Back roads with Babs

People are still having 6am yard sales so I feel impelled to continue the "early bird" line of thinking. And it paid off this morning. Johanna is still recovering from her surgery and not yet up to snuff, so she is exempt from the morning excursion. After reading my whining last week about not enjoying being alone on my adventures, Babs felt Johanna was well enough to leave alone for a few hours and joined me this morning. Sophie stayed behind to keep Johanna company and warm so it was just the two of us at O'dark thirty. Very dark and rather dewy; my shoes were soaked quickly. We were grateful for my headlight since it was so dark and the sellers didn't have adequate lighting. Babs had left her light behind so we stuck together and rooted through the offerings. I spotted the stand below and snapped it up. I have wanted to replace a plant stand I have had which was functional to some degree but not really attractive. It has been tucked a way in a corner but I knew it would need to go as soon as I found something better. And for $7 I am delighted with this one. Daughter Ellie feels I should paint it white since the wood doesn't match the furninture and white would make the plants and containers "pop". I think she is right. I do have a new can of white emamel paint, just have to take the time for the project. 

Another sale down the road was simply amazing. Couldn't believe how much stuff they had. I have misplaced my camera so I didn't have it with me. I would have taken a picture of the array of wares there. I found this electrolux upright vaccuum with attachments and 18 new bags for $8. I have another vacuum similiar to this one that I bought (where else?) at a church yard sale a few years ago. It works great. Why would I buy another you ask? Well, the first one didn't come with attachments. I didn't even know there were attachments for that model. So I took a chance these attachments would fit my first model and they do. So do the bags. I checked on ebay and the attachments alone cost $35 so this is a good deal for me. I might hang on to the vacuum for Ellie when she needs one.

 At the "Big Sale" I also found a wood ring  stacking toy for Hugh (Aunt NeeNee needs toys), the snowman tea light decoration for Brenna, the wooden pumpkins for me, the bath water tester for a future baby shower gift, and the tealight snowman gift set. Sad story with gift set. My sisters and I are hosting a baby shower for Lindsey our niece in a couple of weeks. I thought this would be a cute prize for a game and for 50cents, I bought it. Mighty proud of myself. Put it on my mantle after taking the picture and it fell off! Nose came off and no longer a gift item :{ Glad I only paid 50 cents but now I have to continue the search.

Wooden toy:25 cents, Snowman: 50cents, bath water tester: 50 cents, pumpkins 25 cents each, and snowman gift set: 50cents

 I put the little pumpkin decorations on my fall wreath to brighten it up a bit and I think they do the trick.

Fall wreath with pumpkins added

I didn't keep track of Bab's haul and since I didn't have my camera, I couldn't take pics of her loot but she was buying things too. We were delighted with what we were finding.
We came upon a church sale and I found these Dansko shoes. I knew Ellie needed work shoes and these are super comfortable and quite pricey when new. I took a chance and picked them up for her. The size seemed close to hers and I thought even if she doesn't want them, Brenna might be interested.

Well, Ellie came over this evening, tried them on and they fit! I had already brought out the shoe polish and the scrapes and scratches shown above came out. They polished up nicely.

Ellie modeling the Danskos. She starts her new job on Monday!

So continuing on in the church sale, I find as well as the shoes, a pair of curtains, a bag of fluffy white "snow for Christmas Village" and a Christmas apron. Babs also found a couple of items so we head for the checkout. No check out. Everything is FREE! First time this has ever happened to us! We asked if we could at least make a donation and were told if we wanted to, "we could make a donation to a charity of our choice". Sweet!  What was really nice is Babs had picked up a big pile of new men's underware and was going to donate them to our church's St. Vincent DePaul Society. So she got them for free and will give them away. Awesome! 

If you remember a couple of weeks ago I bought a couple of adjustable curtain rods. I want to put curtains up in the guest bedroom at my brother's house and the curtains I found will go very nicely with the decor. They are in the dryer even as I type. 

The book Is Your Mama A Llama is one of my favorites. I bought that for 25cents. Funny story with that is the yard sale prior to that purchase someone held up a pair of earrings and asked if they looked like llamas. In my mind I immediately thought of the title of the book, but just said, yes they do. But the seller said "Is your mama a llama" and then we both laughed and talked about the book. Then I find it the next stop. It will go to Kara, Mindy's little girl. There was some crayon marking on the dust jacket in the back, but some rubbing with a Magic Eraser took it all off as well as some other marks. The jacket is torn in a couple of places but easy to tape up. 

One more purchase was a kiddie swimming pool. My employer is a veterinarian and asked me to look for a blow up kiddie pool. They need to jerry rig it by cutting a hole in the bottom and putting it directly over a drain to wash dogs. The slope of the floor to the drain isn't great and this will hopefully solve the puddling problem. I didn't think I had a shot at finding one since summer is over and most people throw them away. But there it was and only 50 cents. I didn't blow it up to make sure it inflated. Will do that tomorrow.