Lifting the Doldrums

Fall is upon us and the spontaneous, and occasionally lazy, days of summer have been replaced with a rigid schedule of 7:00AM bus pick-up, football practice, soccer practice,Boy Scout events,Sunday school and back-to-school nights - and anything else the universe can throw our way.

Is it June yet?

And I have decided to make my way back into the working world so that we may continue to feed two always-hungry teenage boys and somehow, someday (someway) pay for them to go to college. So my once flexible daily schedule will also soon be handed over to a boss (hopefully a benevolent boss). I can sympathize with the boys as they hang their heads over their cereal bowls and moan while hoisting their overstuffed backpacks onto their shoulders.

This change in schedule, and life in general, has put me in a bit of a funk - the "doldrums" seems a fitting word. This is not a place I like to be, so to give myself a little lift, I headed to my favorite thrift store yesterday with the other blond and her mom. What we found put a smile back on my face. Most of the merchandise was 50% off as the store tries to clear space on the shelves for fresh items for Christmas.

Yay.

Linda and I had the most fun at the counter where they keep items that are a little more valuable; there you have to ask an attendant if you want to see the merchandise. I have bought several pieces from this area of the store in the past, they are usually still reasonably priced. But there are other things that were just a little too rich for my blood.

Until 50% off day. That made several things just the right price.

I've had my eye on this PA Dutch teapot for ages, it was the first thing I pointed to on the shelf.
Linda directed the attendant's attention to a great 70's picnic basket/ice chest and quickly put that in her cart.Just as I was about to leave, I spotted these two stainless and enamel Reed and Barton bowls on the counter and quickly stashed them in my basket like a kid in a candy store (who's just found out half the candy is free).
So as more meetings, structure, dinners crammed in on the run and becoming a responsible adult all loom, yesterday was still a day to run amok in my favorite candy - I mean, thrift- store.

Doldrums, what doldrums.

The 70's Rule

After I used my curling iron to make two perfect rolls of hair to be feathered away from my face, I slipped on my clogs, kissed my Davie Jones poster and went outside to jump on my banana-seat bike and meet my friends at the 7-11.



Sorry, channeling my childhood in the 70's. They might be slightly fashion impaired years, but they are still good memories of a simpler life and a time when people were challenging old ways of thinking, and doing it in killer hip-huggers (my father's personal favorite part of the 70's).



It is this nostalgia that has people not much older than I was when the 70's were upon us, now buying little pieces of that time to decorate their homes and themselves.
















I have a lot of fun searching yard sales and thrift stores for little bits of the past, my past, that make me smile and I know will make someone else smile too.

The pictures in today's blog are items from the 70's I have recently sold in my etsy.com shop.

Snow...ice...no pickin' for me

We have had a heck of a winter. Seems like every other day there is snow or ice, and I have a confession, one that makes my winter-weary neighbors cringe...I love it.

I love how the weather keeps you close to home, slippery roads making you not want to run around like a crazy person to all the places we seem to endlessly need to run around to like a crazy person. Fires in the fireplace, snow men in the front yard...bring it on.

The only thing that has been a little bit of a drag is the lack of places to pick or ability to get to the thrift stores, and even the post office to mail off the goodies people have bought in my etsy shop.
The brighter side is that I have used the time to do more jewelry making, and that part of my shop has become more active. Here is a piece that just sold yesterday...
And I just bought a baggie full of broken watches...bet you never heard someone excited about that before...and I plan on sitting in front of my fire again this afternoon taking them apart and using the pieces to make some Steam Punk jewelry. Here's one I made with some watch parts that also sold fairly quickly in my etsy.com shop...So I will count the days to spring as I stare out at the snow, waiting for the thaw...and yard sale signs to blossom on telephone poles, steering the two blonds in the van to picking once again.

Now?....Now?...Did I sell something now?

Hello, my name is Heather and I am addicted...to checking my etsy.com shop.

I am sure there has been some study done somewhere, sometime, with rats, where they step on a button and a food pellet is released into their cage. One rodent steps on it and every time a pellet comes shooting out at them, while a different rat in the next cage steps on it and only randomly does a food pellet appear.

If I had to guess, the rat that always received the food whenever it stepped on the button would just step on it when he, or she, was hungry, with calm certainly that each time they would be rewarded...not obsessively, like the rat who is randomly given the food, I bet that rat hits that damn button every chance it gets thinking that this time...no, this time...no, this time...ahhh...the *&%*?! pellet will shoot out.

Sometimes I feel like the rat with the random rewards. There are times when it seems that I have the right stuff in my shop and I sell one, maybe two, items in a day. This makes me feel on the right track with what I'm selling and that I'm not wasting my time or my life -- and I am rewarded by the food pellet gods.

Other times, I can go several days without a sale, and each day that ticks by, I notice the amount of time between when I check the etsy site becomes shorter and shorter. Did I sell something now...now...now... (where are the darn food pellets!)