Garage Sale-ing

One of my favorite Saturday morning activities is garage sale-ing.  When I'm not sweating it out at a swim meet or watching my children scream on a soccer field, that is.  I love driving around neighborhoods, looking at houses, and seeing what people are discarding and selling for pennies on the dollar.  Some mornings, it's a bust--I'll drive around for a couple of hours, stopping at a half dozen places without buying anything.  Other mornings, like today, I find goodies everywhere I go.  

 

Like this.  Who doesn't need a Womens' Restroom sign?

It was free with the purchase of $3 game of Mousetrap, and it will soon be proudly displayed on the picture board in Harper's room.

And I found these cute Polo shoes in my size for $1 (I talked their previous owner down from $6).  They're navy blue and in great shape.  The stranger's foot fungus was free with purchase.

Two rolls of sassy wrapping paper free with several odds and ends from an estate sale:

If I ever lived in house that was just way too big, I would love to have an entire room just for wrapping paper and such.

This completely impractical lone piece of china for $3 at the estate sale:

I have no idea what I will ever use it for, but I felt like I needed it at my house.

I am always a little bit fascinated by estate sales.  The door to the house is open, and strangers wander around scooping up the remnants of a person's life up for sale to the highest bidder.  It always makes me wonder what my own estate sale will consist of.  Will neighbors haggle over my childhood Christmas ornaments?  Will people wonder why we owned the entire series of BBC's "All Things Great and Small" on DVD?  Will a mommy taking a morning to bargain shop sans kiddos scoop up the lone blue and white plate and wonder what happened to the rest of the set?  

I looked at old kitchen gadgets, extra lightbulbs, random bits of furniture, and one of those "I've fallen and I can't get up" type of monitor systems.  (Since I was at the estate sale, I'm thinking this monitor system perhaps didn't work out too well.)  Along with the wrapping paper and plate, I stumbled across  a copy of Lake Wobegon Days that I picked up for Brandon, and this Bible:

I went to look for the copyright date, and found this inscription instead:

The (almost indiscernible) sentimental part of me could not resist it.

I also scored:

4 sprinklers-- 50 cents each (have I mentioned that we have not had rain the entire month of June?  And our grass is HURTING)

child's outdoor chair-- 25 cents

3 outfits for Harper--50 cents each

2 jeans for Dane-- 75 cents each

2 shorts for Dane and Aidan--50 cents each

a new Leapster, still in package-- $8 (we seem to have lost ours)

new in package GI Joe action figures-- $3

I returned home to spend the rest of the day with my family.  As of right now the baby is sleeping and all 3 boys are playing outside in one of the new sprinklers.  

A good Saturday, indeed.