Poor Joyce

My friend Gail went to an estate sale recently and hit a goldmine. (I was unable to attend as I'd had a surgical procedure 3 days earlier involving a humorless gynecologist, a hot anesthesiologist and an ovary the size of a tennis ball.) Anyway, it was one of those sales that is described in the local paper as a "72 year accumulation". Gail found an assortment of fabulous objects, but the real treasure was a pile of old scrapbooks that had once belonged to a gal named Joyce. She had lovingly placed every greeting card she had ever received in the books, they were dated chronologically from 1959. Our Joyce had even noted the weight of each of the scrapbooks on the inside cover. I'm thinking that Joyce had WAY too much time on her hands. So, the scrapbook from the 1964 has this written message: "To my family, Please handle carefully. I hope it gets handed down from one generation to the next generation with whoever is the keeper of it will care for it, and treasure it as much as I have." Fast forward a few decades and the scrapbooks are piled up on the living room floor while dozens of strangers paw through her stuff. The price: $10.00 each. Priceless!

Church Rummage Sales

Tag sales are fun and estate sales are yummy, but my favorite kind of sale has always been a church rummage. Not sure if it's the old book smell, the prices, (you can still find stuff for 15 cents) the gals at the cashier's table adding up prices on a Bridge pad with a broken pencil or the mountains of vintage Christmas stuff. Any-hoo, the point is, the elements that all fine church rummage sales have in common are shown here: A handpainted sign advertising coffee and hot dogs, homemade cookies wrapped in Saran Wrap and a perfectly pleasant gal serving crappy coffee in Styrofoam cups. A Junker's Paradise!

The part where my husband puts his foot down

Since estate sale season has started, the garage is starting to...well, you know, get full. I have every good intention of sorting, cleaning, boxing, pricing for my space, listing on eBay, passing along gems to fellow hoarders; but sometimes the best intentions go awry. Recently, my husband was actually trying to FIND something in the garage (Puh-leeze!) and when he comes back in the house, I can tell he is trying to keep his cool. "Honey..."he says, "looks like there's a lot of stuff piling up in the garage, and do I see more CHRISTMAS decorations?????" "Yes, darling" I purr..."Isn't it just WONDERFUL???" So last night, I spent the evening with a bottle of red wine and while Michael Feinstein sang Gershwin tunes, I sorted, cleaned, boxed, etc. Next stop: my studio. My husband never goes in there.