when it rains, it really pours around here

We were told when we moved here that the weather in central TX is a perpetual drought punctuated by period flooding. I thought that was both humorous and so true. Little did I know that the person who mentioned this didn't just mean the climate but also my whole life!

You all know about the flooding in central TX about 2 weeks ago when we got 12-18 inches of rain in one night in our county. Rain up to the chin of one lady who was walking home from her kids' bus stop! Water in the Belton Hospice Thrift Shop (highest prices in town!), water water everywhere and not a drop to drink for the town of Holland because a collapsed bridge, due to swollen river, took out their water pipe too.
Well now it is Corpus Christi's turn.

And my life....well it has flooded as well.

The auction with the potting bench from my past posting was 2 Sundays ago already. The complete gardening auction brought $500, $20 under its retail value. But the "best" part of the story is that while the home made bench was being delivered all. the. tiles. came. off.
So I spent the rest of Saturday regluing tiles and regrouting tiles and THEN setting up the display for the gardening auction. Turns out that while thinset is a perfect glue for floor tiles that are going on floors, it isn't such a good glue for potting benches that will be turned on their backs to be delivered and driven over bumpy roads. Remember that if ever you are gluing down tiles that might get sideways and get bumped along the road.

Last week I was feeling pretty sickly from Tues night on...Fever of 101 with terrible pains in my achy body. Spent All day Weds and Thurs on the couch and in bed. Friday attempted to live life and ended up with fever over 102 that evening. Spent Sat and Sun on the couch and bed and finally today I feel good enough to live again.
But during all of that we noticed some strange bug bites on our youngest's body. Took him to the Dr on Fri and found out that the reason they look so strange is because they are not bug bites at all, but SHINGLES. His oldest brother already made the requisite joke and applying him to the roof, so you all can forget about sending me that one.
Now shingles can be pretty painful, esp. in the elderly---the usual ones to get shingles. but since we recently found out that said youngest child is hypo sensitive (that is he doesn't feel as intensely with his nerve endings as the rest of us) it turns out they aren't quite as painful as they could be. But still we are applying cold compresses of dome burro once or twice a day as he complains.
Oh and did I mention that the same son also has ring worm in his hair---which has to be treated with a 30 day regimen of pills? And just started on a new medicine for another condition that I won't bother you with here and now.
So can you understand the tears that came to my (hot, feverish) eyes on Fri AM when his Dr pronounced shingles to be his problem?
Now fast forward to my own Dr appt on Fri afternoon....
when I am expecting to hear pneumonia (I had it two years ago) or some other equally quick to get over it with a few pills disease and he says MONO. mono? NO! that takes forever to get over. But alas, no phone call today means negative test for mono so merrily we roll along.....all the way to.....
the mechanic who pronounces the transmission in our van dying a fast death and unworthy of travel.
And then pronounces a whopping $4600 bill for said transmission. ARGH!

And that leads me to my newest project of the week. Listing on ebay. trying to make up just a teensy tiny part of that $4600 surprise. Below are pictures of some of the things that I listed. My username is hitransplant, as in we had been transplanted to Hawaii when I started using ebay and I have never bothered to change my name on ebay even after we were then transplanted to Germany and now Texas.



rare vintage pyrex lid

Dionne quintuplets paper fan from Blair, Cochran and Potts in Belton
10 lb mercury jug with rare paper label still attached

one of 2 valentine couples I have listed
Miss USA 1964-65 doll in pristine condition
One of 5 calendar plates, all different pictures, all different years

I bought it and they came!

Terry Lee, Vonetta and Bonnie

Terry Lee, of "all things Terry Lee" ( see blog links on the right) came Saturday morning with her junkin' friends to peruse my garage and left with a handful of delites. Pink metal washtubs, white enamel bowls, yellow plastic purse, scrabble letters and what nots. The best part of the morning WAS NOT the money, though I enjoy making money and recouping what I spend. The best part was watching them ooh and ahh over the very same things that delighted me enough to buy and collect them in the first place. Kindred souls.
Vonetta is the one who likes to set up a photo op so she found this painting from the yard sale leftover stash, added a box that I painted and decoupaged and tried on a hat from the sale yard sale leftovers. How adorable!

THANKS ladies for the money, for the company and for being kindred souls. I need that kind of support every once in awhile to know that I am not alone out here in central texas junkin' land.

Who let her loose with a checkbook?

OK, there is a country song that goes : "I knew what I was feelin', but what was I thinkin'?"
Well it is written about a completely different set of circumstances but that one line fits just as well right here, right now.
I bought out the end of a yard sale yesterday! take a look at my van. (Mom, this is what my van looks like when it is packed FULL, not that little bit of nothing we bought in TN/AL.)

Right sliding door view.
Shot gun!
BACK view Trash bags are aluminum cans to drop of at the high school for recycling, but the rest is all yard sale.
Left sliding door view.

The rest of the pictures are boxes of stuff. I have gone thru about 90% of it already. First of all it is all covered with dirt so every time I come in from the garage, I am filthy.
I have made 4 piles. One is for my own yard sale and booth sales. One pile is to donate to our school flea market. One pile is to try to sell on ebay. And one pile is out right trash.

The seller of these goods was helping a friend clean out her parents' estate and these are the left overs from their antique shop. Some real cool stuff, some "what's that" stuff and lots of common, ordinary, vintage crap, er, priceless treasures that people will pay me a lot of money for.
frames. some with pictures, some empty. some 1900, some 1970.
really old baskets. really really old, with a few more modern thrown in
only one hat and then this doll. The sellers didn't know what she was and neither did any of the customers who gawked at her. She sits in a metal coffee can that is full of something---possibly concrete, Her skirt is pink leather petals sewn in rows onto muslin. She is porcelain or bisque and is missing one arm. And then there is the handle. A doorstop? maybe, but then why a handle? Some sort of home made air freshener? Any ideas???
glassware and odds and ends
glassware, coffee mugs, jars, bottles, and what nots.
A small St Joseph statue, a 1990's picture frame and some brown pottery bowls
more old baskets
This lamp base caught my eye. It is transparent with this color glaze on top of clear glass with gold painted at the top and the base. No lamp parts at all, just this base. Would be a good vase too, if you put a water tight container in it first.
LOTS of clear glassware....stemware, bowls, mugs,
Some cool metal ware under that T fal pan that is most decidedly not vintage or antique but garbage.
this metal rack is cool and fits into a peg board. metal tins, some so old that the paper labels are falling off the rusty metal. a few pieces of lu ray , wooden tray, wooden shelves
cigar box full of tiny glass lids for canning jars. a couple of folder/boxes for tools. One has some tools in it still and two are empty. also a couple for steak knives.

Not pictured....lots of calendar plates from various years. What a cool gift to give someone a plate from the year they were born or the year they got married as a gift!
Some Noritake, some Lefton, some made in Japan, one German dishes, plates, saucers, bowls, etc. Two dolls in their boxes. One is a sweetie doll, or at least looks like the sweetie dolls I saw on ebay, the other is a Miss USA doll with a picture of Miss USA 1964-1965 all still in the box. a 45 record from the back of a Wheaties box, and tons more.

I might get individual pics up this week, or I might not. Depends on how the week goes. If you see anything you want or if you want to come over and pick thru the boxes, let me know. Prices are reasonable. Very reasonable.
If the weeks are kind to me, I will have a Friday yard sale on Sept 17. I had hoped for this Friday but I have a commitment at the school.

potting bench 101

I am not a handy man or handy woman or handy person or whatever. I own one small electric saw and one power drill/screw driver. And lots of raw materials because I keep collecting all this junk with dreams of what I can do with it. So when our school decided to have an auction to raise money, my son's first grade theme was gardening. They call these "basket auctions". Let it be said that few of the auctions actually fit in a basket, but all of them have their own theme.

I thought I could take this old army issue dining room sever and turn it into a potting bench. WHY? Well because I had the server from a yard sale with plans to refurbish it to sell but never got it done and I want it out of my garage. And because I have watched professionals do all sorts of remakes on HGTV, DIY network, and whatever other channels have those "you too can do it" shows! And so it begins.
First step was to remove part of the side edges so that I could add shelves that would lie flush to the cabinet. Also removed trim, not sure at first if it was glued on trim or an integral part of the cabinet.
Add shelf. Original idea was two shelves but all the wood I had (bought at another yard sale) was not enough for two shelves. Edit original plans to be one shelf. Note how flush that side piece sits to the cabinet!
Two side supports and a shelf and it is still standing, but needs some more support so I added a piece under the shelf that later will hold these two pot holders, meant to go over a fence. I love these. I have had them in four homes now and have never had a place to hang them so I think it is time for them to move on. I drilled holes in the back brace board to hang these. And they fit! And hang pretty straight!

I cut a hole in the top of the cabinet in order to sink a plastic tub to hold dirt for when someone is repotting plants. Cutting this hole took longer than all the other parts put together. Not really, but it felt that way. I have no earthly idea what the proper way is to measure for a hole like this so that the lip of the tub sits on top and the rest of the tub sinks into the cabinet. I traced around the bottom of the tub and started there. Way too small since the tub has tapered sides. recut, recut, recut and recut again. Going into supports for the top and having to chisel them out since the saw doesn't cut that deep. Chisel with a hammer and a flat head screw driver. (real carpenters gasp now at how I treat my tools.)
Ahhh, after over an hour of cutting and recutting said tub sinks into said hole with hardly any gaps.
Sinks right into the place where one top side drawer used to be.
Add paint, left over from our shed, plastic pots to fit into the hanging pot holders, and tiled top.
VIOLA!

The tile top is my first ever attempt at tiling. The neighbor across the street has tiled every bathroom, the laundry room, kitchen and front and back porches at her house so I used some of her leftover tile, her thinset and her wet saw. She made about half the cuts and then had to leave and I attempted the other cuts. Even corrected one of her mistakes!
I might have enough confidence now to tile our bathrooms or kitchen or family room or all of it!
I purchased (RETAIL FOLKS) the sanded grout for the top and did my first ever grout job. Turned out pretty darn great! I added hooks to one side of the shelf to hang tools and then purchased these three shovels in three colors on clearance at Michaels to add some more color. Added red gardening gloves and a spray bottle to one hanging pot and three child size gardening tools in the other hanging pot. Child tools were a left over from a gardening project at school last year.
Drawer handles are rope. Door handles are mini clay pots I bought at Michaels.
So my total retail purchases on this were: grout (about $8), plastic pots ($2 each) and mini clay pots (.59 each). Yard sale purchase are the cabinet ($25) and some wood ($3). Paint, rope, screws, bolts, nuts, washers, pot hangers, and plastic tub were all thing I had lying around the garage left over from other projects so no cost for those. Less than $40 total! Plus two Saturdays of work.
I can't believe just hood good this looks. Usually I have a plan, a dream, a day dream really, and it doesn't actually ever happen or doesn't actually work when I try to do it. But this one is great! And I am not even keeping it. I am bidding on the auction though! Especially since the other parts of the auction, donated by other parents include: professional landscape consultation, wheel barrow, plants, seeds, hose, sprinkler, pots in a various colors and designs, bird feeder, $100 Home Depot gift card, and some other goodies.
Let the oohs, ahhs and bidding begin!

Bada Bling bada Bling

Got to go to the booth on Tuesday for a quick freshen up and to deliver some more goodies. The downstairs at Moore Garrett CO (formerly Nellie's) is looking really, really good.
OK, it is sideways and foggy, but this bling could blind you if it was clear and in focus! So many rhinestones and pearls it will make your head spin! If you see anything you like and can't get into the shop, let me know and I will mail it to you directly. That goes for anything in my blog, not just today's photos.


And the flip side of the bling is the more colorful, kitschy side. All vintage, all with working clasps. $5 each. What a steal!

I LOVE this little wicker vanity mirror. The bottom is a tray to hold combs and brushes or makeup. The photo is, again, blurry with not great color. Ttaken with my cell phone and the lens apparently needs cleaning badly. The wicker is more white than off white and has pink and blue/green flowers painted on. Draped with a strand of pearl, gloves waiting for the lady of the house. Sitting atop her hat box. Those were the days, huh? When ladies would DRESS to leave the house. Heels, pearls, gloves, and hat.

I think we found one of those ladies still alive and kicking when we made the yard sale trip. Mom, sister, and I started out one day eating a late breakfast, early lunch and stumbled upon this adorable little restaurant in Chattanooga. We knew we weren't dressed quite appropriately, but what the heck. Well, when we all made the trek to the ladies' room after eating we got quite the stares from one southern lady who about fainted when she saw that I had TENNIS SHOES and bobby socks on with my skirt. (Well, I was about to start out on a day of traipsing thru grassy yards and fields and road sides to dig for bargains after all.) We got the biggest kick out of her nose stuck up in the air!
Another sideways shot. A beautiful black velvet and creamy lace vintage dress. The skirt has a 3-4" tear near the hem but this one a really gorgeous. Came from the same estate at the hatbox about.
For the summer brides....a vintage cake topper, matching platter and serving bowl and a photo of Grandma's wedding day. Well, somebody's Grandma anyway! Wouldn't this be a neat display on a guest book table? Or a centerpiece on a dining table.
I love the idea of all the centerpieces at a big party being different, but similar in theme or color. I did this for our daughter's Sweet 16 party. All pink and black and white but all different ( and all from thrift and yard sales). For our 25th anniversary I had all different vintage silver trays and tea pots and bowls filled with white or ivory silk flowers. The great thing about doing centerpieces this way is that it is MUCH cheaper. You can pick up things here and there that meet your color or theme when you find them cheap, instead of having to find 10 or 20 identical matching things that are always more expensive. And then when it is over what are you going to do with 20 identical containers or arrangements? My way, you have all those different things to work into your home or give as gifts or resell.