BABY.......YARD SALES!!

I am HOT... I am TIRED... I am HOT and TIRED...
But, I am HAPPY...
Yard sales paid off today!!

A few weeks ago I kept finding LPS and Polly Pocket. This week, none...na-da...zero. But I did make out like a bandit on plushies and clothing.

Someone said to be on the look out for Halloween costumes.  Check these cuties out.

A freaking octopus size 2-3T!!!!!!

The cutest ever frog---with web fingers yet!!!

This yard sale was very simple.....everything was a dollar. They had piles of clothes with tags still on them. A whole table full of shoes.....in the color of the day.....pink.

Some need cleaning, while others just need sanitizing. Some are for the princess pleasure.

Found a lot of infant plushies.....glow worms...3 lovies...pooh...Barker the dog...Care Bear w/tags...and two dressing buddies.  I think they all deserve a trip to the spa....well, Care Bear will just have to watch.

Plushies, 14 onesies and 5 mens shirts

And, not to leave out the vintage lovers in all of us I did find some vintage dresses. The beige looks like a librarian and the pink could be June Cleaver, with the addition of some pearls.

What is it with vintage dresses and no belts?

Hope everyone had a great weekend and found lots of great stuff.

DOG errrrr CAT DAYS OF SUMMER

 August is usually considered the dog days of summer. Here at our house its is almost August, but not really the dog days of summer. More like the cat days of summer......

Time for a nap. Come fluff my pillow, woman.

Don't make so much noise. A girl needs her beauty sleep.

A tummy scratch would be nice...NOW.

Meet Fearless (she's not). This is my daughter, Smarta**, cat. She is a Norwegian Forest Cat. About 24 lbs. of fluff and flub. See the long hair on her feet. She has long hair everywhere except her head. It has measured in at 3 inches on her tail. She doesn't shed, she just piles up hair.

Hey, I'm cute. Take my picture.....quietly.

This is Firefly. She likes to nap in the skybox. But she also likes to have her picture taken.

Even with all this cat cuteness around I still miss my Nikki.

MORE THAN 24 HOURS

Do you ever feel like you need more than 24 hours in a day? I mean, where does all the time go everyday.
Wake up.....breakfast....dishes...nap...lunch...dishes...nap...dinner...
dishes....nap....bedtime...
How much is one person suppose to do?

Seriously, I have been trying to come up with something to earn some income while I am waiting for the right job. (drumming fingers on table). If I wanted a job anywhere from 45 to 50 miles away there are a few available. If I wanted a job 15-20 miles from home....not so many.

I have listed for years on ebay and had good luck selling most of the things I listed. Heck, we sold two motorcycles on ebay several years ago.  My husband has retired and has a boatload of tools that he gave the best of to the Princess' Dad because he can use them. What is left he is selling a piece at a time.

But the way ebay operates has changed over the years and now auctions are not as popular as the Buy It Now (BIN) and the BIN/OBO(or best offer). I guess that gives the customer more control over the final price and the only person they have to deal with is the seller, not a number of unknown people bidding on the same thing.

I have a boatload of stuff (think Titanic size)   I could sell and a smaller boatload (think USS Minnow size) of things I want to sell. I mean, I can't get rid of all of my collections at one time. The house would be too clean and that would be a disaster.

I have decided to bite the bullet and sort through my collections and get rid of some things. I know, my family will disown me, but I'll have to take that chance. 

I have a store now on ebay. Stores give you a better listing price, but they charge more of the final sale. Nobody wins but ebay and paypal (owned by ebay). I have been looking around for an alternative to ebay. Etsy, I have two shops there, is for handmade and vintage. Not just regular stuff like ebay. I have found an alternative that I hope will work out.

It is called  Bonanza. No not the one with the Cartwright boys and Pa. This is an auction site like ebay, but much more seller friendly. I don't have much listed, but I am working on it. So check me out and see what I have. Check back later cause I hope to have more stuff listed.

As soon as I add more hours to the day......

NEW DIRECTIONS

I have been busy this week. I am trying to make my house qualify for Hoarding.......
Well, not really, but it sure looks that way.

I had just cleaned up after the Princess' visit when Nikki, the good kitty, died. Then other problems came along and it seemed like there was no time in the day for anything FUN.

I want some FUN, I need some FUN. What I really need are some FUNDS....

Oh I know, lets sell some cemetery plots. For real. My parents had two places they had purchased for their final spot. Now, keep in mind that they could only use one. Time to sell some little pieces of real estate.

I also decided, after having a bunch of items to list on ebay, that I needed MORE to do. Ebay fees will eat you alive if you don't have the right listing skills. Selling items one by one in an auction format eat up a tremendous amount of time and often ebay makes more money than you do.  So I started to research how to make a little money, clean out some clutter and stay busy so I don't go absolutely crazy.

Well folks, I took the plunge and opened an ebay store. Call me crazy, but I am hoping to make some coin of the realm.  I know I won't get rich, but at least I can get some return for all of the  junk collections of treasures I have. Check me out here.

Besides, I can't be on Hoarders I need a haircut, mani and pedi and not until I lose at least 50 lbs!!!

I almost forgot, how is the Plastic Bag Challenge going?
Here's what you could win if you use the most cloth bags this month and the least plastic bags

This is a vintage bark cloth reusable bag, made by little ol' me.

Personally, I have only received 3 plastic bags this month!!!!! I have used recycled bags every single time except one day.(So, I'm allowed to forget ONE time) I even took my own bags to the thrift store. The clerk at Goodwill said that I was one in a thousand.

Hey I need more company. It's lonely at the top(?)...

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, YOUNG LADY?

I really haven't forgotten my blog, really I haven't.

It's just that thing called life keeps getting in the way.
I keep applying for jobs and just get the standard acknowledgement. Thank you...blah...blah...blah
But I keep trying and trying and trying.....
Old ladies need jobs too...

I enjoyed having my granddaughters here for a few days. They are fun, exciting, interesting and very tiring.

Everybody wears a cat play house as a robot costume, don't they?

This is a cat toy that has gotten recycled into a robot costume. Princess 2 has a great imagination.

Now that I look at that sequin purse, IT DOES look like Santa's beard.

Now why would kids want to use something as intended? Of course that is how we got some clever inventions. Thinking outside the box, or in this case, outside the cat toy.

MORE.... THRIFT THERAPY

To finish out my craptastic week, I felt the need to go yard sale-ing. That turned out to be a good choice. Last week end you couldn't buy a yard sale, this weekend they were all over the place.

The first stop was just down the road from our little castle. That was our best stop of the day. I was immediately dazzled by the array of TOYS!!! I have a little princess that has a birthday this month and I have been on the look out for something appropriate. She loves Littlest Pet Shop and this first stop had loads and loads of LPS and Polly Pocket. I loaded up on LPS.

I decided on the playground. Everything there except for part of the dog walk.

And a basket of 57 LPS animals, several duplicates, but a fantastic find. Also a LPS talking diary (with a guard dog that barks) from another stop. And a bag of PEZ holiday dispensers.
And two more great finds from this stop for fantastic prices and going straight to ebay.

A Melissa and Doug Wooden Dollhouse !!!

Melissa and Doug are not at home, they must be out yard sale-ing!!

And a Breyer Barn, with everything but the horse.

I must commend the parents of the two girls who owned these toys. They kept them in such great shape and they still played with them. And then they sold them and got to spend the money on something new.

Other sales yielded some royal garments for the princesses and some small items for ebay.

I haven't seen this Hello Kitty game before, hardly played with.

Some of the clothes I picked up and a Harmony Care Bear (sings and dances) and an I Know Your Name Elmo, that works. I always hesitate to pick up things that require batteries, but I was lucky this time and they both worked.

I was sitting in the den, going over all of the toys, checking for damage and just seeing what was there, when my SweetiePie says, "I'm going to have to limit the number of toys that you buy". I guess if I am playing with my toys he feels neglected......

I am linking up with Apron Thrift Girl this week.

THRIFT THERAPY

If you are like me and have had a craptastic week, to quote a friend, I have the solution. Thrift therapy is just the thing you need to exhaust you in 100F heat and lift your spirits.

Only hit two stores yesterday. The big, big thrift and her little sister. All of this came from the big, big thrift. All I purchased at the little sister was some old classroom abc ephemera, colored pencils for the grand kids and a tupperware bread saver.

I have been looking for a Starbucks mug for a while. They seem to sell well on ebay and I could use the money. Finally found one, a 16 oz from 2007 with an older logo. Also a Lion Coffee Hawaiian Islands mug and a Konitz mug. Also picked up a vintage aluminum cocktail shaker with the original four shot glasses. I think the shaker was from a travel set. The clothes in the back are for resale. I haven't tried my hand at clothes yet. I have researched and found certain high end clothes sell for quite a bit. These are not high end, just medium end. We will see how they go. Only spent $2 on the clothes, so no big loss if they don't go for high dollar.

The other item I found deserved a picture all by itself. Most of the knick knacks at the big, big thrift were half price so I took a chance on this. My daughter and I had seen it a couple of weeks ago and had a good laugh about it. I didn't expect it to still be sitting on the shelf. But here it is in all its glory......A hand made treasure from pottery class, and only 38c. I present to you Mr. Richard Head.......and you know what his friends call him.

Don't you know somebody's Momma is proud!!

I think I need more thrift therapy today, don't you?

A GOOD KITTY

Our house is full of kitties. Our daughter has 3 kitties and we have one. Or as is almost always the case, the kitties have us. We feed them and clean out their poop and they may let us scratch their tummies and brush them when they feel like it.

Most of the time our kitties get along pretty good. Sniffing each other and stealing the other ones food. Do we tell them it is from the same bag? They don't care. They are pulling one over on the other one.

When our daughter moved in the kitties had to adapt. Our kitty, Nikki, woke up one day and found strange kitties in HER house. It took some getting used to. She never did warm up to Simon. Two alpha kitties don't get along. So our daughter kept Simon in her rooms during the day so Nikki didn't feel threatened.  Worked out pretty good.

How did she know it was lasagna? Garfield would be proud.

We found Nikki at the Animal Shelter. A great choice for us. She was an older cat, we were an older couple who didn't want a kitten. She was about a year old when we brought her home and she had already been fixed. She warmed up to us right away and became a part of the family. We joked and said we got her because she matched the floor in the kitchen. Nikki was sorta a rare cat. Only about 10% of orange tabbies are female.

Princess Pumpkin Butt 

Where's my other foot?

Nikki died on Sunday morning.

She had not been herself for the last several weeks. She had taken to walking around in circles, only turning right. You couldn't force her to turn left. If you put a treat on her left side, she didn't see it. Give it to her on her right side and she gobbled it up. She didn't like to jump up on the couch unless she had to and didn't go upstairs much lately.She was eating well and no problem with the litter box. We don't know what happened. She had asthma and when she died she was fighting for air. She was fine on Saturday night. She and Firefly were chasing a bug when we went to bed.

Come on, it's time for bed

Here, let me help

SweetiePie and I were there when she died. I'm glad she wasn't alone. I just wish she could have understood that we loved her and we will miss her. I think she did.

A ROYAL VISIT

Woo Hoo.....oh my goodness. My little princess grand daughters are coming to spend the night. I must lay in provisions fit for the princess's.(where does that ' go?)

Kool-Aid, chocolate milk, popsicles, chocolate chip cookies, ice cream........

Fill them up, play with them, and send them home before the sugar kicks in.

Proper attire is required for tea parties

Can you tell I'm excited?

CHALLENGE UPDATE #2

OK How have you done on the All American Shopping Challenge?

I have done fair, not as good as I wanted to.  I did take a short trip in June and ended up spending about $20 on non-American items. IKEA just does not have very many American made items. But they do have a few, just none that I wanted or needed.

I needed a diamond dust cutting wheel for my new  yard sale purchased wet saw. None were made in the USA. So I had no choice but to purchase Made in China.

All of my food purchase with the exception of about $10 has been American. Chocolate from Sweden (IKEA)and one can of mandarin oranges. None of the mandarin oranges were produced in the USA.

My daughter and I have a disagreement over thrift store purchases. She argues that there are many things there that were manufactured overseas and they should not count. I disagree. Sure they were manufactured overseas and the original purchaser bought them and the money paid for the overseas purchase. When I purchase from the TS my money stays in the USA, most of the time in the county where the purchase was made. Plus many TS jobs are created with the money I spend.Unless the employee sends the money somewhere it is spent locally.

I didn't keep track of my total purchases for the month, just the foreign ones. I would guess that my foreign purchases added up to 1% or less of my total spending.

On a recent trip to the $store I saw lots of things I could have purchased, but I used self control and saved my money. I may purchase some of the items in the future, but I will still try to find American alternatives.

We were talking at lunch today about the possibility of an All American Dollar Store. I would love to know if it could be done and still be profitable. I'm thinking that there would be a very limited variety of items in the store. I think I need to do a little research and see what is out there.

How did you do on the challenge?


Want to join the next challenge of no plastic bags for a whole month? The winner will receive a handmade (by me) market bag. Just keep track of the number of plastic bags you received  and the number of reusable bags you used while shopping for the month of July, starting today. You can keep a personal total or a family total. I'll check back on August 1st for a tally. Good Luck

347

The weather here has been brutal. I mean, is the grass suppose to be brown and crunchy?

Time for some thrift therapy.

My daughter and I went to a BIG thrift store yesterday. I mean we are talking Home Depot Big. I think the building was at one time a home improvement store. Maybe not HD, but something like that. Anyhoo, it is big and you can look for hours.

They have lots of shelves full of junque  an interesting selection of various goods. I am a home goods kinda girl. Dishes, pots and pans, and toys and such. This is the place that has these huge wooden bins filled with various clothing articles and household stuff. I once got an almost new PINK sleeping bag for the princess palace for 25 cents. Not to mention lots of summer t shirts and shorts for the princess palace and other members of the family.

I am in the process of using my scraps from my t shirt market bags and crocheting rag rugs.   I am color coordinated so I needed a few more teal blue, gray and navy    t shirts to complete a rug for one of my bathrooms. Can't beat 4/$1.00 and you can pick and choose your colors.

Stack of 25 t shirts in the colors I needed.

Vintage Harvest Gold Tupperware (syrup or creamer dispenser), aluminum pitcher and MINT vintage bud vase (marked USA). I think the bud vase is McCoy, but can't find it in the book....

An assortment of toys. The F-P little house reminds me of Romeo and Juliet, with the balcony. A homemade Raggedy Ann (needs a few stitches and washing, but in good shape), a Zapf Creations baby doll, a dreamtime carousel (Disney) and a talking doll (not Chatty Cathy) that has the worst corroded battery that I have ever seen.

Anyone know the name of the talking doll. She's not marked.

I had a friend who repaired Chatty Cathy's and I am thinking of trying to see if I can get this one to talk. May be too much for me.

Now, the big question. How much do you think I paid for all of this? 25 t shirts and 10 various other items?
Would you believe $3.47?
I know, I know.....I was flabbergasted when she told me the total.
I asked "Is that all?"

We stopped on the way home at McD to get something to drink and use the CLEAN restroom and I sat there for 15 minutes trying to figure out how in the world the lady came up with that total. I did have a filled punch card for 20% off, but geeze everything was almost free. It works out to almost 10 cents for each item.

This trip to the thrifting world will spoil me.

A FEW TREASURES....AND SOME RECIPES (?)

I made a trip to the north side of town this week and dashed by a thrift store that I don't go to very often. They have moved from my side of town and I don't go unless I am in the neighborhood. They are a group of churches that provide food and necessities for people who are in an emergency situation. A great cause and I am happy to support them when I can.

They are great because they regularly have specials on selected items. The day I stopped in they had books, buy one get one free. I can always look at books, especially older cookbooks. I am not into trying to pick out the ones that are the most valuable to sell on line and I don't have a scanner that will tell me the value of the book when I scan the ISBN, I like to fly by the seat of my pants.

Spotted these two books and this Luray pastel dessert/fruit bowl and had fun browsing all of the goodies. Only spent $1.00.

I looked everywhere for more Luray, but none to be found. Either this was the only one or it was overlooked by someone who purchased the rest. In any case about $5-6 on ebay. The Anna's Angels Cookbook, Heavenly Goodness, is a neat cookbook that was published by a group of parents of children with Downs Syndrome with the profits going to Duke University research for Downs Syndrome.

However, it was the Soul Food Cookery (1958) cookbook that really surprised me. I checked on abebooks.com and there was one listed for $59.99 and $8.99  When I checked ebay there was one listed for $24.99.  I checked another site, don't remember which one, and found one listed for $99.99 A big difference in prices.

Now, to me the recipes in Soul Food Cookery are just everyday, normal recipes. I mean, I am from the South and we do eat grits, turnip greens, collards, fried catfish, down home barbecue pork and hush puppies. However, there are some recipes in this cookbook that I won't be trying. Chitterlings (chittlins'), possum, fried pigs feet, brains and eggs, mountain oysters, souse,sardines fried in butter, and cracklin bread are at the top of my list. I think I will just flip to the cake, cookies and desserts section and leave all of the other stuff to someone else.

The instructions don't say if road kill is acceptable.

These are for rabbit...."start with a fresh rabbit" and pigeon pie or if you want to get really fancy "squab" which is hi-faluting for young pigeon.

Now growing up I lived on a farm. I went huntin' just like my big brothers. They taught me to hunt. My Mom's rule was if you killed it, you skinned and cleaned it, and she would cook it.
 So.... I need to add to my resume squirrel hunting, frog gigging, deer hunting, fishing and cleaning and skinning the meat of the day?         Ahhhh......don't think so.

Hungry yet?

FLAMINGO FEET

I usually don't go for PINK....but my  two little Princess grand-daughters LOVE pink. These were picked up at the thrift store for $1.50 and they are a little big. But they are PINK and I think they look like.....

                                                                    FLAMINGO FEET.....