Garage Sales!!!

I am at a crucial point in my year...Garage sales are about to begin and I am happy, and nervous all at the same time.

What if things aren't good this year?  What if people aren't selling off their rusty goodies because American Pickers has increased in popularity even more this past season? 

What if some of my favorite perpetual garage sales don't re-open? 

What if the weather Never gets warm enough to actually go to any garage sales?!

Love the looks on their faces here...

I'm actually not THAT worried...and I have been to several already this year, I am still fairly new but I am noticing that early season garage sales seem to fall into a few categories..

1.  The We-Did-Amazing-Advertising-On-Craigslist-But-All-We-Have-Is-Baby-Clothes garage sale.  I have already been to two of those this year, and think that the current trend is to use the words multi-family instead of we have newborn to toddler clothes, a couple beat up toys and a tractor.  These people are always so sweet, I always wish I could justify buying something...but I can't, so I always say I will tell people about the sale and I try to. :) 

As a side note--this garage sale tends to have multiple cats present for the duration.

Here Kitty, Kitty

2.  The Awkward-Silence garage sale.  We went to one held indoors by a moving company.  It had been advertised for weeks and we were really excited.  Not only was it a disappointing sale...it was in a small room where everyone was really really quiet.  Jonathan and I wanted to discuss whether or not to continue looking, but you could hear a pin drop.  We ended up doing the--'Hey, Hon...gotta get to that Thing' thing.  Of course as we exited everyone stopped and looked at us...it was weird.  I'm pretty sure that Norman Bates was running it, also. 

So So Scary

3.  The Over-Eager-Can-I-Help-You-Find-Something garage sale.  Sometimes these garage sales are later in the season, but we ran across one early this Spring...everywhere we went there was the lady of the house...scurrying, talking, making announcements.  I appreciate being made to feel welcome, but not spied on.  We finally got away from the watchful eye of 'Big Mother' when a gust of Spring wind blew her faux flower display over on her as she was making yet another announcement.  After making sure she was okay--we ran for the car while she was distracted by piles of fake hydrangeas.

All kidding aside...I actually really love that so many garage sales come with a slice of humanity.  People are so busy with their own lives, that there are so many of us who don't even know our neighbors names...It always makes me sad when people breeze in and out of Walmart without even saying hello to the little old guy who is greeting them (ours is Dewey)...I like that at many garage sales--people talk.  The folks running them sort of have to sit there, the folks buying from them usually have to ask questions...the objects are passed from one person to another in a community. 

It's Americana with a 50 cent price tag.  And that's worth a pretty penny.

Thrift StoreTechnology



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We were on vacation.

We can't afford the Bahamas or Paris.

We aren't really as outdoorsy as all that, so we never go camping.

There are a dozen different things we could do with time away, but we like to go to thrift stores...

Not just any thrift stores mind you, we like to hit the ones near the neighborhoods we dream of living in, but never actually would.  Not just because we couldn't afford it...but because every mini mansion looks sorta the same.  I have a philosophy that manicured lawns are really part of an illuminati plot to gain control over our communities through turf builder...anyway

This was such a day, we were in such a place, ready to walk out when my husband checked the glass case by the door.

Now, I never check the glass case, I have snubbed it because of too many 'porcelian' plates marked antique that say made in China on them...but the Jon is different.  He's a hopeful sort and so he checked.  And there, in all it's ragged box and secondhand glory it sat.  The Magellan GPS.  Insert beam of light and angel chorus here.

It was twenty dollars.  Twenty dollars to us is like, well twenty dollars before the goverment printed extra and made it worth like, fourteen dollars.  But it was a piece of technology that had hitherto eluded us, and to my husband it was like honey in the comb.  So we bought it.  It didn't work.  You knew that was going to happen didn't you...?

But when we tried it there had been the smallest flash of a screen, so we took it to Best Buy and decided to gamble on a charger and the knowledge of someone almost pre-pubescent.  The kid was right....and it worked!

Later on in the life of the Magellan GPS Roadmate 300, we had to call customer service where they transferred us to an old guy in the basement near a moldy stack of product manuals from the 19th century.  He was evidentally the only one who remembered how to change the hamster in a wheel battery on the thing.  Ok, no hamster, but our GPS is really really old.

So old that it doesn't know that certain roads exist, or lakes even...but it has been a faithful companion on many a thrift store expedition.

Lesson here...you can sometimes get decent technology--if you are willing to use older tech, and if you are wise enough to look in the glass case.

Happy Hunting!