Hello dear sweet bloggy friends. I've been lazy in my blog life recently, but my real life is flying at lightening speed. I can't remember ever being this busy. So glad Summer is almost here and there will be no more schedules, homework, waking up at 0-dark-thirty. The only time I enjoy getting up that early is Saturday. Yard Sale Day. I don't even need an alarm clock. My body just knows.
Yep, I'm an Early Bird. One of those annoying customers who stops by while you are still setting up and will dig through your boxes. Shameless I know. But I don't want anyone else getting my worm. And around here, the earlier the bird, the better the worm.
I keep a running list in my head of certain antiques that I must have before I die. A sort of Antique Bucket List. It's not a particularly long list, but in my opinion, distinguished. This list includes an antique English butter slab, a wicker flea market cart, preferably lined with the most adorable of floral fabrics, and an old oil painting that when I peel back the paper will of course have an envelope with a bazillion dollars in it that someone stashed a hundred years ago.
Coming across an item on your Antique Bucket List can be problematic for a Cheap-O like myself. Usually, I know immediately if I'm going to pass something up. For example, I may see a half-used Yankee candle that I positively cannot live without. Unless it's more than a quarter. I waste no time moving on to the next house. I do not hem and haw. If fact, I despise hemmers and hawers. Yard-saling is a decisive business. If you waste time hemming and hawing, you lose worms.
Back to the problem at hand. Actually coming face to face with an item on the bucket list may cause a normally decisive and cheap person to lose all sense of reason, causing said decisive and cheap person to choose between decisive and cheap.
Like this jug-ernaut.
I saw it at a yard sale swarming with e-birds. It was on my list and I wanted it bad. Like bad enough to shoot my load on the first big sale of the day bad. They were asking $30, a good price I know, but I already told you I was cheap. I've seen these at the flea for at least $50. I got it for $20.
And I got a check on my bucket list.
Then a week later I spotted this on Craig.
An old tobacco basket. Also on my list.
And got another check.
A week later, yet another item on my list.
Backstory:
A townwide yard sale - my favorite kind - with cars battling for position. You cannot imagine the potential for accidents in this scenario. Trying to maneuver your way through yardsale traffic while keeping your eyes on the prize. Mine dart back and forth between the road and the yards, because Lara Spencer, I don't just brake for yardsales, I screech my tires and leave black tread-marks a mile long in my dust.
That's just what happened when I saw her. An antique 1941 New York SM Benjamin dress form with a cage bottom (said in the voice of Ralphie as he describes his bb gun - an Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle!)...
A classic battle between decisive and cheap ensued with decisive winning out. But not before I handed the seller my business card in the hopes that she would still be available on pay day...
Several days later, no phone call, no check...
Until Mother's Day. You see, my sweet middle was with me that day and called her Daddy to tell him that Mommy found something on her Antique Bucket List.
She was rolled into my room on Mother's Day morning as I lay in bed. A sight for my swollen eyes. And another check on my list.
Still in pursuit of the butter slab and envelope with the bazillion dollars, but at least I get to wake up every morning to this.
So what's on your Antique Bucket List? I'd love to know. I'm nosy like that...
Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulicious day!
xoxo,
Kim
