Archive for the 'Antique Junk Drawer' Category

There Were Clues All Along

August 21, 2007 | Antique Junk Drawer

Once upon a time there was a young boy named Richard in elementary school in East Texas.  One day Richard was suffering from a bad case of spring fever and all he could do was lean on his elbows with his chin in his hands and stare out the window at the beautiful blue sky.  “Richard!” snapped his teacher, jarring him back to reality. “Pay attention! What kind of job do you think you’re going to get staring out the window at the clouds all day?” she admonished.  Richard is Sean’s Godfather and today he flies commercial airplanes – he sits in the cockpit and stares out the window at clouds all day.

When my brother was a little guy, my parents bought him a toy tool kit for Christmas one year.  His favorite hobby became disassembling anything he could get his hands on. Today he makes his living taking helicopters and airplanes apart and putting them back together. 

One of my earliest memories is going to the grocery store with my mom. I was fascinated by the cashier. Back in those days, before scanners and bar codes, the cashier manually pushed buttons for the price of each item.  I thought being a cashier would be a great job if it meant getting to push buttons all day.  Today I spend a lot of time sitting behind my computer pushing buttons.  On the other hand I wanted to be a nun too, so maybe it’s just coincidence.

What did you want to be when you were growing up and are you doing it?

Garage Sales

March 11, 2007 | Antique Junk Drawer

This past weekend was our annual neighborhood garage sale. I like garage sales, but with a three-year-old in tow, I don’t go to very many. The effort of lugging a toddler around, getting him in and out of a car seat and keeping him out of stuff and/or running off trumps the possibility of finding an original Declaration of Independence which I would probably just toss in the trash after I let Sean play with it for a few days.

Garage sales, much like trips to Wal-Mart, are interesting studies in humanity and when you go to your neighbor’s garage sale, it’s somewhat less interesting and just weird. It’s like peeking in someone’s window. Yet we do it anyway.

Saturday morning in North Texas was the perfect day for a garage sale. It was sunny and clear and about 75 degrees. So we loaded up Sean in his wagon and set off to see what and whom we could see. When I told Sean that we were going to some garage sales and that maybe we could find some toys to buy, without missing a beat he offered, “Yeah, or maybe some books!” See why it’s hard to not indulge him?

The first place we stopped was at the house of a friend of mine. Carol had her husband’s motorcycle sitting out front with a price of $14,500. I would have gotten it for Antique Daddy as a companion for his other motorcycle that sits in his mother’s garage going on 25 years now, but I couldn’t talk Carol down to the $80 I had in my pocket which is what I think motorcycles in general are worth. And just because Carol was also selling Tim’s golf clubs and a bunch of his clothes probably isn’t any reason to start a rumor. Although I didn’t see Tim anywhere. Sean picked out a 1950s children’s book and a pocket version of a New Testament, which I thought was unusual because he usually prefers to read the Greek version of the New Testament. Carol wouldn’t allow us to pay for the books because a) she is so very kind and/or b) to get rid of us. So we thanked her and continued on our adventure.

The next stop was our friend’s house that we like to use as the local Emergency Room. They were kind of doing a combined sale with the people next door. Between the two families there are six kids and so they had a lot of stuff. In spite of the abundance of toys, at this stop, Sean only wanted to buy a box of lemon flavored Girl Scout cookies and once again, we tried to pay but were denied. Apparently our neighbors think we are indigent, a reputation we like to cultivate.

Aside: Darn those Girl Scouts and their delicious lemon cookies! Darn them all to heck!

As we went from house to house, we found that some people were friendly and enjoyed the interaction and others acted like we were from the wrong side of the tracks and could barely bring themselves to speak to us. Some had tons of fun stuff, others had teeny tiny tables of junk and I wondered why they would even bother. Some wanted to just give stuff away, others had inflated notions about the value of their crap stuff. Nonetheless, we got out and about and met some of our neighbors and it was fun.

At the end of the day, Sean spent $7 and got a Lego’s table which included a giant box of Lego’s (because the 14 million Lego’s we currently have are just not enough). He also got a backpack full of Lincoln logs and a nifty little toy tool kit. I got two just-like-new companion tapestries for $50 which look as though they were custom made for my house.

Do you garage sale? If so, what’s the coolest thing you ever bought? Me first: Last year I got two St. John outfits, just my size, tags still on, for $1 each.

Mug Shots

June 21, 2006 | Antique Junk Drawer

Veronica Mitchell of Toddled Dredge tagged me with this Mug Shot meme which was started by Julie of Bookworm — both excellent writers.  If you haven’t already discovered their blogs, by all means go treat yourself.

This mug became my favorite when Sean was about a year old.  As I was drinking from it one morning - one very bad Mary-Tyler-Moore-in-pajamas kind of morning - he studied it intently. Then he pointed to the dog behind the dryer and began laughing hysterically.  Once it became clear that he appreciated The Far Side, I knew we were going to keep him.  Far Side appreciation is kind of a prerequisite if you want to hang around here.

So what about you Shalee and Shannon?  Show us your mug shot!