Junky Finds + a Story or Two

This morning when I went out to get the newspaper, I could feel the weather hinting at a change.  It has been so hot and I the summer as we all know.  I am anxious for cooler temperatures, hoodies and fall colors.  Really, anything below 80 degrees would just be nice.  The best sales are in the Fall too, so that smell of sir got my junkin' genes going.  Which is stupid, because I am up to my EARS in junk right now.  Pricing it, sorting it and trying to figure out how to display it.  I think I want to run away and join the circus and leave all the junk here forever.  Start over with all new junk.

Until I do that, there's still Goodwill and a couple thrifts.  I'd much rather be getting more for my money at yard sales, but thrifts are always fun too.

I found this great school map at the SCT.  It is about four feet wide and has grommets for hanging.  I wish I could frame it or at least hang it up at the Barn Sale. But it will probably just have to be rolled up and hope someone spots it.  (I had to photograph it upside down so there wouldn't be a shadow on it, so that's why the perception is screwy.)

Found this set of pool balls at the thrift for $3.00.  The #4 was missing, but I had some other ones in the garage that we had found, so I was finally able to make a complete set.  I've always wanted a full set and now I have it and now I have no idea what to do with them.  Ah, the problems of a junker.  The other oddball balls will go to the Barn Sale.

This sweet vase isn't my usual kind of pottery, but when I spotted the tag still on it, I was sold.  I do dig that little flower in the middle.  And really, for 75¢, what right minded person wouldn't buy it?

I am very anti-duck and anti-goose as in Country Geese of the 1990's with stupid bonnets on their head and that cheese WELCOME written on them.  Hate that stuff.  And, yes, I got married in the early 1990's and yes I had the Country Goose cookie jar and the Country Goose glasses and the Country Goose canisters and the Country Goose towels.  That stuff is all GONE.  But, I see more and more of it eeking back into the thrift stores.  Surely Country Geese won't be the next HOT collectible like Owls and Avocado Green.........will it?  So, I digress.  Anyway - this little duck just barely waddled past the fine line of 1990's goose.  But, it is vintage pottery, so I allowed him to come home.  He will go to the Barn Sale.  

Well, what a crappy photo.  

Vintage Cribbage Board for 10¢, vintage slide box for 25¢ and an old baby rattle for 25¢.  

*I snapped this photo quickly and then ducked up under the porch.  The man that lives next door had just come out of the house SCREAMING at the top of his lungs, grabbing the hanging basket by the front door and throwing it down the driveway.  He went to his truck and grabbed something, returned to the house and said some expletives that rhyme with "suck".  Then he slammed back out the door again, kicking the aforementioned plant back across the driveway before he got into his truck and sped up the street about ninety miles an hour.  He's a peach.  It's not the first fit I have witnessed.  He chucked the weed eater down the street and drove over it one day when he couldn't get it to start.  Yep, he's a peach.

This handmade oak splint basket had to be rescued from Goodwill for $2.00.  It has a longer handle that most of my baskets, so it kind of screams Easter Basket.  I don't know why I think I have to rescue every handmade basket I encounter.  But, I do think that, so I do rescue them.  Someday when I am long gone, people will whisper "that's the house that was full to the rafters of baskets and watermelon potholders."

But, that's a long way away.  Plenty more baskets and potholders in my future.  I hope!*