LIFE

hey y'all,

right. everybody i know wants an ironing board, santa! who even irons anymore?! and if you do iron, certainly don't waste a christmas wish on an ironing board, of all things!!

it's impossible to believe that i haven't posted in almost a month! what the what?! well, i'll tell you what's the what. L.I.F.E. not sure why i used periods. it's not an acronym. hey wait. give me a sec and i might get creative and think of one.

how about ... Life Is ******* Exhausting! or, maybe something not so profane (for my sensitive readers out there) ... Life's Insane, Forego Expectations. hmmm. still not what i'm looking for.

how about this? submit your favorite L.I.F.E acronym suggestion (in the comment section) and i'll choose a winner! of what? who knows. to be determined later, depending on the winner's preferences. vote early and vote often. wait, that doesn't make sense. never mind. it was the vicodin talking. (haha)

anyhow, have been junking, junking, JUNKING like a wild woman. sheesh! dragging stuff home every weekend. and now it seems during the week as well. somebody needs to come over here now and put a STOP to my insanity!!!!!!



lots of estates sales ... almost every weekend. who can resist?! not me. and certainly not the regulars i see at every sale (hey, coopers!). some have been a junker's paradise, some a complete bust. but isn't that the nature of the beast? you just. never. know.

here's one example then i'm dashing off. the harker heights GW barn is open today. gotta hit chick-fil-a and get myself out there. muy pronto. lots of vultures at that particular barn and they show absolutely NO mercy on those of us who aren't exactly ... well ... early birds.

last weekend, the FAGs were out in force (please, please, i implore you to click that link if you don't know what/who the FAGs are. no disrespect intended. it's just an(other) acronym that was born one day and has been our adopted name ever since).



so we landed at a yard sale, one of many on our hit list that day.
after a cursory glance about, i determined it was mostly gewgaws and whatnots that didn't interest me. however, i did notice a chandie sitting outside its box on the driveway. i moseyed over to it, with little enthusiasm. on closer inspection, i saw that it was a rather pretty glass chandie and inside the box, i spotted quite a few glass prisms. whaaaa?!

i asked the seller about it and she said she didn't know anything about the chandie except that her hubby found it in an empty house and dragged it home. it'd been sitting in their garage for a while and she never attempted to use it.

she priced it at $8, which i promptly paid her, we (the FAGs) loaded the heavy box in my camry and hightailed it out of the neighborhood. i'll be honest. i still didn't know much about the chandie, but i had enough sense to suspect that i had a treasure worth much more than the $8 i shucked out for it.

it took me 3 days, but i finally unwrapped all the pieces of my chandie (tons and TONS of crystal prisms!) and then it dawned on me to look for a name/brand on it somewhere. sure enough, on the inside of the top piece where it attaches to the ceiling, i found a sticker that said "tomia bohemia, emily".

ASSembly in progress. ack!! it's taking me forever!

some of the gorgeous crystals

so pretty! so blingy!!

they're so sparkly!!! yummy!!

lord help me getting it all sorted out! i'm not complaining, just sayin'. :)

i've been researching it and this is what i've discovered: if bought NEW, it's selling for over $2000. it was made in bohemia, czech republic where they make hand-cut crystals. here's the website which tells all about the history: tomia crystal chandeliers .

couldn't find ANY prices on the tomia website, so i looked around. here's one who's selling the "emily" on SALE:

almost makes me feel guilty that i paid a mere $8 for it. almost.

as i said, you just never know what you're gonna find when junking. that's why i love it so much. it's a lot like LIFE, eh? every day is an adventure. some days you hit gold, other days you hit rust. it's a crapshoot. either way, you wake up the next morning, put one foot in front of the other ... and try to remember to count your blessings.

"i have found that in the simple act of living with hope, and in the daily effort to have a positive impact in the world, the days i do have are made all the more meaningful and precious. and for that i am grateful."

isn't it amazing what one woman and her friends can do?" ~~ both by elizabeth edwards (1949-2010)

i leave you with an adorably sweet santa from last weekend's estate sale:



love and hugs,
terrylee