it is. It's interesting to me to see if the picture was once part of a calendar or maybe it was torn from a magazine. I love that someone once re-used what was available to them to help decorate their home. That's thriftiness right there, don't you think? So, having done this a time or two in the past, I fully expected to pull the back of the frame off and find an old page from a magazine. Imagine my surprise when I found this:



That's right. It's a dinner menu from a cruise ship! It's dated 1956. How great is that?!



Certainly better dining options than the all-you-can-eat pizza and chicken fingers they serve these days!



I can't wait to get these hung up in our guest room. They are just so charming and will look great in there! Have you ever bought something at a thrift or antique store that you later realized was even better than you thought? I know I can't be the only one that has this sort of thing happen!!

Our Foyer Tree

Usually, our "main" tree is the one I call "Will's tree" because it's the one with all of the mismatched, hodge podge ornaments. It has our special ornaments I buy us and the doggies each year, all of the old non-shiny brites, the bubble lights. That's normally our main tree but this year I decided I wanted a more formal looking tree to sit in our foyer. This is what I came up with:



Please overlook the fact that I've yet to add a tree topper! I haven't found one I liked. And I've just noticed that really bright aqua ornament and it's driving me crazy so I'll be removing that ASAP! Otherwise, I really like the bronze-y/copper ornaments along with the blue. Our drapes have those same colors in them so it looks really nice I think.

Will's trip ended early last night thanks to some extremely bad weather in Georgia with torrential flooding which cause the plane to divert to Florida where they picked up more fuel, spent a couple of hours consulting with people back here at Andrews AFB which resulted in them flying home at 11:00! So, he's home today and we're going to try to get some things done around the house. I may go back to the thrift store and see if that dresser is still there too!

My latest Ghetto Thrift Goodies

Boy did I get some fabulous things at the GT today. You know, sometimes when I go to the Ghetto Thrift, I leave almost empty handed. Never completely empty-handed though because I always find at least one thing I just can't live without, but there have been times I've left rather disappointed. See, the drive to the Ghetto Thrift takes me through some of the 'hoods of Baltimore and I get kind of nervous driving over there. So, when I go to the GT, I like it to be worth my drive and I like to buy a lot of stuff. If this thrift store was in a different location (say, not in the hood) I'd probably go more often but I am just not that comfortable driving there more than once a week. It takes me about that long to get my courage up again!!

Anyhow, so yesterday I had to run some errands and I decided I needed to stop in the GT to see if there were any new treasures that needed to come home with me. And I wasn't disappointed at all. What I was disappointed about was the fact that the GT only has like 5 carts and the rest is hand baskets. Now really, how much stuff can you fit in a basket?? That is the most stupid idea ever! If you want people to buy a lot of stuff, at least have somewhere for them to put all of their crap while they are shopping. So, I wasn't lucky enough to get a cart because the store was crowded and I had to settle for a basket. That sucker got loaded down though and I thought the bottom might break!

Here is my little rant for the week. Last week I stopped into the GT and picked up a few things and the lady running the register told me I couldn't use my 25% discount because I didn't tell her in time. That kind of pissed me off because the first thing I do when I get up there is put my military ID on the counter. Basically, she didn't take the time to enter the discount and she would've had to ring my order up again so she just told me she couldn't take it. Ugh! So, yesterday while I was checking out, I asked if they were still giving the discount and the guy told me they were. Yay for my discount! I was counting on receiving the discount because I bought a couple of things I normally wouldn't buy if I had to pay full price for them!!

So, on to my fabulous purchases. First up, a couple of vintage children's books. I don't know why I've been drawn to these old books lately. Maybe it's because of the cute covers or the colorful illustrations on the inside. These are for resell though and I hope someone on Etsy will find a good use for them, either to read or to use in crafts.



I also picked up this vintage box of hosiery. The box says "Bakers Dozen" but there are only a couple of pairs left in the box. Either way, the box alone was worth the purchase price and if there are any retro-dressing ladies that need some new hose, well, here ya go!



And then I found this adorable twin size flat sheet with two pillow cases. I love the yellow flowers but more importantly, look at that ruffle! These linens are SO soft! I love nothing more than to crawl into bed and feel soft, cold sheets and these feel like they'd be heavenly to sleep on. Honestly, I prefer vintage linens to anything you can buy today. There is just no comparison to me, not even with the 12 million thread count sheets you can get these days. I'm torn on what to do with these though. One of our guest rooms has two twin beds in it so I could always keep these to use on those beds. On the other hand, we hardly EVER have company and those beds are almost never used.



And my absolute best find of the week is this little beauty below. I think I almost dropped my basket when I saw this hanging up. I couldn't wait to get my greedy little hands on it before someone else spotted it. Check out this full/double size blue with white flowers chenille bedspread.





Isn't it gorgeous? And in fairly good condition too! I noticed a small section of the fringe unravelling and one section on the back side that the stitching is coming undone but that looks to be an easy fix. I was just so excited to find this thing! You hardly ever see chenille spreads around here and usually they are white or beige. I love the bright blue color. Last year at the VV near the base I found a fabulous double peacock chenille spread that had a green background. It was only a couple of dollars and was shoved under a rack of linens. I'm thinking someone else wanted it and had put it there to come back later and buy but too bad! I'm debating if I should keep these for our other guest room or if I should sell it. Hmmm so many decision!

I also picked up a couple more milk glass candy dish things to hold more of my crap, er I mean very valuable items, here in my craft room and a cute drinking glass with a picture of a blue warbler on it. I swear I saw someone else post pictures on their blog not long ago of a set of glasses with birds but I cannot find the post now!

So, that was my day at the GT. Quite a good haul, I made it out of the 'hood safely and bought a ton of good stuff. Now I need to work on emptying out my room because I finally decided on paint colors and I'm painting this place ASAP! I can't wait to show you the new look. I have a few pieces of furniture that I want to paint but I feel guilty painting it. Someone please tell me to not feel badly for painting this stuff. I mean it's not like museum quality furniture. Just stuff I've picked up at thrift stores or estate sales and I want my room to match and look cute. Tell me it's okay to paint this ugly brown furniture!

I *heart* Value Village

So, I *did* make it over to the Value Village yesterday morning and spent 2 (yes, TWO) hours in there picking up all sorts of goodies! I'm proud to say that I spent $12 and some change and came home with a bag full of stuff. Plus something that wouldn't fit it a bag, which may be my new favorite item ever found thrifting!

And, I remembered to get my battery charger outta my husband's truck so I could charge the batteries for my camera and I'm proud to say that I have new pictures to share. It's been a very long time since I've shared any, so I'm happy that I can do that today!

First up, some of my fabulous finds from the other week.

These are the cute little Exxon/Esso Tiger napkins and coasters. Aren't they cute?



And here's the box of vintage Christmas Ornaments I scored at the Goodwill a couple of weeks back. Sorry for the blurry picture. I'm too lazy to retake it.



And the fabulous punch bowl, with 12 cups and hooks and ladle. For $2.50! Did I mention this thing weighs like 15 pounds? Yeah, it's heavy!



And the vintage chopper thingamajig and a vintage juice pitcher. Look! That apron in the background is the one I won over at Confessions of an Apron Queen. Be sure to check out her blog!!



And finally, here are my purchases from yesterday.

Here's a cute box of hot pink ornaments. I'm guessing they are vintage because the graphics on the box don't really look like anything currently on the market but who knows. I just like the color of the ornaments so into my shopping cart they went!



And a bag full of vintage Shiny Brite ornaments. I especially like the ones that are see-thru. A bag of Shiny Brites only set me back 45 cents. Score!



Look at this cute little paper Santa. I have no idea what his original purpose was. He was it a little plastic bag with other misc. stuff like those paper bell things. Only they weren't bell shaped so I have no idea what they are supposed to be either. But Santa was inside with that and for a quarter, I figured he could come home with me too.



Here is one of two aprons I picked up yesterday. This one needs a good soaking to remove some spots but otherwise, it's in good condition. You can't see it in the picture, but the top of the apron says "Portugal" on it.



And here is the second apron. A cute, pink gingham apron. I just love gingham aprons. I think they are my favorite! It needs a good soak too but it's in good condition otherwise!



And last but not least, my favorite find in quite a while. Check out this vintage, chrome canister set. It has holes on the back for it to be mounted on a wall. And it's in pretty good condition too! It needs a good cleaning and I'm sure the chrome will shine right up. I love it!



I also picked up two more souvenir plates to add to my collection but the pictures turned out blurry. Maybe when Will finally gets my plates put up on the wall, I can take a picture to share. That's something else I can add to the honey-do list for this weekend!!

Thanks for checking out my newest finds!

Saturday. It Sucked!!

I remember when Will and I used to spend rainy, stormy weekends cuddled up in bed, listening to the thunder and dozing in and out of slumber. Ah, fond memories those are. Because we cannot do that any longer. Oh, sure, we still *want* to do that, but our lovely house has some issues. Like the basement which leaks in about 50 different spots. I wish I were exaggerating.

Saturday morning we were up at 7:00 to check on the basement. Earlier this summer, we noticed a major leak during a storm. As in, a pencil sized hole in the wall and water pouring in like a waterfall. So, we knew the basement leaked, we just didn't realize to what extent. Uh, yeah, we have some major issues down there, which we discovered as we spent the entire freaking day moving stuff out of the basement, and sucking up water with the shop vac.

The man we bought the house from only owned the place for 2.5 months. He bought it in January, fixed it up and then sold it to us in April. Evidently the people he bought the house from failed to disclose the fact that the basement had major leaks and I doubt the man we bought it from knew because it doesn't rain a lot during the winter so there's no way he could've known. Also, the people he bought it from had started to finish out the basement and there are 2 walls with studs and drywall. Guess where the majority of the water was coming from? Uh huh. I told Will to break the drywall so we could see behind it and sure enough, water was pouring in through several areas.

Our area easily saw 5+ inches of rain on Saturday alone. That's not counting the rain on Thursday afternoon/night and then most of the day on Friday. The ground was just so saturated that water was even seeping up through the cracks in the basement floor.

Needless to say, Will and I were both in extremely pissy moods Saturday. It was such a mess down there. I mean we probably sucked up several hundred gallons of water. Just as soon as we'd empty the 16 gallon shop vac, we'd fill it right back up. And the stairs going down into the basement are kind of shoddy, the treads aren't very wide and I just knew I was going to fall and break something as I tried to walk up/down the tiny stairs carrying a ton of crap and wearing wet sneakers.

Thank the GOOD Lord that the rain stopped yesterday though because I.was.done! I could barely walk yesterday. My legs were so sore from walking up and down stairs and carrying all that stuff. My back hurt from being all hunched over vacuuming the basement for like 8 hours. And mentally, I was just exhausted. I suppose if any good came out of this whole fiasco, the basement is finally empty and now Will can get to work on plugging any holes and then start finishing it off the way he wants.

So, in other news, today is 25% off day at the Value Village thrift. I skipped last Monday because I just didn't feel like dealing with the crowds but I'm going to go today. It's been over a week since I did any thrifting so I need to go get my fix. I also need to make some stops in the craft store, the grocery store and TJ Maxx or Marshall's. I also need to remember to get my battery charger for my camera out of the husbands truck so I can recharge the batteries and finally take some pictures of all of my new goodies.

Those are my plans for today. Well, that and trying to catch up on the 400+ items I need to read on Google Reader. Yeah, I'm a little behind on that!

An update...

I am finally home again here in Maryland. Techincally, I've been home since last Wednesday but I have been busy/tired/relaxing since I got back. Will flew back on Wednesday too and we had an extremely laid back weekend. If any of you watched the news over the last week and a half, you probably heard that Dick Cheney was visiting Georgia, Italy and a couple of other spots. Well, that's where Will was too. He flies with the Vice President. Exciting, huh?

Anyhow, since we've been back, we've unpacked all of our luggage, done tons of laundry, went grocery shopping, stopped into Home Depot, started putting away summer stuff and pulling out our fall accessories, spent countless hours on the sofa watching tv, taken a couple of naps and caught up on about 30lbs worth of mail!

I managed to sneak away for a few hours today since Will was at work and I went to the Goodwill a couple of miles from my house. I found one box of vintage ornaments for a dollar so that was nice. I also stopped into Jo-Ann's and Target and I have to confess -- it's nice being back home and having so many shopping options. Jackson was nice, it was beautiful but there was no Target, no craft stores, none of the places I love to shop at. So, while I enjoyed my time in Wyoming, I'm very happy to be back here where I know I have tons of shopping options!

I spent a good hour or so earlier trying to clean and organize my craft room again. It became the dumping ground this weekend and I could barely even walk in here. I have a ton of things on my to-do list that I want to start on this week so I had to try to clean it up a bit before I could do anything else. It's definitely a constant work-in-progress though as I'm still trying to get things organized and into some sort of usable system. Right now it's just not working that well but I hope that I can figure something out soon.

Tomorrow, I'm going to try to make it over to the ghetto thrift. It's been about 7 weeks since I've gone and that's much too long. I'm hoping I can find lots of goodies because I certainly haven't had much luck at the other thrift stores I've been to recently!

Greetings from Arkansas

Do y'all have any idea how glad I am to be back in the South? Probably not, but let me assure you that I am dang happy! I had fried okra with my dinner tonight. It's probably my favorite vegetable ever! Oh, and sweet tea, thank the good Lord. I normally don't drink sweet tea (I mean I grew up drinking it but stopped because of the calories!) but there was NO WHERE in Jackson, WY that served sweet tea so I definitely ordered some with dinner tonight. Just because I could! It was fabulous.

Anyhow, no thrifting today, though I was tempted to try and locate thrift stores in the big cities like Amarillo and Oklahoma City, but my desire to get to eastern TN outweighed my desire to do any thrifting in those places. Shocking, isn't it? I can make up for it tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday morning though because I'm pretty familiar with the area in P.F. and Gatlinburg and know where lots of good antique stores and flea markets are. YAY!

Well, that's all. I am exhausted and I should've been sleeping like 3 hours ago but I'm addicted to the internet and had to catch up on everything!

Thrifting...finally!

So, I made it back to Cheyenne yesterday and found the thrift store I stopped at last month. I love that place. It's a fabulous store with fair prices and a huge, huge selection. The store used to be a bowling alley if that gives you any idea of how big it is!

I picked up some more milk glass bowls for my scraproom and a couple of milk glass vases too. I think there were 5 or 6 pieces and my total was only $8! I wish I lived closer so I could visit that store on a regular basis.

In other news, today is mine and Will's 5th anniversary. I cannot believe it's been that long already! I am really missing him right now and wish that I was back home in MD with him, or that he was here with me. He's leaving again soon for an overseas trip and I won't see him until the middle of September. Waaaaaaah!! (that's me having a pity party!!)

If you get a chance, check out my travel blog and read about this horrible hotel I'm staying at tonight!! Westbound Wandering

I miss my thrift stores back home!

I haven't been thrifting except that one time way back at the beginning of the month. Now, keep in mind, there are TWO thrift stores within 2 blocks of my hotel that I haven't even stepped foot in the entire time I've been here. It's on my agenda this week, I promise.

I did venture into a Habitat Re-Store on Friday thinking it might be like the one's back in SC but it wasn't. Oh well, at least I checked it out!

We've been busy trying to squeeze in all of the last minute stuff we wanted to do while we were out here. Our time is growing short. This is the last Sunday I'll sit out here. This time next week I'll be on my way to SC and I am really sad about that.

I updated the other blog with some new pictures from Yellowstone last week. If you get a chance, please stop by and check it out! Westbound Wandering

So...

I found a thrift store yesterday morning as we were leaving a restaurant where we had breakfast. I made a mental note of the location and after the husband left for work, I drove back over there. Now, someone please explain to me how a thrift store that doesn't price ANYTHING works, because I'm sort of confused. I mean do you just ask the price of each item? Do you just tell them what you're willing to pay? lol It was so confusing. And junked up and crowded with too much stuff so I left without buying anything. There are 2 more thrift stores close to my hotel and I am going to check those out tomorrow. I'm really hoping they are better than the place yesterday!

My husband is heading back to DC tomorrow and spending the weekend there so I'll have some time alone to explore the city. We went into some stores today and I could not believe how expensive things are out here. I mean there is no way in you-know-where that I'd pay $184.00 for a pair of jeans. Even if I were a billionaire. I am just too cheap for that! My favorite parts of the day were going into these stores that were having sales and seeing things on the sale rack that were marked down - final clearance- for over $150.00. I'm talking just a plain cotton button-down shirt. Damn things better be sewn with 14k gold thread for that price. Good grief.

Oh, and there aren't any Wal-mart or Target stores near here. I found a K-mart yesterday so I'm assuming that's where all the regular (read: not billionaires) shop. The K-Mart was a lot bigger than the ones back in Maryland so that was nice.

The weather has been crap pretty much all day. It started storming last night and continued most of the night. We had a small break in the clouds around 11:00 and it was nice for a few hours but by 3:00 it started raining again. We've been here at our room relaxing most of the afternoon so that's been nice. I am IN LOVE with this area, despite the ridiculous price of clothing, and I could see the husband and I moving somewhere like this one day. The temperature is fabulous out here. I love it being chilly at night and warm (not hot) during the day. Our suite has a fireplace so it's nice to sit here at night with the windows open and the fireplace going!

So, that's about it for now. Here are a couple of pictures we've taken over the last few days. Check my other blog Wesbound Wandering for more pics!!

I'm having a great time in Wyoming!!

I've been so busy since I got here last Saturday but I did find 2 thrift stores here in town that I'm going to check out tomorrow.

Hope you all are having great weeks!

Greetings from the land of never-ending cornfields!

That's right...I'm in Nebraska. It's very flat here. Flat and pretty boring! I am so tired and my back is killing me and I don't think I had any idea my trip was going to be like this. I did manage to locate a few thrift stores in the town I'm spending the night in and I'm going to check those out tomorrow. And hopefully tomorrow night I'll get around to taking pictures of the stuff I bought today and yesterday. I found a great thrift store near Kansas City, Mo. but only bought a couple of things. I'm hoping I have better luck tomorrow.

Shopping is torture!

I've known this for a long while but shopping for clothing is pure HELL! I just spent almost 2 hours in a mall with hundreds of stores and I came out with nothing. Nothing at all. I went in search of shorts, which I always have a hard time finding ones that fit me and I thought for SURE that shopping at one of those big ol "Mills" malls would certainly have at least one store with clothing that would fit. Nope. Left completely empty-handed. I just looked at the mall's website. There are 34 stores under "Women's Apparel" and I walked in almost all of them. NOTHING FITS ME! I hate shopping for clothes. HATE.IT.

I was on the phone with my mother while driving to the mall and I was complaining about how hard it is to find things that fit. She and my sister both are built kind of like men - meaning they have no hips. Which works well for them because the can walk into any store and pick up things that fit. I have huge hips. I like my hips because I have that great hourglass figure but it is impossible to find clothing that fits my bottom half. So annoying. I should just make my own clothing and this could all be avoided! When the husband gets home today we're driving over to Kohl's because they are having a sale this weekend and I managed to find a couple of pairs of shorts there earlier this summer that actually fit okay. Please keep your fingers crossed that I find something that fits! Shopping is so depressing. Ugh!!

Moving along! I went to my favorite store yesterday - the Ghetto Thrift and it was kind of empty. I found a couple of pieces of Pyrex that were priced reasonably and I put them in my basket. After I finished looking through the rest of the store and didn't find anything else I wanted, I decided to put the Pyrex back on the shelf. Frankly, I don't need anymore Pyrex. I mean I *DO* but it's not anything I can't live without for now. I kept saying to myself 'this is money you could be spending while you're on vacation' which really helped me to not feel so bad about not buying the Pyrex!!

I went to my old favorite thrift store on Wednesday since the husband had to run into work for a few hours and then we were going to the commissary. This is the place I used to find fabulous deals. I was quite disappointed this time around though because there weren't any deals to be had. There was plenty of clothing but I don't really buy clothing at thrift stores. Not because I don't *want* to buy it, but usually I can't find anything that fits! See my rant above. And even if I do find something in the clothing section that I might like, this thrift store has no dressing rooms. I am not buying something I cannot try on. So, yeah, that trip to the thrift store was disappointing too!

I guess I might take a little break from thrifting for the next couple of weeks. I have entirely too much to do before I leave for Wyoming and there are going to be plenty of thrift stores and flea markets on my drive out, I am sure! Might as well save my money for those places, huh? I'll still be hitting up yard sales and estate sales though. I mean I can't go completely cold turkey on all my junking habits!!

Well, I should get going. I might have company coming to spend the night and my house looks like a disaster. I was hoping the husband and I would be able to finish all of our projects around this place over the weekend but my friend sent me a text saying she might come over tonight and then the Mother in Law's birthday is tomorrow and the husband forgot all about it until I said something to him today. SO, looks like we might be driving over to West Virginia tomorrow to see her. So much for getting this place put together!

Retail Therapy Saturday

Well, yesterday was a total bust! It started to get pretty cloudy around noon but I figured I'd go downtown anyhow in hopes that it wouldn't be a complete washout. It was very overcast but I didn't mind because that kept it from being too hot. It was still quite humid but at least it wasn't so sunny. I made my way to the Park & Ride Lot, caught the train into the city and then found my way down to the Inner Harbor. It was my first time down there so I wasn't really sure where I was going. I found the Harbor (and some shade, thank you Jesus!) and listened to a band play. I read online that they were supposed to be singing Motown/Doo Wop music so that was what made me really want to go downtown in the first place. The group really wasn't that good. Ten minutes of singing songs about Sesame Street, Barney and Elmo was so ANNOYING!

After the band was finished it was around 5:00 and another band was supposed to come on stage and play Top 40, which really isn't my thing, but it was something to do until the fireworks were supposed to start. Well, it started raining about 5:15, steady rain, and I decided I just didn't want to see fireworks that badly. So I started the long walk back to the train station. Now, in reality, it's only a couple of blocks, but the genius that I am, I decided to pack 40 pounds worth of crap into my backpack yesterday and I was really wondering if I was INSANE as I was schlepping my soaked, sore self back to the train.

Anyhow, I stayed inside the rest of the night, sulking and feeling sorry for myself since not only did I not get to see the fireworks but I was spending the night alone! I felt much better about my decision to come home after I turned on PBS and saw the live show from DC and all of those poor souls, soaking wet and standing around in little plastic trash bag ponchos. They looked miserable! I was quite comfy in my bed with my laptop and my doggies.

Today started out the same way as yesterday ended, soggy and humid. I really missed not going yard saling today but I made up for it by hitting a couple of thrift stores and an antique store. I drove over to one of my favorite Goodwill's. It's about 12 miles from here but it's really worth the drive (and the gas) because I always find good things there for not a lot of money. I've noticed though that they are starting to raise their prices on housewares which isn't good because I won't shop there if it gets out of hand!

It was insanely crowded when I arrived, which almost made me reconsider going in but I'm so glad I did. I found some fabulous things- like this little vintage suitcase for $2. It's a Grasshopper brand, and I don't think I've ever seen one of these before. Now, I don't really *need* another suitcase, especially one I'll never actually use (because I use my Vera Bradley bags now!) but I couldn't resist buying this. Why you might ask? Because it's plaid. More specifically, it's the Black Watch Tartan. Now, my last name (well, maiden but it's still my last because I didn't change my name when I got married) is Keith. And I love my last name & all of the history that goes along with it. But, it's very hard to find things in the Keith Tartan unless you're either at an actual Tartan shop or unless you are ordering it online. So, the Black Watch Tartan is sort of a close match to the Keith Tartan and it's much more readily available.

Suitcase:




Keith Tartan:


Black Watch Tartan:


I also snagged 8 (yes, eight) rolls of this Sasheen Ribbon. Each spool has 75 yards on it and I have no idea what I'll do with 600 yards of this ribbon but it's old and it was only 25 cents for each spool!



I also picked up this shelf paper, with a decorative edging for 50 cents. Personally, I think it's kind of an ugly pattern- I'm not much into the oranges/golds/browns of the 70s but it was still in the original packaging so I had to have it. Maybe I'll sell it but for now it's here at my house and it doesn't really take up much room!



I saw this gift wrap in a bin shoved under a table. I can't tell if it's really vintage or not but it was only 50 cents so into the cart it went.



As I was checking out, I saw this cute little Mixer Cover. I love that it's still in the original packaging. Also, it was 50 cents and I felt it needed to come home with me. I doubt I'll use it but it was too cute to pass up.



Lastly, I found this teapot. I don't care for teapots really, but my Momma has one exactly like this and has had it for as long as I can remember. Probably since before I was even born. When she was up here in Maryland in May we went to a thrift store and as we were checking out, she saw this exact same teapot. It matched the one she had at her house and she said she was buying it to give to my aunt. I don't know which aunt. I have 3 on her side of the family. Anyhow, so this teapot today was only $2 so I bought it. I called her and told her she could have it if she wanted it. Maybe I'll find another one and then she can give one to each of her sisters!!



After the Goodwill, I went across the street to an antique store. Rarely do I buy anything from antique stores because to me, the thrill is in the hunt and I'm always hunting a good bargain. I will buy vintage postcards and old Mason jars from those places but I mostly stop in to see what everyone else is selling. It's so reassuring to me to walk into a shop and see so many things that I have here at home. It proves to me (and to my husband) that all of this "junk" I pick up at thrift stores actually has some value! Like a vintage kitchen stool I saw today at the antique store, you know, the ones that have the seat that lifts up and stairs under it- yeah, I bought one for $12 a couple of years ago and I saw one today at the antique store that was for sale for $85! I guess I am too thrifty to actually buy something like that at an antique store. But like I said, it's nice to know all of my treasures are actually worth more than I paid for them!

Well, that's enough for today! I'm hoping the weather fairs off tomorrow because I am tired of the rainy, gloomy, humid stuff! I want to go into DC and check out the baby flamingos that were born at the zoo this past spring. If the weather doesn't cooperate I guess I can always go to some other thrift stores tomorrow!