I Just Love Junking

If my teacher asked me to write an essay on something that I love to do it would be about junkin'. I just love to go junkin'.  Searching for just the right item at the best price. Thrift stores, garage sales, antique shops, yard sales are all good but an estate sale is the best.  

Some sales are mislabeled on Craigslist.  The Blaine High School Band was having an estate sale this weekend.  Seriously, if the whole BHS band died I think we would have read about it in the news.  And if they'd all died I do not think they would be trying to fund a trip to Japan.  Just sayin'.

At estate sales that are really estate sales I some times find kindred souls. Except their souls aren't here on earth anymore.  But if I'd met some of these dear people when they were alive I know we could have been friends.  Not every estate sale but there have been a few that after I left I felt like I'd been to a friend's home.

Last week I went to a sale where I could feel how creative the couple was, both of them.  Her sewing room and his wood shop in the basement belonged to creative people.  I loved how he'd labeled everything in the shop with cut out letters.  It's a dear man that sorts his screws and then labels the cans like a teen age girl cutting out a collage from her old Seventeen magazines.

Everything in the house was clean.  The picnic thermos was dirty on the outside (it'd had been in the garage) but the inside was perfect.  Three dollars and a little elbow grease and it's good to go to Mt. Baker filled with hot cocoa for a snow day.

 The matching luggage is for the Curtis Wright.  It is clean and has no odor.  Anyone that has ever bought vintage luggage knows that is a modern day miracle to find luggage without an odor.

This morning Hubby and I went to a sweet cottage in Fairhaven. I found something that I have been trying to find forever, since we started working on Annie, anyway.  It's a clothesline to attach to the outside of the trailer, so beach towels and swim suits can dry in the breeze. It's aqua!  I have seen them before and they were always the wrong color or their owners were very proud of them.

There was a lot of aqua in the cottage, and a lot of vintage Christmas decorations.  It was a small house and very crowded so I didn't see everything and I left a lot of great things behind but I got enough.

Five deer, a lot of glass garland, some sweet boxes and the most  kitchy garland I have ever seen.  It has pine cone elves.

It was a dear woman's home today.  She made do with what she had and saw no need to always replace things.  She was Catholic and collected crucifixes. She read horror stories, which seemed out of character. She was a baker, a gardener and must have loved decorating for Christmas. A kindred soul, if you will.   I'm going to enjoy her good sense of style.
I like to think we could have been friends. I know I'll enjoy that clothesline!  It's definitely the FIND of the summer.