Oodles and oodles

Freshly picked

 
White lilacs. The last bouquet this year.

(You know, there was a time when I would have ironed that tablecloth before taking a blog photo.)

 
Lilies of the valley. Probably another bouquet or two yet to come from another patch that's in woodland shade.

(Then there was a time when I wouldn't have ironed the tablecloth before taking a blog photo, but I'd have felt bad about it.)

 
The season's first picking of asparagus from the bed we planted. Hoping for several more of these.

(I didn't iron the tablecloth. But I think it looks just fine the way it is. I think this represents progress.)

Since it's Memorial Day weekend, there aren't any real sales to speak of. However, there were two that I happened by, and I found a few things. These are sales that fall outside this year's rating system: Since I had no expectations or investment going in, anything that resulted was a happy surprise.

(Pretty sure there's a life lesson in that, too.)

However, I'm far too occupied with dodging rain showers while I weed the garden to take photos of my finds right now. When I'm not weeding, I'm doing this.

 
Rescuing baby cardinals from places they can't figure out how to get out of.

Are you wondering whether baby cardinals are really cute?

 
Um, well, yes, in their own special way. This one was a little unhappy about getting trapped and not as grateful as it might have been for the rescue. Perhaps that's why it closed its eyes for the photo. Or maybe it was just embarrassed. It really wouldn't have been too hard to figure out that by ducking just a little, it could have escaped. Its reaction instead was to panic and chirp incessantly.

(Let's pause for a second and reflect on that, too.)

 
You'll immediately recognize this finely woven, cup-shaped nest in the midst of a clump of daylilies as the work of song sparrows. I found it while (what else?) weeding. It also explained why a pair of song sparrows were my constant companions in the garden. (I thought it was my pleasant company.)

I'd have had no idea what birds these were if I hadn't seen the adults. The babies might be the size of a quarter. I don't know how they survive on the ground like that, with all the predators we've got around here. It makes me glad my cats stay inside.

 
They're too little yet to make even a peep. But they definitely know how to ask for food.

 

 

 

Box lot love

 
Saturday's auction reminded me of what I love best about auctions: the box lots. They always have a few delights hidden away, like the prize in the box of Cracker Jack. The box lot of sewing notions I bought yielded fewer sewing treasures than I expected.

 
But the sewing box was so crisp and pretty.

 
And there were lots of non-sewing items in the jumble: this dresser box and a vintage spool of dental floss (I'm liking the graphics more than the prospect of flossing my teeth with something older than I am). There was a 1961 Monopoly game with all of its parts still sealed in cellophane, and a men's manicure set fitted into the top of a shoe brush, given away by a bank as a premium. (The orange background, by the way, is a camp table that inexplicably came with the lot of quilts.)

 
There was a suede pouch that revealed a very pretty collection of combs, this one being the biggest and fanciest. (I know absolutely nothing about combs, so if any of you would like to educate us, have at it.)

 
This one is pretty, too, and comes with a matching pin.

 
Of course, it wouldn't be much of an auction if I didn't haul home a load of Christmas ornaments.

 
It included a collection of glass horns,

 
a patriotic bell that almost makes me want to decorate for the 4th of July (but I won't, other than a flag on the porch ... it's just too busy in the garden and with sales in July),

 
and pretty figurals, a sweet angel from Japan, and a glittered pinecone bird.

 
Of all the boxes at the auction, this one was the one I hoped nobody else had examined.

 
Not only was it filled with glass bead garland, but many of the beads were quite large.

 
And best of all, some of those large beads were indents. I'll be restringing these and tucking them away for my tree. Maybe that's why I don't decorate for the 4th of July - I'm already thinking about Christmas.





 

Quilts and the queen of peppermint

 
Ah, spring, when the flowers bloom, and the quilt tops appear on the back deck.

 
It was a four quilt-top weekend. (There were two of these.)

 
This quilt top was the first one I found, at a sale on Friday. (Please pretend to be looking at Carson instead of the quilt. I did. That's why he's smiling.)

 
Let's run through the ratings for the first sale while we look at the lovely 19th century fabrics in this quilt top. First, the sale was very close to home, just across town.

Apron!

I was #12 on the list to get in and got bumped up to #9 because some people left.

Another apron!

 
Found the quilt top, reasonably priced.

That's three!

 
I love old calico, especially moon-and-star print calico.

 
Love purple prints too, but what I especially love is this shirting print.

 
Teeny-tiny horsemen! (I think they're knights. It's not that the riders look so much like knights, but it looks like they're jousting, and I don't know of anyone other than knights who joust. Feel free to correct me.)

 
Also found some old souvenir postcards from the Adirondacks. I've developed a big fondness for Adirondack souvenirs.

 
Also found some kitchen miscellany and a complete set of chicken cocktail napkins. I think we'll hold at three aprons, though - I'm keeping my guard up against inflated apron scores.

I didn't bring much cash to the sale, but that wasn't a problem because I could write a check. But at the register I suddenly remembered that I had written my last check at the grocery store the day before. Being unable to pay for my merchandise seemed like a big problem ...

 

Introducing the new negative-apron graphic! Martha made it for me. She's the best, that Martha is.

Sadly, though, we're down to two aprons. In fact, we should be down to zero aprons, since I'm not going to get to buy anything ...

EXCEPT

My friend Cindy was at the sale, and without blinking an eye, she wrote a check for my purchase.

Here's to friends like Martha and Cindy. Here's an apron for friendship.

So that was a three-apron sale.

 
The second, third and fourth quilt tops came from a Saturday auction. I think it was the first auction of the year for me. I thought the auction was kind of far away, but it turns out it was simply an area I don't know that well and wasn't really all that far away at all.

That's an apron for expanding my territory, but not driving a ridiculous amount.

The sale was at the home of the last direct descendant of the founder of a peppermint-oil factory. Turns out the town of Lyons, NY, once was the Peppermint Capital of the World! Farms all around Wayne County grew peppermint, and travelers on the Erie Canal could smell the peppermint in the air before they arrived in town.

Doesn't that just sound magical?

The auction lasted a very, very long time, and so I had time to read a pamphlet on the history of the peppermint industry. Its founder was determined to be the King of Peppermint, according to the pamphlet. And since the sale was at the home of his final direct descendant, I assume that made her the Queen of Peppermint.

Here's an apron for an interesting history. I'd like to say that the peppermint oil industry still is flourishing, and that all of the light poles are red-and-white striped like candy canes, but neither is true.

 
I was absolutely determined to get these quilt tops NO MATTER WHAT I HAD TO PAY. That is bad auction thinking. That is first-auction-of-the-year thinking. Before we take away an apron, though, I'll tell you what happened: The quilts were on a pile that had a dozen blankets and comforters, and probably two dozen sets of sheets, and the auctioneer said he was selling the whole pile of linens as one lot. I was shocked. And I don't know if the prospect of that big pile of linens scared away potential bidders or what, but only one other person bid, and she dropped out right away, and I got all three quilt tops for less than I'd planned to pay for one.

It created a bit of a stir. I even drew a little group of admirers who congratulated me and oohed over the quilts.

Another apron for auction buzz!

 
There are so many wonderful prints in these quilt tops I hardly know where to start. In fact, it appears I bored Carson with my endless chatter about them.

 
"Look, Carson! There's a hat print!"

 
"And palm trees!"

 
"Carson, do you know what's even better than a girls-roller-skating-print in blue?"

 
"When it comes in orange, too!"

 
"Carson, there's a puppy chasing the girls on roller skates!"

 
"Carson, there's a print that has puppies!"

 
He is just not interested.

 
Anyway, there is much more to show you.

Another apron for fun stuff.

And an apron for staying well within my budget.

A five-apron auction, but it felt more like a six. All in all, a good weekend.

Art gallery

 
You weren't frightened by this Extremely Realistic depiction of a bear, were you?

 
Not to worry. It's just a bear paint-by-number painting.

 
One of a rather large collection of paint-by-number paintings acquired Friday at an otherwise lamentable yard sale.

 
The sale was a bit of a distance, but the ad sounded so good! Years of accumulation, hundreds of items! Nowhere in the ad did it mention that among the hundreds of items were empty ketchup bottles. Lots of empty ketchup bottles. And a broken play pen. And a doubleknit polyester quilt with a $40 price tag.

Time to rate the sale. We're starting out in negative territory (for the first time this year!): minus one apron for poor selection. Minus another apron for overpriced doubleknit quilt.

I'm keenly aware of the cost of doing business these days because a) I finally had an accountant do my taxes this year and b) gas costs a lot and c) my new car, while very fuel-efficient, also keeps track of my average miles per gallon as I travel. So there was simply no escaping the fact that I was going to spend about $7 in gas to get to this very disappointing sale. And as I looked about, I saw absolutely no way that I was going to buy anything, let alone anything that would earn me back my fuel costs.

That's minus another apron for traveling far with nothing to show for it. That's minus THREE aprons.

(I haven't yet come up with a graphic of an apron with a slash through it to represent a negative apron. Use your imagination.)

I get a pat on the back for having a businesslike approach. Another pat on the back for accepting the fact that sometimes things don't work out as one had hoped.

Those are just pats on the back, though. I don't earn any aprons back for that.

 
However, the people were nice. SO nice. So nice I considered a mercy purchase. Here's how nice they were: They had sold their freezer earlier in the morning. But the purchaser changed her mind after her dad came and looked the freezer over, and the people having the sale were nice as could be about refunding their money. A lot nicer than I probably would have been.

I'm giving these folks an apron for being so gosh-darned nice.

Still, we're negative two aprons.

 
I thought I remembered the ad mentioning paint-by-number paintings, and sure enough, there were a bunch of them hiding in a box under a table. I love paint-by-numbers! Especially reasonably priced paint-by-numbers!

Another apron has been restored!

 
(There were two of these sailboat paintings. It must have been fun to paint.)

Anyway, with eight paint-by-number paintings that I don't think I'll have any trouble selling, I expect to pay for the gas I used, with a few dollars left over.

So - that's worth an apron.

After all this, we're at ZERO aprons.

But I did find a 1960s mug with a peace sign, and I bought it for a friend who screamed out loud when I gave it to her. Best 50 cents ever.

That's an apron.

And that, my friends, is a one-apron sale.

And that was a close call. I'm hoping for better Saturday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shopping in the basement

 
No sales for me this past weekend. I had a deadline for a magazine story, a weekend houseguest, and most importantly ...

 
prom night! (My daughter doesn't like it when I post her picture on the blog. But doesn't she have pretty wrists?)

Prom night is a blast in our town, even if (or probably especially if) you aren't going to the prom. All of the kids go to the park by the lake to have their pictures taken, and everybody in town goes down to see them, even if they don't have a child going to the big event. Hundreds of people show up. It's just one of those small-town things.

I can't help myself here.

 
{she'll never notice one little picture!}

 
As in many other places in the country, apparently, it's done pretty much nothing here but rain. The weather was glorious Friday, especially for prom picture-taking, so really I wasn't going to complain about the whole weekend being a washout.

 
At some point Sunday afternoon, though, I was tired of looking out the window at the rain, and I needed a writing break, so I came up with a really good idea.

"I have to go downstairs to make sure the sump pump is running so the basement doesn't flood," I said, "so maybe I'll just clean it while I'm down there."

Oh, the fun things we can find to do on a rainy day!

 
Most families have objects that they really don't want to keep, but that they'd feel bad about throwing away. Members of these families look around and choose the one person who is a) very sentimental and b) has an outbuilding, and they give her the stuff they don't want, knowing she can't refuse.

In my family, of course, this would be me.

 
And so when my mom asked if I'd take this set of dishes, which she bought at the W. T. Grant store in my hometown right out of high school with her tiny secretarial salary, I could not say no. But I must say, I wasn't crazy about them. I liked the story behind them. But they probably weren't something I'd have picked for myself.

 
Which is why they ended up in a box in the basement. Never even made it to the outbuilding. Which is how I found them Sunday.

 
Perhaps absence makes the heart grow fonder, because now I think they're awfully sweet. However, I do have kind of this farm thing going right now. And I haven't seen too many other sets of dishes printed with tiny barns and fences and farmers. I couldn't decide whether the piece on the right was a creamer or a gravy boat.

 
Then it dawned on me. A cow. I think it's a creamer.

  

A good time of year

 
The weather was perfect for puttering on Sunday, and that's my favorite way to spend Mother's Day. By luck, I ended up with a good project to work on. I've been thinking about getting a trellis for the garden behind the shed, but it's one of those things that wasn't a big priority. On Saturday, I took some estate-sale leftovers and discards to the town Swap Shop, where junk goes to see if it can find a home before it ends up next door in the dump.

 
And what had been left at the Swap Shop Saturday but a pair of wooden trellises? They were falling apart, but the wood was in good shape. Nothing a lot of hammering and a coat of paint couldn't fix.

The brown thing came home with me, too. It's old, heavy wood, and I think it will be a planter. It reminds me of something that would be at the back of a church, with little prayer books and cards in it.

 
Here they are with their pieces nailed back in place and reinforced, and with a quick coat of paint. One of them will end up in this garden (which is about two weeks behind, owing to our cold, rainy spring), and I don't know where the other one will end up, but I'm sure it will come in handy.

 
I wasn't ready to stop puttering, so I straightened up my little corner of the shed. While I straightened, I heard a cardinal chirping quite insistently.

 
She was worried about me being so close to her nest, right outside the shed window. She calmed down after a bit, but I'll probably limit my trips past the window for a week or so.

 
We've also had a very large flock of cedar waxwings in our yard the last few days.

It really is just the best time of year. 

The weekend sales report

 
Another weekend has come and gone, and that means it's time to pull out the rating chart and reflect on this weekend's sales. As you probably remember, each sale will be awarded points in an ever-changing, completely arbitrary fashion, with points deducted for whatever I find annoying at that particular moment, and the points will be expressed in aprons. The best sale so far this year was a seven-apron sale. I went to two sales Friday, one of which was so-so, and the second of which was pretty good. But neither of them come close to seven-apron greatness.

That brings us to Saturday's estate sale, which yielded the four Swanky Swigs here. It's pretty hard to find swigs. And I already have a lot of swigs, so finding one I don't already have also is pretty hard. However, the moment I walked in the door at Saturday's sale, I found these four swigs, none of which I had already. (I was especially happy to find the 1955 Bachelor Button pattern, which is the red, white and green one.) And they were seriously, seriously cheap. That's an apron per swig:

Four aprons already! And if you think an apron per swig is overly generous, I'd just remind you: There's almost nothing I love more than a Swanky Swig.

 
Assorted housewares from the sale, where something good happened even before I set foot in the door. I don't know how sale sign-ups work where you are, but around here, there are pretty much two ways to sign up. There's the sign-and-stay method, where once you sign the list, you can't leave until the person running the sale gives you a number to get in. Or there's the list-out-the-night-before method, in which you simply show up at a certain time, sign the list and come back the next day. Sounds simple. Except nobody in their right mind comes at the designated time. You get there much earlier, and sign a somewhat unofficial list, circulated among sale goers, which is the list to get on the list, and then you wait until the official list comes out. And so to get a good spot on the list that was going to be available at 5:30, I arrived around 3:30. Except: the woman running the sale was there. She didn't feel like waiting around until 5:30, so she was letting people just sign then and leave. Which saved me two hours of waiting around. I love that woman. Give that sale another apron!



 
Pink canisters are almost another apron on their own,
 
except these also came with matching housewares!
 
And, exactly as seen in the current issue of Country Living, a Pyrex refrigerator set. In perfect condition. Excellent housewares all around: that's another apron!

 
You may remember that a couple of weeks ago, my beloved Subaru began making a terrible noise. That noise translated to this: "Mrs. Oodles, I love you, too, but I'm an old car, and I need a new wheel bearing, and I don't think I can travel as far as you want to drive any more." So the Subaru got a new wheel bearing and now is resting comfortably in the driveway, enjoying semi-retirement as the vehicle to get my son to his summer job. My only concern in getting another car, aside from cost and mileage, was this: Did it have ample cargo room?

 
Say, for 10 or 12 dozen Christmas ornaments? Yes, it did. Easily. Give the car an apron. Give the sale another apron, too:

(That's seven!)

 
There was a $2 Christmas box lot at the sale with these creations on top.

 
I think we all can applaud the spirit that went into making these incredibly large, disco-ball-like ornament spheres,

 
while at the same time acknowledging that times change, and it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to repurpose these little ornaments.

Sadly, there are no aprons awarded for disco-ball like ornament creations.

 
However, I saw a single Putz house underneath the disco balls, and so I bought the box. And once the junk was set aside, there remained four Putz houses, two bottle-brush trees, and a bunch of other cute stuff. (The elves, in case you're wondering, do not have spun heads, but they are sweet.)

How about another apron for box-lot magic?

The sale wasn't too far from home, it was well-run, the prices were good, and the woman running it, who really is just the greatest, looked at all of my things and said, "I am so happy for you." All of that combined is worth a lot, but let's not get too crazy. How about two more aprons?

Now for deductions for things that annoyed me.

None. Really. It's kind of a first.

That leaves us with a ten-apron sale:

The sale by which all future sales will be measured.

 

 

 

 

A Friday find

 
From a farm sale Friday morning, good old enamelware.

 
Not only is it "durable" and "sanitary,"

 
it's cute.

 
These cups are the kind that need to be filled up with strong coffee.

 
And these plates need cornbread and baked beans.

 
The beans can bake in this pot.

 
{Why does everything I buy lately have such a direct connection to food?}

 
Good old enamelware. When it comes in a set, even better.

 

Don't think about pie

 
I bought this cover at an estate sale recently. I didn't really know what it was, but I loved the fabric. The lady at the check-out said it was a cover for a pie.

There's not really a pie underneath the cover. Just an empty pie plate. I'm on Day 3 of the 17-Day Diet. Sort of. I have the book on hold at the library. But I hate to waste a couple of days of no appetite from not feeling so good, so I'm counting Monday as the first day. Until the book comes in, I'm kind of figuring it out on my own and eating hardly anything but vegetables and lean protein. And drinking lots of green tea. Not a big fan of green tea. But it's good for us.

 
This is the kind of fabric I wish I had a bolt of. (A year ago, that sentence construction would have made me crazy. However, I've since read that there is absolutely no rule against ending a sentence with a preposition. So it's something I'm going to do a lot of. To make up for lost time.)

 
Puppies, leashes, balls, bones to chew on. What's not to love?

 
The whole pie-cover concept isn't working for me, though. First, I found it kind of a tight fit getting it on the empty plate, and I think you might wreck the edge of the crust if you tried to use it on an actual pie. Like on an actual apple pie. I use two kinds of apples when I make apple pie - one crunchy and tart, like a Granny Smith, and one sweeter and more of a sauce apple, like a McIntosh. The filling is the perfect combination of apple texture and flavor, with lots of cinnamon and a hint of butter.

Too bad I won't be making any pies while I'm on this diet. (Which lasts more than 17 days, by the way. It's a series of 17-day cycles. I wonder if there's a cycle with pie?)

 
Here's the cover from the bottom - just another circle, with an open center, and drawstrings. You could make one easily, but I'm not sure that I would. I think it would get stained. A blob of peach or apple pie filling might wash out, but what about an oozing, juicy blackberry pie? Or raspberry? Or cherry? Real cherry pie, made with fresh cherries, not that sticky-sweet canned filling.

Plus, it wouldn't be tall enough for a cream pie, unless it was a cream pie without meringue, and what's the point of that? I like meringue at least 4 inches high at the center. Underneath it, I like a rich chocolate. Or banana cream. Or my favorite, coconut cream. I've pretty much never met a pie I don't like. I've never had rhubarb pie, but I bet I'd like it.

This cover might work on a pecan pie, though, if you were careful slipping it over the crust. Pecan pies are nice and compact, and so delicious.

But I'm not going to think about pie.

Not pecan pie. Not apple pie or peach pie.

Not banana cream pie.

Not coconut cream pie, either.

Just not thinking about it at all.

 

 

 

 

 

Amazing, occasionally in a good way

 
Do you know this llama? She's the most famous llama in America. Maybe the world. Then again, maybe any llama could claim to be famous, and who could contradict it?

Well, I would, because this is a really famous llama, and I met her last week. And I'll have more to say about that at some point, but if you know who she is, you know how incredibly fun it was to visit her home.

But first I have to explain where I've been.

It's been just a little nuts here.

We had a last-minute houseguest and a difficult family situation. Then there was Easter. Then things sort of seemed to be getting back to normal when the opportunity to get an interview I really wanted popped up at the absolute last minute, and I went flying (well, driving fast) out of town.

The day after the interview, my son called from school to say he was really sick. That night his girlfriend called to say the college infirmary wanted her to take him to the emergency room. So I went flying (see above) to get to the hospital an hour and a half away. They got him rehydrated and back on his feet (more or less) and I came home.

Things were kind of lurching from one weird thing to another, and then I wasn't feeling so good. I stayed home from work today, and my daughter's school called to say they thought she had a seizure and had called 911.

I'm not a hysterical person. But I learned today I can come close.

She's fine (fainting spell) but it is terribly scary to pull up to your daughter's school and see an ambulance and a police escort parked out front and know that they're there for your child.

The only funny thing from all of this is that once my daughter was clearly OK and fetching her backpack, I was telling the EMT how many traffic laws I broke on the way to get to the school (several significant speeding violations, a few rolling stops, a failure to yield to a pedestrian, parking in a handicapped spot and perhaps most flagrantly, not stopping at the high school office to sign in and get my visitor's pass).

Don't worry about that, he said. The cop's here.

I love living in a town so small that there's only "the cop," and we knew right where he was.

That seems like useful information somehow.

Anyway, I'm kind of drained from everything right now. And I'm done saying "Well, now that THAT's over, maybe we can get back to normal," because every time I do, something else happens.

So I think I might take a little break from blogging. Just a little one. Like a few days or so. But the llama adventure was just too much fun (I know, that's redundant. Because 'llama' and 'fun' are synonymous) to keep you in suspense. And my pal Cindy blogged about it beautifully, and you can read all about it here.