estate sale finds.

As I mentioned before, I've been trying to get back into my old routine of estate sale-ing now that I have more free time, going through the paper mid-week, writing down all the promising ones, mapquesting the addresses, and making a schedule/route based on the distances and duration of each sale to be more efficient (tedious but necessary). This past Thursday I did just that, getting a late start on my schedule making as I was supposed to work Friday but found out at midnight the night before that I would be off. So I stayed up late Thursday night planning my route and got a bit of a late start on Friday because of it. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like every time, there's always one really strange or awkward estate sale experience and one really good one.

The first one I went to was the strange one, when I got there, there were no other cars and I didn't see any signs but being that I'm afraid to miss out on something good, I went up and knocked on the door (which was the most awkward thing ever) and a little olde lady came to the door and said she had put the wrong date in the newspaper but I could come in and look around anyway. Part of me wanted to run back to my car and escape the awkwardness of walking around in someone's house alone, picking through their things, but the other part was excited to have the whole house to myself, not having to knock elbows with crazy estate sale goers to get what I want. Unfortunately it wasn't very good, and the lady made me walk around and look at every single thing, picking up things and telling me they were "SO old/rare/collectible" (most weren't) but I felt bad because I think she was just pretty lonely and excited to have someone to show all her things to. I asked her about clothes, and she pulled out a pile of some men's shirt that were more modern than she claimed, but in the pile I found a 1950s black sequined sweater that she said had been her mother's, and she sold it to me for $1.50. I imagine I will sort of be living in it when Winter rolls around; it's so pretty and sparkly and festive. So all in all, not a total bust, but it took me longer than it should have to leave, because as I kept inching my way towards the door she kept trying to start another conversation with me. But I finally made it out to my car and head off to the next one.

The next few weren't very good and I left empty handed, but the last one, which promised "stuffed animals, kittens and figurines, handmade quilts and a lifetime of treasures" certainly delivered. The stuffed animals were mostly modern, nothing cute and tattered and olde like the little zebra I found, but there were a bunch of cute cat figurines and so many olde handmade quilts. I wanted to take them all home but they were so ridiculously expensive that I couldn't bring home even one. I did find a lovely 1950s faux fur stole, and a few pairs of cute sandals, and the black ones were just the thing to replace my black ones that just broke. The other two were supposed to be for the shop, but the white ones started to crumble a bit (I threw them away) and I kind of like the tan ones so I might keep those for now. I walked back through to see if I had missed anything and I came across the best thing ever. A teapot. shaped like a cat. A cat teapot. The most perfect thing for me ever. So I snapped it up and as I was paying I spotted a pretty depression glass juicer so I grabbed that too. Overall, I came home with some pretty good finds, but I really need to stop buying things for myself and putting more things in my shop!