Hey, Don't I Know You?

Wow.

I haven't posted since August.  That makes me feel like a huge blogging failure.  When I started back in January, I thought I would at least make it through the first year without falling completely off the grid.

I had a lot of reasons for the drop.  I homeschool my kids, and this summer was the first time since they were very small we took the whole summer off from school.  Normally we maintain a 3-4 day per week schedule, occasionally missing several days in a row to do fun things with friends.  This summer, however, they were full time members of the competitive shooting team.  There were out of town competitions in June and July.  That meant there were still practices several nights per week and Saturdays.  At the end of May I thought to myself, "You know, we could just take the summer off, and not kill ourselves."  Famous last words.  I spent all of August trying to get back on track.

Then in September I took a part time job.  I haven't "worked" since just before my oldest child was born.  She just turned 14 last month.  I am working at home some now, but initially I was going into the office several days a week.  I was trying to cram all the other stuff, housework, grocery shopping, school, cooking, etc, into fewer hours.  Something had to give, and one of the somethings was this blog.

Then in early October my mother, brother, three children and I took a road trip from our home in Arkansas to see my sister and brother in law in Rhode Island.  It was a wonderful, jam packed, 10 day, 3,000 mile round trip, that required about 5 days recovery!  I plan to do a post all about it soon.

One of the things that pushed me to blog each week were the "built in" topics that I could link to on other blogs.  Most of those are thrift store/flea market/yard sale themed linky parties, and I almost always have something new to show from one of those sources.  When I sat down to type this new installment, I discovered that two of the blogs have not hosted parties recently.

However, Magpie Monday is up and running over at Me and My Shadow, so I will be linking up there.  Fortunately, although I stopped posting about my finds, I didn't stop finding, so I have a glut of items to share!

Without further adieu, or whining and excuse making, here are a few of the treasures I've found over the past few months.

Vintage jewelry!  I bought a little plastic bag full at a yard sale for $1, and this is what was in it.  It is all very dirty, and I have only worked on cleaning the piece with the green stones.  I need to read up on cleaning vintage enamel before I tackled some of it.

I found this beautiful chalkware plaque for .25 at another yard sale.  I love birds, and the colors on this are so lovely.

 At the same yard sale I found this Dansk enamel sauce pot.  It's in terrific condition, and I love the color.  It will probably end up in my Etsy shop eventually.

And finally, some shoes!

 I bought all of those darling little toddler shoes for a friend's daughter, but I was off by about two sizes, so they might find their way to the resale shop.  I just can't pass up Converse, no matter the size.  The saddle oxfords are for my vintage loving 14 year old.  She was thrilled to see them.

I have a variety of vintage Christmas items that I will be adding to my Etsy shop soon.  I hope to blog about them and link up next week.

Thrifty Finds: A Cautionary Tale

I'm linking up with Magpie Monday over at Me & My Shadow, Thrift Share Monday at Apron Thrift Girl, and my newest find, Flea Market Finds at Her Library Adventures.

First let me recap my plea for help identifying this lamp.  Take a moment, if you will, and see if you can add to my knowledge about it.

Ok, today's post is subtitled "A Cautionary Tale".  I had a little giggle at my own expense this weekend, and I thought it might be helpful to some of you, and amusing to others, to hear about my trouble.

My daughter, Rachel, was competing in a pistol shooting competition this weekend, down in Little Rock (her team won second place, and first place was another team from our club.  yea!!)  Little Rock is almost 3 hours from my home, but I travel there relatively frequently, since Husband is an elected official, and that's our state capital.  Whenever I go I try to hit a few thrift stores.  There are two Savers nearby, and a few smaller thrifts.  After Rachel shot on Saturday morning, I hopped in the car and zoomed into town to look for Pyrex and other treasure at Savers.  I didn't buy anything, but at the end of this post I'll include a few pics of some pretties I passed.

Anyway, driving from the relatively rural area where the shooting competition was to downtown Little Rock I passed several yard sale signs.  Now I don't usually pass yard sale signs, but I was trying to make sure I got back before the awards were handed out, so pass them I did.  One in particular caught my eye, because it was far from the city, and looked like the type of sale that might have old dishes.  I decided to stop on the way back from Savers, but since it was already after noon I was afraid it would be closed up.  I took a quick turn around Savers, saw nothing I couldn't live without, and headed back.  I was thrilled to find the sale was still open, but when I got out and began to look around I saw that I had been way off on my prediction of old dishes.

Just as I was about to settle for a .50 item to avoid the awkwardness of leaving a lonely sale without making a purchase, I spotted it.

Yeah.  A nesting doll.  Rebekah collects nesting dolls.  We love nesting dolls.  I grabbed it up, thinking the price sticker said $1.  On turning it a bit, I saw that it said $10.  Oh.  I can't pay $10.  Not a a yard sale.  It's just not in me.  I opened it, and discovered this.

Oh boy.  It was a Wizard of Oz nesting doll set.  There was Dorothy, the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and little Toto.  Sigh.  The lady having the sale said, "That's an antique.  It's from Germany."  I replied, "It's darling.  My youngest daughter collects nesting dolls."  I still had it in my hand, because I really, really liked it.  I was not surprised by her statement about it being an antique from Germany, because I had looked at many nesting doll sets online, and knew that such a thing existed.  She said, "How much do I have on it?"  I told her, and she said, "You can have it for $5."  Now that was more my speed.  I had no desire to treat her unfairly, and no plan to ask her to go down on the price.  I would have left without it, though.  She had some lovely, healthy hostas in pots for $1, so I bought several of those along with the doll set.  I think we were both happy.

I headed back to the shooting competition, pondering the nesting set.  I had seen some with characters that were over $200, and I knew if this set was worth that much I'd have to think for awhile about when to give it to Bekah.  She has an amazingly detailed set from Russia that is not to be played with, and I was prepared to put this set on the shelf with that one.  I needed to get back to the competition site, access the wifi on my iPod, and check this out.

I found a quiet corner, pulled the set from my bag, turned it over, and saw this.

Wow.  Seriously.  Folks, this is not my first rodeo.  I have been thrifting/yard saling for more than two decades.  I am the person other people call to ask thrifting questions.  And yet there it was.  A price sticker.  $13.90.  I peeled it back and saw this.

Made in China.  Not Germany.

I'm not going to lie.  I was somewhat stunned.  I didn't really care that it wasn't an antique, or that it wasn't made in Germany.  I did care that I had overlooked this, and I cared a bit that the seller had been so wrong.  (i am not saying she was deceitful.  if she had intended to deceive, surely she would have removed the stickers.)

As I pondered the depths of my oversight, I saw this.

 

Yeah. Some fairly serious damage.

Again, I was not upset that the set wasn't valuable, or even that it was damaged.  I was confused and irritated at my failure to notice.  As I pondered my error, this blog post took shape.  There was a kind of blindness that overcame me as I held something I really, really liked.  I failed to look at the actual item, and instead saw only what I "thought" I was seeing.  This isn't the first time this has happened.  I have purchased dishes that I was over the moon about, only to get them home and discover large chips.  Or a serving set that is actually missing a piece.  A leather purse with a torn lining.  Whatever it is, it's the same lesson:  I got so excited about what I thought I had, that I failed to see what I actually had.  I am not one to spend more than a few dollars on most thrifted items, so the sting is rarely financially motivated.  It is simply an embarrassment/confusion over my own myopathy.

The lesson that I hope novice thrifters (and maybe some veterans like myself??) will take from this my mistake is this:  Stop.  Look.  Examine the piece carefully.  Turn it over.  Run your finger along the edge.  If you find something negative it doesn't mean you can't buy it and love it, it just means you won't get a nasty surprise later.  If I had seen the price sticker I wouldn't have hesitated to ask the seller to take less.  Since I didn't see it, if she hadn't offered to take less, and I had left without this set, I would probably still be kicking myself.  I hope that I, as much as any of you, will remember this lesson.

**** If you know Rebekah, please don't mention this to her.  I won't be giving it to her right away.****

And on a lighter note, here are the lovelies that I did not buy at the Little Rock Savers.

Fireking (i'm guessing) round casserole

cute mid century footstool

Temperware Fall Bounty

Fireking (i'm guessing) vegetable pattern

kicking myself a bit here, chrome Sunbeam Mixmaster $15

Sharp Shooting Kids

I missed making a Saturday Night Retro post last night because I wasn't relaxing at home, listening to music.  Instead, I was watching my kids and their teammates win the Arkansas State BB Gun Championship!

Washington County Shooting Sports- State Champs!

Rachel's team won the whole shebang, and three of her teammates won most of the individual awards.  This team, made up of different members, has won for four of the past five years.  They are a great group of kids, and have some amazing coaches.  Winning here means they go on to compete at the national event in July.

Rachel is admiring the trophy

One extra pleasant bit was that Joshua won an award for being the only participant to score 100% on the written exam.  He and Rachel both worked hard to learn everything they could, and they basically have the rule and safety books memorized.  He also shot his personal best, 331.  Great job Joshua!

Here are a few shots from the weekend.

They got a taste of what camp is like.

and a cafeteria

Rachel kneeling

Joshua attaching his sling

They had a great time, and I'm so happy for their team and coaches that all did so well.