This month:
Ended up with Sea Lavender.
Went to Goodwill yesterday in search of a backpack for my upcoming trip. Found two, at bargain prices. Resisted the yarn and puzzles (Yay Me!), did find a pack of 3-D dog erasers. Best find was a GladLock container full of jewelry-making stuff, including a pair of round-nose pliers and a pair of wire cutters. Only $2.86 for the whole container, so I bought it.
While I waws there, I saw a set of dishes, in a familiar pattern. Mikasa Studio Nova's Adirondack pattern. Now, 25+ years ago, I bought two cups and saucers in this pattern for my college dishes. Always liked the pattern. But I didn't buy them yesterday.
Yeah, I went back today. For $75, I came home with I believe 8 dinner plates, 6 salad plates, and 6 sandwich or luncheon plates. Plus four plain white bowls that are very deep, just the way I like them for soup. I didn't buy the serving bowls ($15 each), the coffee cups and saucers, the $10 salt & pepper set, or the wannabe sugar & creamer set that was actually a creamer and a coffee cup on an oval saucer.
I've had a Fisher Space Pen on my "someday" list for a while, but more in a "that's cool" way than an "I MUST have it" way. But this week, I lucked into a free one. I needed a pen at the Habitat for Humanity rummage sale last week, and was loaned a neat little pen by a fellow Library volunteer. I complimented the pen, and found out it was a Bullet model Space Pen, which is shorter. Turns out, he had multiple Space Pens that he'd received as gifts, and offered me one. Lovely!
So my new Space Pen is a metallic blue Bullet pen, with a tiny nick, and no clip. It had an annoying development, because the refill was loose in the barrel and it retracted a bit every time I tried to write with it. Google revealed something about spacers and springs, but I went with the lower-tech solution of putting a tiny bit of balled-up paper in the stylus end of the barrel. Problem solved.
And now I have the perfect pen to carry in my purse, because the cap won't come off, and since it's not a click pen, it won't accidentally write all over the inside of my purse.
The library and a local craft group have a craft swap about twice a year. So far, I'm doing good about taking more than I bring home. This time, I took about a bag and a half of stuff, and came home with about a bag. Only one cone of yarn, though.
Highlights:
A tatting shuttle - saves me from buying one
Beads for someone's friendship bracelet fascination, and I'll keep the jar.
A vintage, made in the US, pair of pinking shears with the original box.
A bead kit for a necklace that L will probably love.
Had some luck at one of the local auctions this week. For $15 (plus their 12% commission), I got a 1st-gen iPod Nano, 7th gen iPod Classic, and two Wyze security cameras (V1 and v2).
The iPod Nano charged up and worked fine at first, but then went dead and isn't charging at all anymore. Darn it.
But the iPod 7th gen, a 120 GB model, seems to be doing fine and have decent battery life, in spite of the sticky grunge on the front.
Haven't done any reading on the Wyze cams yet, but maybe I can make a birdfeeder cam with one of them.
This month's choices:
I went with Last Labyrinth, although it may turn out to be romantasy based on the description.
For whatever reason - supposedly for the kid's "hope chest" - I spent $5 on a box of dishes last week. About 6 place settings, with extra plates. It's a British pattern, and so pretty. If the offspring doesn't want it, I'll use it myself.
It's a pattern called Hedgerow, made in England. Blackberries and flowers.
For the bargain price of $5, we got 12 large plates, 11 medium plates (salad plates?), 4 smaller plates, 12 saucers, 9 teacups, and 4 bowls.
This month's offerings:
I'm going with Water Women, since I'm on a historical fiction kick.
I may have gone a bit backwards in the decluttering journey. Drove down to Holts Summit on Wednesday because I won some vintage puzzles in one online auction. 18 puzzles for $6.60, so I can't complain about the price, and they're all clean, stored inside instead of out in a barn somewhere.
And today, I drove out to the other online auction, because I won six different lots of books. Like, a couple hundred books, maybe. Lots of Alan Dean Foster, M.C. Beaton, Dorothy Gilman, James Herriott, etc. There are quite a few Murder She Wrote books for the kiddo, and Mary Stewart for me. Including a vintage hardcover of The Little Princesses, written by the woman (nicknamed Crawfie) who was nanny to the future Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Margaret. The plan is to spend part of tomorrow sorting out the books I want to keep (Foster, Gilman, Beaton, etc) and the ones I don't want to keep (Mary Higgins Clark, etc.) Group two will be listed cheap on Marketplace, and if they don't move quickly, will get donated somewhere - Friends of the Library, Habitat for Humanity, or somewhere like that.
Just a small rant. Listed some Hallmark things on a Facebook buy/sell group. Someone commented twice on one of them - the Mickey Mouse band - with exclamation marks. So I reply, asking for a direct message and a zip code.
48 hours later. Crickets.
Same thing happens frequently with things I post on the Freecycle/Buy Nothing groups here.
I made another $12 today - sold some Staffordshire saucers to someone who makes wreaths with them. We bought them at an estate sale, but upgraded to some with an actual British scene on them (Lochs of Scotland) instead of the Colonial American scenes.
Of course, on the way to meet the buyer, I stopped at Goodwill. Vintage puzzles were found, for a whopping $3.11 each. Also a trifle dish, and the loudest Hawaiian shirt that I own (so far).
I've also started weeding out the Hallmark ornaments and listed about a dozen. I also got the Mickey Mouse band and Angel Choir off the basement shelf, tested them all, and listed them on a Hallmark buy/sell group. These were a thing Hallmark came up with. Four or five "players" in a band, they link by radio or wi-fi somehow, and they sing songs. Each player has two songs, and if you've got the whole group, you've got 8 or 10 songs total that they sing together on. The stores would have a different one each week, feeding into the "gotta have them all" urge. Anyway. I've got a nibble on the Mickey band, and I hope it's not a tire-kicker. Mickey's gang and the angels were maybe displayed once; otherwise they've been in the basement for the last ten eyars. I'm keeping both Peanuts sets, for now. If I can get the house decluttered to a decent state, then we'll have room to get them out at the holidays and enjoy them.
I'm working harder on decluttering recently. With the Offspring in Europe for a semester, I'd like to have some very visible progress made by the time they get home.
As of right now, I've got about 30 things listed on Marketplace, and half a dozen or so on the local Buy Nothing group. Plus a few things on NextDoor, but most of those are also on MP. I'm listing a few Hallmark ornaments right now, because I've been pondering those in the post-Christmas season. Most of mine honestly have never been on a Christmas tree. Some of them were gifts from Mom.
The ones from Mom tend to be personalized non-Hallmark ornaments, or Hallmark's "Family" series that say "Daughter" or "Mother" for example. The ones with my name on them, I'll keep one or two that I like the best. The rest are getting donated. At least I've got a common name. As I told someone, I'm not at the age yet where I forget my name, so I don't need my name painted or engraved on every-damn-thing. (Note 1). The "Daughter" ornaments are getting the same treatment. Keep the one or two I like the best, donate or sell the rest. So far, I've found a "Daughter" that is a squirrel flying a plane. That one is in the Keep pile for now, given my history with squirrels. I've also got a Daughter bear, stocking, gingerbread cookie, snowman-on-a-cupcake, and gawd only knows how many more. (Note 2)
Note 1 - we've also been given some personalized family ornaments and picture frames. Those have all three of our names on them, and often the family name as well. If I can paint over the names, those will be donated. The photo frames, on the other hand, are wood, with the names engraved multiple times. Unless we have a doppelganger family somewhere, we're stuck with those.
Note 2 - The Offspring is getting their choice of the Daughter ornaments and personalized ornaments. Then we'll discuss the "Grandson" ornaments.
Another part of this process is that I've put two boxes near the door - one for things I'm selling, one for things I'm giving away. Because I've spent too much time looking for stuff that I've posted online and then put "somewhere safe" which then disappeared. Still trying to find a camera lens that someone wants. I can't find it, and I'm 99% sure I didn't donate it. And, to go along with the sign on the wall that says "I need the SPACE more than I need the money" - about every other week, everything in the "free" box is getting donated.
Exhibit A - One answer to "where does this stuff come from?!?!?" I bought these three Hagen-Renaker cats at the local auction. (The Scottish Fold on the right was a surprise, rattling around in the bottom of the box.) But, the cats came as a box-lot of stuff, including half a dozen trinket boxes, two wine stoppers, and assorted other bits and pieces. Most of that has already gone to the Habitat ReStore, although there's a nice little glass sculpture that I'm going to list for sale. But I need to get better at sorting out the keepers and non-keepers, and reducing the amount of time that everything sits around taking up space.
So far this year, I've made $16 on stuff, and gotten rid of about 30 things. Yay me!
January's choices
We get two books this month. Going with Land of Dreams and The Secrets Below. May suggest People's Library for the library to purchase.
Oh, look, I'm not waiting until the absolute last minute!!
The library has about half of these on order, and I may suggest The Heart of Everything for purchase at some point. And I'm choosing the Flightless Birds, even though I'm still not sure what "book club fiction" really is.
This month's choices:
Easy choice - Snake-Eater, because the author is T. Kingfisher and I've liked the other books I've read by them. Also, espionage/psychodrama/thriller aren't my thing, and when did "book club fiction" become a genre?
October's options: It's a 2-book month!
I've got one on hold at the library, and am getting Chasing Stardust and the Scalzi short story.
Nothing like pushing a deadline to the limit, right?
Boy, lots of psychological thrillers this month. And not just a romance, but a zombie romance! And three books that have dual-timeline stories.
I ended up with Call of the Camino; it sounds interesting. Library actually has most of these on order, except for I'll Follow You.
Took the Offspring and their bestie to the first "Vintage & Vinyl Fest" on Sunday. Given that the Offspring can spend an hour in Vintage Stock, I thought we'd be at the Fest a while. I was wrong. As it turns out, there were 17 vendors, only one of which was actually selling vinyl. Most of the rest were vintage clothing, but some were selling non-vintage stuff like handmade candles and jewelry. The Offspring came home with one $18 plaid article of clothing. The two kids went through the Fest in less than half an hour, before I could even get thirsty enough to go searching for bottled water.
In a word: underwhelming.
May's selections - 1 book, plus bonus short story
Not in the mood for thrillers & serial killers. Family & Baker look interesting, but the library has both on order. Palace at the End of the Sea also looks good and isn't on order, so that's the one this month.
April's choices
Went with When Stars Align. Best We Could Hope For and Blackberry Grange look interesting, but the library already has copies of both on order.
