This weekend was fabulous. DH, myself and DH's Aunt "Honey" went estate sale shopping. Well, actually, dh went to one estate sale and then Honey and I promptly dropped him back off at home and we went back out. Love him but he isn't much fun to go out with because he doesn't like driving around. He wants all the sales to be next door to each other, like garage sales. lol. So, he stayed home and helped the neighbors with their individual sales - it was our subdivision garage sale weekend. I can barely stand going to garage sales anymore. Estate sales and auctions give me the thrill I'm searching for. (Although having said that I did attend a neighbors sale because I heard she was selling power tools. Another fav of mine. I picked up a Dewalt scroll saw for a very sweet price! Seriously sweet.).
This weekend I changed things up a bit and used our TomTom instead of printing out directions on MapQuest. It worked beautifully!- First, I circle in the newspaper the sales I want to attend.
- Second, I input the addresses in the TomTom.
- Third, I go into each addresses using TomTom and find out how far away they are from my current location. I mark that information on the actual ad itself. If some are too far away I will re-evaluate the ad to see if it's one I still want to go to.
- Fourth, I mark on the ad's the order that I want to go to, starting with the one furthest away. This way when I'm out I don't have to think. I just follow the #'s indicated. When we are leaving a sale I just navigate quickly to the new address. What's great about this system is the TomTom always knows where I'm at. So when I'm at sale #3 and want to go to sale #4 I just pick the address of sale #4 and it gives me door to door driving instructions from sale #3. It's AWESOME! And with my system, by the time we reach the last sale, we are close to home.
I wish I could tell you I found that special piece but I didn't. Picked up a few wire baskets and a couple date stamps but that was it. Here are a few pictures from the trip of houses we went to and items I looked at but didn't want to pursue:
To finish the day off I went to Three French Hens. I've never been there before and had always wanted to go but was never really sure where it was. When I ran into it I knew I was going to have to make a stop. While I was there I caught my eye on these two pieces. These can be custom made to size and I've been thinking of something like this for our TV. A really long and low piece. I wonder if I can make it? Hmmmm. Maybe I could use my scroll saw.
And, as a follow-up. A few days ago I expressed my feelings for our local DMV office. Such a dreary, ugly place... yet, there is a very large, gold, ornate frame of the Gov. Blunt which I found so out of place. I did have to go back and this time taking a picture of it was a priority (I'm sure the guy standing behind me wondered what the heck I was doing!). Here it is:
Isn't that funny? Normally I crop my photos - I prefer close-ups. But, in this case, I wanted to show the contrast. Actually, this wall is the nicest in the whole place. You should see the door they cut out of the wall (on the wall to the left of this picture). They literally cut the door out and have not trimmed it. Nor did they make a neat, clean cut. Such an inspiring place to work I'm sure.
