Memorial Mayhem, Estate Sale Ecstasy

hey y'all,

as i sit here at my computer, thinking on all that's happened in the past few days, i realize a couple of things.

1. there's no way i could include everything because the blog would be too long.

2. you probably wouldn't believe it anyhow.

and that's what kind of long holiday weekend i've had.

but lemme give it a go, touching on the high points (or low ones, as the case may be).

chronologically speaking, i'm going backwards. mainly because i want to share the most recent (and unfortunate) incident that happened to bonnie and me ... to get it off my chest. well, my proverbial chest.

we went to see sex and the city 2 sunday afternoon ... which was very good, imho. don't listen to the critics.

so we were in the parking lot after the movie, chatting next to my car. the space next to mine was empty and i noticed a vehicle wanting to pull into it. i quickly shut my car door (which i had opened so i could put my purse inside the car) and got out of their way.

the driver aggressively swerved into the space and in the process, drove over the white line, coming within a hair's breadth of our legs. i screamed, thinking we both were about to be hit by this car.

when the driver and her two passengers got out the car, i was so stunned i said to her "you nearly hit us!"

well! that was all she needed. she lit into us, using all manner of foul, abusive language ... calling us names ("bitch, ho" ... and other sundry pleasantries), threatening violence if we "opened our mouths again", etc. after she and her entourage went into the theater, i took a picture of her license plate and car. then i called the police.

i've already checked. it's not easy for the average joe to run a license check in the state of texas. apparently the websites that offer this service are disreputable. however, if any of yous guys know someone who knows someone ... heh heh

we were v. shaken by this incident and i'm not sure what, if anything the police will do about it. but at least he gathered information and made a report. i'm thinking it should be against the law to nearly run someone down with your car. and i'm also thinking that it's against the law to threaten physical violence against a person, yes??

sheesh.

there we were. two middle-aged ladies out on a sunday afternoon for a chick flick ... minding our own damn business, when all hell breaks loose in the theater parking lot. a word to the wise: you're not safe anywhere. it's a wild and crazy world out there, folks.

sure makes me want to enroll in the concealed handgun class we have here in texas. can y'all just imagine terry lee packing heat?! don't mess with me or my peeps. argghh.

previously, on saturday, bon and i found two v. cool estate sales. at the first one, i ran into a sweet gentleman and his wife, who were close friends with my parents when they were all young newlyweds. he looked at me and said, "are you B.T.'s daughter?"

"yes, i am!" i replied.

claytonANDnell ... that's how i remember mama saying it. as one name. he's clayton, she's nell. :-)

without any prompting, he began telling me story after story about my parents back in the 50's and 60s.

"in 1957, B.T. bought himself a brand new '57 chevy. it was aqua and white and boy did he love that car!"

this was taken in 1963, and i think that's the '57 chevy in the background. i'm not a car person, so please, feel free to correct me if i'm wrong. btw, that's 2 year old me, easter of '63 with my daddy.

we stood there for a good half hour while he told me about mom and dad and things they all used to do together ... how funny they were and the stories my daddy used to tell. i was in heaven. there aren't many folks around that still remember my parents ... or who were that close to them. what a treat that was! i plan to visit them in the future (with a notebook and pen) to tap into more of their memories.

my purchases ... a vintage tin FULL of buttons and a sewing box filled with old sewing notions. fun fun fun!! grand total: $3

the next estate sale was larger and quite interesting. the house was built in 1966 ... and as blake, the son-in-law of the deceased told us, that's when his in-laws moved in, decorated the house according to current styles ... and never changed a thing.

don't believe me? check this out. when i walked into the front, formal living area, i thought i'd walked onto the set of madmen. or bewitched. or i dream of jeannie.







yes, it was all for sale. true vintage, mint condition 60's furniture. if i'd had room in my house i would've bought it. love love love that turquoise color. we didn't want to leave that room!

the den was much less formal, but still mid-century-ish. i was having my usual bout of junkin' hot flashes, so i decided to take advantage of the ceiling fan and sat my vintage arse down in one of the chairs for a rest.

i took out a kleenex and began blotting away at my perspiring face. allow me, at this point, to say that my right eye continues to be problematic ... it weeps constantly. so i also had to dab at my eye for a while.

as i was wiping my drippy eye, a woman walks close to me in order to see the items on the bookshelf behind my chair.

"i'm sorry, do i need to move for you?" i politely ask.

"oh no, you're fine dear."

and then adds ... "this must be very difficult for you."

i looked up at her (quizzically) and instantly recognized sympathy in her eyes. oh.my.gawd. she thinks i'm crying. she thinks i'm a family member of the deceased.

well, the bad girl in me desperately wanted to play along with her fantasy. under normal circumstances, i would have. but for some insane reason, i got the worst case of giggles i've had in a loooong time. i glanced over at bonnie, who btw, was just waiting and watching for my response and that's when i lost it.



like the perfect idiot i am, i finally choked out, "no, no. i'm a customer just like you. it's just allergies." then i turned my head away from her and buried my face in the kleenex because the giggles became so violent, my entire body was shaking. if you didn't know better, you'd think i was sobbing with grief.

whew.

later, when blake had a break between customers, he'd come in and chat with us. i always enjoy learning about the people who lived in these estate sale houses, especially if i'm buying something. i want to know a little about who they were, what they did, what they liked. it's the history that's important to me when it comes to collecting vintage pieces.



his in-laws met on july 4, 1946 at the bell county independence day festivities. they were married 3 weeks later. he passed away in 2008 and she is currently in a nursing home.

we were reveling in the sweetness of their long-lasting marriage (sometimes love and marriages DO last) when another customer, who had overheard this story, butted in with, "and sometimes people stay married for health benefits and income reasons or for the children."

ouch. so much for love and warm fuzzies.

"umm, do i detect a cynic in the house?" i said to no one in particular. yeah, yeah, i know. it takes one to know one.

that's when she and her grown daughter started sharing personal details of their sorry-ass, no account former/late husband/father, respectively. that's respectively, not respectfully. i was sorry for these women, truly i was. but they almost seemed proud of their stories. and let's not forget that we. were. perfect. strangers (emphasis on the perfect. heh heh ).



perhaps a bit o' counseling/therapy is in order? i'm just sayin' ...

speaking of therapy, i really needed this baby doll i found there! isn't she the best?! well, she could only be better if she had blonde hair. but i love her still. soooo sweet!

sorry about the string around her neck. forgot to take off her $2 price tag before i took the pic!

yes! her eyes close when you lay her down. it belonged to one of the daughters in this family.

also found a grrreat lamp for my office! really needed some light. my chandie just doesn't put out much. blake sold it to me for $6. love how you can move the angles of the three lights.



continuing on, backwards, on friday bon and i went out to lampasas, where fellow FAG and dear friend jannetta was hosting a garage sale with her sisters. she's been busy with family as of late, so we haven't seen much of her. you are missed, girl!! can't wait till we're all three back in the junkin' saddle again. together!



so long, farewell to the month of may. the bluebonnets have faded and summer's heat has already arrived. time to hit the indoor sales!

love and hugs,
terry lee

Something's Fishy Here ...

hey y'all!

sorry for the delay in posting about my awesome junking adventures (i understand that some of you have been anxiously waiting with baited breath for me to post ... heh heh).

the reason i haven't written yet is because ... well ... there were no junking adventures this past weekend (collective gasp)!

in a nutshell (or perhaps i should say seashell), i wasn't up to junkin' on saturday due to some physical ailments.

allow me to explain.

let's rewind a few weeks so you can get the complete picture. some of you may recall (if you were truly paying attention while reading my blog) that i mentioned an eye infection that wouldn't go away. finally, after being treated with antibiotic and steroid drops for 3 weeks, it abated.

the eye doc, wanting to avoid prescribing restasis for my chronic dry eye, a result of sjogren's syndrome, suggested i try a high-quality fish oil supplement which has been reported to increase tear production.

i know, yawwwwwn. booooooooring. but hang in there. we're fixin' to get to the good bits!

armed with the $1.00 off coupon she gave me ... and plied with a hearty dose of xanax, i forced myself into wal-mart ... in search of the miracle cure for my dry eyes. there it was. first aisle in the pharmacy, which is a very good thing if you're like me and have to pre-medicate yourself before going to wal-mart.

wow. expensive fish oil. but apparently the better quality it is, the less mercury and other contaminants it contains. also the more they charge for it. in other words, my $1 coupon was like spitting into the ocean.



so the next morning, i dutifully took the recommended dosage ... 3 large capsules. btw, besides helping my dry eyes, it promised i would reap heart and brain benefits from the omega 3 fatty acids. woohoo.

within 30 minutes of swallowing those sea monster capsules, i began ... for the lack of better phrasing ... burping. but not just your average, run-of-the-mill benign burping, ladies and gentlemen. this was something that no human being should ever have to experience. and let me tell you, i've experienced some medical gobshite.

this burping, its malodorous after-taste ... gag... well ... you would think that i'd consumed large quantities of putrid, raw fish or maybe some other sort of rancid, odoriferous seafood that red lobster had rejected.

and this was the "high-quality" stuff?! ack!!!

i tried everything imaginable to rid myself of this pestilence. eating, drinking, chewing gum. more food, more water. more gum. alka seltzer. chick fil-a!!

no dice. nothing worked. hours went by and i could actually feel the effects moving lower and lower through my gastro-intestinal tract. crampy tummy. crampy intestines.

you get the picture, no?

finished up the day, lying on my bed, curled in the fetal position, next to the oft-used bathroom. all the while declaring and swearing i'd never EVER take another fish oil capsule for the rest of my life. which will now, no doubt, be much shorter.

i will gladly use eye drops every five minutes. no problem. i'll learn to live with those cobwebs in the corners of my brain. no problem. my heart will have to make do with the fried catfish i feed it every couple of months.

no one, but NO ONE should have to endure that kind of misery from a capsule ... no matter what claims are made about its benefits.

i know. several people have told me that they take fish oil without any problems. i say, good for you! seriously. i think it can be good for you and your health. but obviously, it's not for me.

and that is why i didn't get to go junking this weekend. if you've stuck with me through all that, thanks. you're a real trooper! you win a prize! i have an almost full bottle of high quality fish oil capsules for you! haha

on sunday, bonnie and i had lunch with an old friend and former colleague, jennifer. she has a sweet little 5 month old son, jacob that we hadn't met yet ... so we truly enjoyed our visit.

sorry for the poor quality of the photo. if my iphone doesn't have enough light, it's just fuzzy. also, i think the waitress had a bit of palsy.

and lest you think i'd blog and not include some junking treasures, think again. earlier last week, before the fish oil fiasco i stopped by crafter's corner and the goodwill bargain barn.

sweet vintage electric clock, which works. love it!

here's my lil clock collection that appeared before i realized i was collecting!

this little blue beauty isn't vintage, though it tries. found it at the barn for $0.50. so sweet, this blue

here are some of the old spools i bought at last weekend's church sale. put them in a vintage homer laughlin bowl. so sweet and lovely!

this lil beauty is a vintagesue creation. got it at crafter's! how precious is that?!

from sue, also. a killer black ring with rose on it

junk necklace says it all.

love and hugs,
terry lee

Equal Opportunity Junkers

hey y'all,

it was a wild junkin' ride yesterday! we were short one of the girls (jannetta ... we missed you!), but as they say, the show must go on ... so bon and i stepped up to the plate. it's hard work, but somebody's gotta do it.

not being a weather prognosticator, i believed the local forecasters when they predicted it would rain on our yard sale parade. so when organizing the sale list (a responsibility i take v. seriously), i paid particular attention to any estate sales or other inside sales listings.

as it happens, the rain gods were kind to us yesterday. which was a good thing because our first stop was a church sale ... on the outside. they did have several lovely tents set up but a lot of their wares were on the outside as well.



it didn't take us long to size up the situation (being the junkin' pros that we are) and realize that this was going to be the best sale of the day. we hit junking. paydirt.





lots and lots and lots of junk here, folks. as i said to one of the sales ladies, you methodists sure know how to collect and sell junk! they were super organized, efficient and v. well staffed. is that a methodist thing? i don't know. but it was rare to find something that hadn't been priced ... and extremely easy to look up and find a worker willing to price it for you.



a sweet lady named kenda noticed my arms were full and proffered a box to me. see? this is a church jumble/rummage sale working at its finest. eventually i graduated to a much larger box and it became difficult to drag around with me.



but drag it i did. because other shoppers ... well, y'all know how they can be. i caught some digging through my box. even though i was straddling it between my legs. sigh. people.

check out time: my HUGE box filled to overflowing with crap = $12.75

bonnie had fashioned one of the larger rubbermaid-type bins for her haul, not intending to take it or buy it. just use it for hauling. some sweet methodist woman came running over to her at the checkout: "that's our bin! you can't take it!!"

well, so much for the methodists. some people just have no social skills what. so. ever. is it really, honestly, worth it to offend a possible non-believer ... thereby causing them to think poorly of "christians"?? i'm just sayin'.

of course.

anyhow, it was agreed that we shot our wad (sorry, faint of heart) at the v. first sale of the day. my camry's trunk was packed, the backseat too. yikes! we still had hours of junking ahead of us!

after a pit stop at chick fil-a, we headed east to the belton/temple area. there was an indoor sale at a strange little white building (the listing said something about a church being nearby ... blah blah blah) just past the junction of I35 and 190, for you central texas folks. i say this only because it was in an impossible location.

now, stay with me here. i'm going somewhere with this story.

i ended up taking the first belton exit and then driving the wrong way on a one-way street just to work my way back to the church. there were throngs of people in the parking lot, so i figured that was the sale.

not. so. my first clue: a black hearse under the portico. second clue: church people dressed for a funeral. third clue: no junk in sight. fourth and final clue: bonnie laughing her arse off.

upon re-reading the sale listing, it's the white building on the hill BEFORE you get to the church. and we're still on the one way street. did i dare? no, i didn't. i risked our lives to get us to a funeral, i figured i shouldn't press my luck.

so we looped around and finally got ourselves to the sale. we figured, as it usually happens this way, that with all that effort, the sale would be a bust. but it turned out okay.

bon found this terrific leather jacket (purple!!) for a steal. and i picked up a $3 unopened box of star wars legos for matt. woot!



i'm sorry. it's become an obsession with me now. they. are. EVERYwhere i go!!



moving on, an estate sale in temple. complete bust. furthermore, a total irritating and aggravating experience. everyone ... and i mean EVERYone in temple was at this sale. the narrow street was packed. parking was near impossible. just getting through the street was a challenge because of all the cars. ack!





and the damn sale wasn't worth a hoot. people everywhere. and i mean annoying people. you couldn't browse at leisure because folks were elbowing and bumping into you. really, really made me cranky.



normally, i enjoy little children. honestly, i do. but this busy little angel took it upon herself to latch on to me (why?!?!?!) ... and followed me from room to room to room. asking. question. after. question.


haylee. she spelled it for me.

"what is this??"

"what is that??"

"what do you do with that?"

"why is this ..."

dear. lord. in. heaven. i. must. get. out. of. this. house. NOW.

next stop was a place called bartek's station, out on hwy 53. whatever. never heard of it. plugged it into my GPS and when we arrived, there was nothing there. wilderness. texas fields of nothing. whaaa?! so we drove back toward town. nothing.

back out to the wilderness. i think we performed this fruitless exercise about 3 times before we decided to give up ... or ask someone for directions. and that someone just happened to be none other than a man named larry, who was sporting a brand new zztop t-shirt.

he was hanging out with some other dudes in the parking lot of a church-type community center. i think it was a family reunion, as they all seemed to have that, well, familial look about them.

actually, an elderly lady approached our car and when she couldn't help us (she was busy chewing on some cauliflower ... that flew out of her mouth through her missing front teeth as she spoke), she summoned ol' larry to the rescue.

yes. larry knew exactly where bartek's station was.



"why are you two looking for bartek's?!" he was incredulous!

"they're having a yard sale," bonnie replied.

"did you know that place is a bar?"

well, hell.

no. we did not know it was a bar. we just figured it was a gas station.

he pointed us in the general direction (back toward the city limits sign) and walked away with a silly grin on his face. i'm not sure how i felt about larry. but i did ask him if he knew that zz top had just appeared at the bell county expo center. he said yeah, that's where he got the t-shirt. i told him a friend of mine was at that concert (that's YOU, dana!).

sooooo, we found bartek's station. and yes, it was an old, worn-out looking bar/club place. my oh my. how far we've come. starting the day at a sweet church jumble and ending up at a run-down saloon. but hey, we are equal opportunity junkers. not that we don't discriminate. but it's the junk we're judging, not the location/people. case in point: we did a drive-by of a sale not on our list. the junk was not suitable. we did not stop.

we did stop at bartek's and rummaged around, while enjoying santana's oye como va blasting from the open door. eventually a man (and later a woman) ambled out and greeted us. it's all negotiable, they say.





and just when we thought we were done (it was 1:30, late by junking standards) we realized that another church sale was nearby and was open till 2pm. we slid into the parking lot and being the heathen that i am ... nevermind being exhausted from the long day of junking and the heat, i could NOT resist the closest open parking space.





we hopped out of the car (with only 1/2 hour to shop!) and were greeted with this sign!







that's the good thing about hitting a sale late in the day. sure, it's picked over. but what's left is usually marked down. i can't (or won't) list all the crap i got here ... but look at the pictures carefully and you'll get an eyeful. :-)

i call this my bar clock, since i got it at bartek's station. all of a dollar. just loved the look of it ... and without realizing it, i've begun a clock collection lately.



score!!! a HUGE baggie filled with old spools of thread!!!!! marked $1. 1/2 price = $0.50!!!



found this beauty at the last stop (church sale). i remember my mom and grandmom wearing these "housecoats" around the house. love the style, colors. so sweet and feminine, retro/vintage

love its tag! lazy u.

$5 for this entire sweet set. LOVE the colors and pattern. it's a comforter, shams, bedskirt, solid blue curtains

it's a lady's vintage travel bag ... with a tie to keep it closed.

inside, it is FULL of vintage goodies ... scarves, gloves, lace, etc!!! $0.50!!

wow. what a looooong day we had. finished up with a treat from chick fil-a ... ice cream ... and then headed home, exhausted and a little overwhelmed with our purchases. it was one of those frenzied days of junking. the prices were sooooo low and the junk so plentiful that you scarf up more than you normally would. and therefore, forget what you bought until you start sorting through it at home.

that's how i junk, ya'll ... oye como va ... listen how it goes ... my junkin' rhythm.

love and hugs,
terry lee