CHIPS

Last year we had to have the roof replaced. We kind of waited a bit too long and had some water damage in our entryway. We didn't get around to fixing it until now. So all the spackling is done and what are we left with?

Choosing the paint color.

Unfortunately, hubby and I had a bit of a disagreement. I wanted a lighter tone--still in the terra cotta range, but he wanted something darker. (Sinister?) And you can forget the yellow and green range 'cause it ain't gonna happen.

The chips were up for a couple of weeks before he made up his decision (bottom row, third from right).

Oh well.

That said, he bought a gallon and is now hoping he'll like it on the wall and if not ... well, it was only a gallon, right?

NEW IN THE GARDEN

The garden is coming back to life. It's wonderful to go out there every day and see something new has popped up or is blooming.

These are one stand of our Irises. Every year they seem to change color. Last year they were a deep purple. Aren't they pretty?

KITSCH vs. CUTE

Okay, I admit it. I like kitschy stuff. And I like cute. And I'm trying to declutter my life while accumulating more. Go figure!

I was thinking about that $1 box lot with all the figurines I got on Saturday. Definitely kitsch. And very little I want to keep. So why did I buy it? (Yeah, the little bride and groom, but I could have offered them a quarter and not taken the rest.)

I wonder if I filled my (former) booth at the antique co-op with too much kitsch. I admit it, I often felt the need to "rescue" kitschy things. And since I made my rent on smalls, I didn't have to invest a lot of money in this kind of stuff. (But then it turned out I often made my rent on used books. First Romance was hot for me, then it cooled right off and Mystery took off.)

I find myself buying too many things to hang on the walls. And decorate shelves. I find it hard to part with some stuff. But junking is a release from my "day" job, and I sure miss having a booth at the co-op. *Sigh* I've tried to sell stuff on Craigslist, but my first two forays haven't been entirely successful. (In fact, my first listing was for something that's absolutely free. I had a taker, but she never came to pick up the item.)

But I won't give up--at least not yet. I have too many leftover pieces from my booth to part with--and hubby is getting sick of looking at my old display pieces.

WEEKEND REPORT

I'm still getting used to downloading pictures from my camera. Mind you, I've had this camera almost three years, but hubby always downloaded the pictures. I decided it was about time I learned to do it myself.

We hit a Community Sale first thing Saturday morning. All the "press" said it began at 8 a.m. We got there at 8:10 and there was no one there. Including people selling their stuff. I glanced at the few offerings and back home we went to wait for 9 a.m. and the other sales listed in the Shopper.

Not a great day for junking. As a collector of wedding cake toppers, how could I pass up this little girl and guy, Made In Japan salt and pepper shakers on their little wooden bench, and a steal at a dollar.

We went to several other sales and there was just nothing worth getting. (Bummer.) Then we stopped at a pretty big sale in Wolcott. They must have had several hundred Avon perfume bottles, glasses, whatever--still in their original boxes. And since they were cleaning out a house, they'd put just about everything else in box lots that ranged from $1 to $3. I ended up with two box lots. The first didn't have much. I bought it for the five vintage pennants (which I neglected to photograph)--the rest went right in the trash. Cost: $1.

The second box was a lot more fun. I bought it just because it had--what else?--another bride and groom. (Also Made in Japan--and probably older.) But what a treasure trove! The little kid figurine walking the dog, the parrott, the two metal coasters, the Made In Japan Indian, etc. Of course, I'm probably not going to keep them all. (Although I am partial to that green dog coaster.) There was a LOT more than this in the box, too, but it wasn't worth keeping. Cost for all this stuff: $1.

I also bought some cake pans. You know what that means...

MY LATEST FIND

Today I went to a rummage sale. I love these church sales. Lots of people donate all kinds of stuff, and if you go early enough, there's lots of really good and sometimes unusual items to choose from.

I bought a lamp with hand-painted ivy leaves (I wonder why?), but alas, no shade. I'll probably have to rewire the thing, too, as it looks like the cord is pretty brittle, but it's very cute. I'll look for a shade at other garage/tag sales before I succumb to buying a new one. (Heavens! The expense!) I bought two brand new purses (tags still on them) for a buck, a hand-painted light switch plate for 50 cents, and best of all...a carved swan. Isn't it adorable? Now how could someone have parted with that?

On the way home, I stopped at another sale and bought a pink lamp with a shade for 50 cents. (No need to rewire, either.)

I've got my Saturday garage sale route all planned. I hope it doesn't rain.

WEEKEND QUEST

Back in March, I gave up my booth at a local antique co-op. What with the economy and all, people just weren't buying antiques and collectibles--or at least enough of them for me to make my rent. This trend started more than a year ago and it just came time to give it up.

Sniff.

Of course, my booth was never as cool as I wanted it to be. First of all, I never had the money to invest in the kind of stock I wanted to sell. And there's no guarantee if I had better stock that I would have had better sales. (Many of my co-op neighbors had the kind of stock I wanted to sell, and they weren't doing any better than me.)

I bought most of my stock from garage/tag sales. I used to start shopping for stuff I could resell in early April, going to any and every garage sale. With the price of gas, I haven't been to many sales this year. But this weekend (with gas finally reaching $3.99 around these parts), we did make the rounds.

It's painful not to be able to buy the stuff I normally would. I saw so many vintage orange juice glasses in mint condition for a quarter (which were guaranteed to sell for $2.99 each...eventually), and jewelry, and dishware, and Pyrex and....

But now I'm "shopping" for other things. My family puts in requests and I go find them. My mother collects hankies with crocheted edges. Got two of them for her on Friday. Dad has broken a number of glasses. Got six of them for him. Hubby wanted a meat tenderizer. Got one of them. For myself, I'm looking for blue plates. (I'm decorating a bedroom and have chosen blue and white plates.) Found a really old one for a quarter and, even better, a bag of plate hangers (at least 15--they're a bit tangled) for $2.

A portion of my booth was devoted to used books. I can't stop looking at all the titles when I walk into a sale, and Saturday I found something I've been looking for for about a year: a beautiful hardcover edition of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (illustrated by Tasha Tudor) for fifty cents. (I've already read half of it. I'd seen two movie versions of the story, but never read the book.)

And then the holy grail of my searches: 1950s "Made In Japan" Christmas figurines. First up, a Santa & Mrs. Claus sitting on a see-saw music box; wind it up and it plays "Jingle Bells" while the Santa and Mrs. bop up and down (for $2). And then at the North Rose Ladies Auxilery sale at the fire hall, a duplicate of what started my collection about 15 years ago: a Santa and reindeer "candleabra" that spells out NOEL. Now, do I really need a second one? Of course not, but it was only a buck. In mint condition--IN THE ORIGINAL BOX!!!!!!

In all, I spent less than $10, but boy, what cheap entertainment.

My Dream House

One of my favorite TV shows is This Old House. I marvel at the amount of effort they go through with their rehab projects. Currently, PBS is airing reruns of a shingle-style home in Newton, Massachusetts. The couple outgrew their house and didn't want to spend a lot of money adding on to the house. Instead, they bought a HUGE home that just needed a little work.

Little? My god, for what they spent on that rehab, I could've bought five houses! Where do these people get that kind of money?

But I love the show anyway. I love the "hosts" (Kevin, Norm, Tom, Rich and Roger--hmm...no women). I love the attention to detail. Last Saturday I watched a rerun of a show I'd missed. It concerned stained glass restoration. Wow. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. If I had some kind of crafty talent (which I don't), I'd be interested in trying stained glass. (Maybe I should take a class anyway?)

I love watching home renovations. This Old House takes months for these rehabs, unlike other rehab shows that take an entire house and fix it up in 30 minutes. I learned with my very first house that every home improvement project takes 6 million hours longer than you expect.

I live in a contemporary ranch and I would DEARLY love to add details like crown molding. My husband doesn't agree. Therefore, anything I want to do in that direction would need to be accomplished at our summer cottage. Unfortunately, I don't have any "building" skills, either. (Hmmm.)

Our entire neighborhood is nice, but pretty much...well, boring. And our neighbors to the south are making their house even MORE boring by ripping off all the cedar shingles and replacing them with vinyl siding. Beige vinyl siding. (Our house is unique to this street, which is at least a tad more interesting.)

I don't know about where you live, but here any time a new neighborhood goes up around here all the houses are ugly (do these builders ever hire real architects to design these houses--and if so did they graduate with mail-order degrees?), outfitted with white, beige or gray vinyl siding. All of the fronts of these houses are dominated by a double (or triple) garage. All the mature trees are ripped out and twigs are planted. (We call these developments "Sunny Acres," and there sure are a lot of them.)

When I first thought about owning a home, I wanted an old one. Preferably a farm house. All three of my homes have been one-story buildings--one a shotgun, two ranch houses. Don't get me wrong. I love my house. I just wish the details were more, well, girly. Hubby doesn't agree.

Maybe I should have married a woman.