Oodles and oodles

A good day

This was my first find today, and it made me so happy I almost didn't care if I found anything else. I have my childhood Santa mugs (just a little different than these), and some tiny ones I've picked up here and there, but sadly, we lacked a Santa pitcher. Things are lookin' up in the Oodles household.

However, I found something even better at the same yard sale, and something even better than that at the auction that followed. I can't wait to show it to you ...



But first I've got a little sorting to do.

Oh, the things you'll find

I didn't buy anything last week. However, I found some great stuff. I really should clean up the attic more often, because I found a few things that I could not for the life of me remember where I'd put.

I found one of my favorite tablecloths. I'd have cropped the photo more, but Carson (upper left corner) was trying so hard to get his picture taken. Since the nights have started getting a little chilly, he's been even more snuggly. I guess we will not need to worry about heating bills as long as we're underneath 70 pounds of furry dog.

I also found my favorite picnic tablecloth, the classic red and white check. There's, what, not quite two weeks of summer left? Oh, well. Fall is a good picnic season, too.

I looked for these hat pincushions when I did a crochet post a couple of weeks ago, but I couldn't find them. Here they are! Now, if I can just find the one I showed you before, I think I'll decorate it like the yellow one. Those little flowers are just enough of a crochet project for me.

Here's a hat potholder. I can't decide if it belongs with the little crocheted hat collection ...

Or the little crocheted potholder collection.

Decisions, decisions.

Two things I love today, and my six favorite teams

You've got to be in just the right state of mind to sort buttons. Meditative, yet committed to seeing a project through to the end. By Saturday I had rounded up all of the buttons I had tucked in various corners of the house and sorted out the ones I didn't want. That left sorting through the ones I did want to keep. An old muffin tin works pretty well for this project.  So does a day that starts out with rain, followed by fog.

 

I do love buttons, but these are only a portion of the ones I sorted through yesterday. I don't want this many any more. Some I will keep, some I will send to an auction, and the nicer ones I'll sell on eBay or Etsy. My plan today was to list them, but we spent the sunny part of the day at my daughter's horse show (two sixth-place ribbons and a seventh place, thanks for asking; the pony she rides was kind of naughty today) and by the time we got home and it was time to take pictures, the clouds were rolling in again.

So I'm just kind of goofing around, listening to football in the background. I love the NFL. Don't all button collectors? The two just seem to go hand in hand. I love the football season even more as fall progresses, when it becomes a good excuse to drink cider and eat corn chips and chili. I have many teams I like (Steelers, Patriots, Colts, Jets, Giants, Green Bay) and a few I don't like (Cincinnati, Dallas). Well, there go half my blog readers, since a lot of people like Dallas.

Aren't these titles with numbers in them catchy? I might have to change the title of my last post from "Five no-fail items that will keep me from coming to your yard sale" to "Fifteen no-fail items that will keep me from coming to your yard sale." You guys had a lot of additional suggestions. A few of you also acknowledged owning cow-themed decor at one time, and we applaud your bravery. It takes courage to risk the ridicule of strangers. Not that any of us were ridiculing you. No, indeed.

Five no-fail items that will keep me from coming to your sale!

I've been cleaning up, packing up, organizing. Here are some of the things I'm putting away until next spring, when they'll look fresh and pretty again. I managed to avoid any yard-sale purchases today - not difficult since the season is really winding down here.

At work, I've been reading ghastly articles like "10 Sure-Fire Ways to Get Donors to Write a Check!" and "25 Direct-Mail Techniques Guaranteed to Get Results!" It always amazes me how much I hate that kind of writing, yet how irresistible those titles are. In honor of them, and my newfound commitment to acquiring less stuff, I read the yard-sale ads this morning with an eye toward items that made me want to stay home. In the interests of full disclosure, I have to say that the No. 1 item that I do not want to acquire at a yard sale (or, really, anywhere else) is NASCAR memorabilia, but, sadly for Central New York NASCAR fans, I did not see any listed today.

Here, however, are five tems that actually were listed  but are sure-fire signs of a bad sale. Oddly, I think this is the order they appeared in the ads, which kind of corresponds with the level of horror they inspire in me. Ready?



# 5 - Beanie Babies
# 4 - Hess trucks
#3 - Princess House crystal

And this item, which in any other week would be No. 1 on my list:

#2 - Guns

Except that this week, somebody is having a sale in which they are promising to offer:

#1 - Cow items

If you're hitting the sales this weekend, hope you can avoid 'em.

Conversation with my house

 

A coworker was talking about a book she read, which is titled something like "What Your House Says About You." One section of the book, she says, encourages you to role-play and pretend that you're the house talking, and then pretend that your house is talking to you. That's not the kind of book I'm much interested in reading, but the premise kind of intrigues me. My house has a lot to say to me. My house has a lot of complaints.

 

My house wants to know why I haven't planted shrubs out front like I said I would. It wants to know why there are maple trees growing in the gutter. It's unhappy that the previous owner put 1970s decking  on a 1929 farmhouse, and it wants to know why, in the 14 years that we've lived here, we haven't taken it off. It's wondering if I noticed there are a couple of places on the clapboards that need to be sanded and primed and painted before the cold weather sets in. It says it would feel better if I gave the windows a good washing - a really good washing, the kind that involves a ladder and lifting the old-fashioned wooden window frames off the hinges. And while I've got the window frames off, maybe I could give them a fresh coat of paint? And that's just for starters, on the outside.

Inside, the litany of complaints continues. In fact, I think my house is no longer complaining. It's whining. Why are your kids such slobs? Why do they leave a trail of food and clothing wherever they go? Why, no matter how many times you do laundry, are there still piles of laundry all over the place? Why does the dog shed? Why do the cats shed? Why haven't you painted the kitchen cupboards? Are you ever going to paint your bedroom?

And here's what really upsets me! my house says, and it's no longer whining. It's sobbing. Why do you have so much stuff? Where did it come from? What are you going to do with it? I can't stand it! And I saw you this morning (snuffle, snuffle - my house is wiping its nose) and you were looking at the garage sale ads, and I know you're going out to buy more, aren't you? Aren't you? (My house is now hysterical.)

Oh, house. Poor, poor house. I'm sorry. You know what? I'm feeling the same way. (I'm patting the house affectionately right now.) I went to the thrift store yesterday, and all I could think was yuck. I don't want to look at this stuff. And I know, I was looking at the yard sale ads, but I don't know if I'm going. I can't imagine anything I really want to buy. I'm kind of at my limit.

You remember how I spent last weekend? (The house weakly nods its head, which I guess is, I don't know, the roof?) Upstairs in the attic, sorting through all that stuff I bought? And thinking about why I bought it, and what I'm going to do with it, and where to keep it? (More nodding.) Well, I really have to give that some thought. Because I'm feeling weighed down by it, too.

So I guess this would be the part where my house and I embrace, except I have my limits when it comes to role-playing.

But that is how I've been feeling. Too much chaos. Time to get it under control. I'll be interested to see how long this lasts, and where it takes me.

Back to school

We've been busy getting ready for the new school year. A vintage calendar, an old composition book, a scotty dog pen holder - I'm all set.

Penmanship exercises. I failed to fully appreciate penmanship exercises in my elementary school years. Now it seems like a lovely way to spend a little time, making perfect letters. This book does not date back to my grade-school days, by the way. It's from 1900. Despite what my kids think, I did not go to school in an ox cart.

Nor did we use fountain pens.

Nor did a single one of my school pictures turn out as charming as this one. I don't know who the girl is (I found her picture in a box of photographs I bought at a flea market) but she looks kind and agreeable and was, I'm sure, the smartest girl in her class.