What to do while my house is being shown? Haunt the thrift stores!

The one hiccup in our upcoming move is that our current house has not sold yet.  I thought with our awesome kitchen renovation, that I blogged about here, new windows, roof etc. that it would have sold by now.  But no luck. We had one nut-job put a totally unacceptable offer on it,wanting it for a song and for us to finance the mortgage!  We turned it down flat, but he persisted to put in a second offer. Hopefully it will be the last, as it is a waste of time for both parties.

So the house showings continue, and I only have a few places to disappear to for 45 minutes to an hour at a time.  One of them is thrift stores (and garage sales on weekends)! Here are a few (easily packable) things I found at a garage sale the other week:

Danish Rosti salad servers for .10 cents!  With my new love of melamine, how could I turn these down?  And, I only have one set of salad tongs, so a second set is not extravagant.

And a needlepoint advent calendar (I cut off the first and last days of December in the photo).  Handmade for $1 dollar.  I thought it was very Scandinavian looking with the cute elven figures.  Can't say I love the placement of the one whose back is towards us, though.  Sorry, my mind often goes to the dirtiest places! And what is that he's holding?  A snow ball.  Now I'm not sure I'll be able to hang it up at all!

We held our own Yard Sale

In anticipation of our upcoming move in two weeks, we held a yard sale on Friday to get rid of some of our things.  You are probably thinking: why Friday?  That is one of the most popular days to garage sale in our town.  And luckily, we held the sale on a Friday that happened to have tons of garage sales that translated into many, many shoppers.  

First, I have to show you what I rescued from my own yard sale:

 I bought the '70s lamp and vase at garage sales a couple of years ago, then put them in the "to sell" box several months ago.  But our new house has a '70s rumpus room and bar, so they will be great decorations there!  I've had this rabbit watercolour print since I was a teenager, so it has some sentimental value, but it will also look nice in the bathroom in our new house.

Our sale was set to start at 1:00 pm; predictably, people started to drive by at 11:00 and started to get out of their cars at noon.  A friend brought her stuff, so we had a lot to set out and the sale looked really large from the street.  I would say that we did most of our business in the hour before the sale actually officially started!  People came through there like locusts, so I was really glad that I had taken the time to pre-price all of our goods.  Amazingly, no one really haggled.  For the most part they just paid the prices I had set, and we didn't have any customers from hell.  We even had two ladies that spent over an hour looking though everything!  Here are some pictures that I snapped about two hours into the sale, so it had already been picked over.

We had a few big ticket items to sell such as our dog kennel (goodbye redneck clothesline!), a wheelbarrow, a dresser etc. And they all sold, except for my kitchen dining set.  The last customers were there just after closing at 7:00 pm.    We then consolidated everything into the carport, parked one of the vehicles in front, and went for dinner, deciding to deal with the rest of it in the morning.  

At 9:00 on Saturday morning, even though we had not advertised being open on Saturday, there was already a couple in the carport!  Then our friends came by, we had coffee on the kitchen table in the carport, and started packing everything up for various charities.  A few other people stopped by.  Just as we were about to move the table back inside, a family came by and bought it!  What luck!  So with that purchase, our grand total in profits came to $439.00!  A success!  

Even though it took a lot of time and effort, I think pre-pricing everything paid off so that I didn't have to answer a billion questions during the sale.  It also allowed me to evaluate the worth of everything beforehand.  Our prices were obviously fair, since there was no haggling.  I am also glad I dragged out a bookcase to display our books.  It was easier for people to look at them, and we probably got rid of half the books we had at the sale.

What are we going to do with our $439.00?  Probably put it towards a dining set for our new house!

Redneck Clothesline

Its a beautiful day here today.  Bright and sunny, so I did some laundry and hung it out.  But even though we've been in this house for 9 years, I've never put up a clothesline.  Instead, I use our dog kennel!

Well I do like things to be multipurpose!  I call it our redneck clothesline.  You can see my retro clothespin bag at the end.  Here's a closer look...

It used to be my moms.  I'm not sure where or when she got it.  Lets look at the back....

You get a better view of the polyester fabric.  The sun-faded band is from years hanging from the deck of the house I grew up in. It had horizontal railings.  I spent many a sunny day reading and suntanning on that deck in my teenager-hood!

Before we leave my back yard, we'll look at another being that likes to sun himself...

And lets grab a handful of raspberries in my patch....

I hope its sunny wherever you are!

Turquoise Kitchenware and some news

Not sure if anyone is out there anymore.  I haven't posted anything for almost a year, but  I thought my most recent acquisitions deserved a post.  It was a 50% off kitchenware day at one of my local thrift shops.  I didn't expect to find anything,but I found two things one after the other.

A small pyrex bowl, in excellent condition.  I think the pattern is called Amish.  Besides the Forest Fancies, this is the only other pattern I have and look out for.  And a pristine Melmac divided bowl, which I was equally pumped to find.  

There was a small article about Melmac in the latest edition of Atomic Ranch.  I was just reading it and admiring the styling of Melmac pieces and then found this bowl in the thrift store later that week.  This bowl was made in Toronto by Maplex.  As I was researching it I came across this blog all about Melmac.  There are aficionados for everything!  Its great reading.

I only spend $2.50 for both, as they were half price.

And for the news...I may be resurrecting this blog, as I'll have lots of new (and old!) things to blog about.  Hus and I will be moving to a new city (a city! with an international airport, culture, amenities, and lots and lots of thrift and consignment stores), in a new province, and I will be returning to school (at age 40!) to transition to a new career.  But most exciting of all, for the purposes of this blog, we bought a 1959 mid-century modest home, which has many of its original features.  So my turquoise bowls will fit right in!

Lemon-Lime Leather Finds

My garage sale/thrift store finds have been pretty slim as of late, but I did manage to stumble upon some good leather accessories in summer colours at a local thrift shop...

 I saw this beautiful sandal peeking out among a shelf full of brown and black shoes.  I snatched it up ecstatically and threw it on my foot, but it was a size too large ;-(  Too bad!  But as I was putting it back on the shelf I noticed that it was a German brand (Ara), was the softest leather and was totally unworn.  I couldn't leave it behind and thought of my sister whose feet are one size larger than my own. I'll give them to her (or my other sister whose feet are a half size and falls between the two).  I looked all around the shelves for it mate and finally had to enlist one of the volunteers to help me.  She had to retrieve it from the back solemnly telling me that they were special stock and would cost more than the regular shoes.  "How much?" I asked with trepidation.  "5 dollars". No problemo, especially since they are still available online for $140! Lets have another look, including the unworn sole...

 I also picked up two leather belts for $1 each.  These are for me...

 I love this mustard colour, but can't wear it near my face, so the belt will be a nice addition to my wardrobe. I have one dress to wear this '80s inspired olive-green belt with but with some experimentation I should be able to wear it with other clothing.  When I got home I showed it to Hus exclaiming "look at this awesome '80s belt!"  He replied "'Awesome' isn't the word I'd use for it."  He'll love it once he sees a put-together look!  Or more like he won't even notice it when I wear it!

Last of the Rhubarb

Yikes!  This week I had to harvest the last of the rhubarb and realized that I had last blogged in May when I used the first of it! Over the summer, I made a few non blog-worthy crisps and a friend also took some.  Since there were only a few crisp stalks left, I made a batch of muffins...

Action shot of stirring in the chopped rhubarb

The finished product

 And used this recipe from the Kitchn to make rhubarb syrup to mix with water or club soda...

Bubbling away

The precious syrup

My mom will probably laugh when she reads this.  She always made and preserved a syrup like this out of rhubarb or saskatoon berries.  I hated it.  I wanted to have store-bought juice right out of the fridge like my friends had - orange or apple or grape, not such uninspiring flavours like rhubarb!  I also hated that when I wanted juice I had to retrieve it from the cold cellar, find a jug, and mix it with water and sugar.  Can I admit that I was a jerk?  I guess most kids take what they have for granted.  Now, as an adult I appreciate all that my parents did for us and how much effort it took.  And I want to recreate those healthful homemade flavours that made my childhood so happy and healthy. Bring on the rhubarb! 
I have a little chopped rhubarb left to put in the freezer.  I like to use frozen rhubarb in upside down cakes during the winter.


I'd also like to say hi to my new followers (who signed up during my blogging hiatus).  I'll try to post more often.

First of the Season: Rhubarb

Although the weather has been cold and damp here, we are actually well into spring because I used the first of my rhubarb!  I love rhubarb in the spring when there is no other fruit available (ok, technically it is a vegetable), but as the season progresses I find it harder and harder to use up.  So a few years ago I bought a small cookbook entirely devoted to rhubarb recipes (at Value Village, naturally). 
On the weekend I decided that I would randomly open the book and make whatever recipe happened to be on that page.

Behold. Royal Rhubarb Dessert!

This recipe for Royal Rhubarb Dessert was a little off-putting because it required dry strawberry jello! And I couldn't quite figure out how it all went together until I started making it.

First I pushed a pie-crust type base into a pan.

I thought it fitting to use my pyrex bowl to contain the
Rhubarb in this likely mid-century recipe.

Then, onto the piece-de-resistance: sprinkling the jello onto the rhubarb layer!

Eww! 

And here it is with the top layer on, ready to go into the oven.

After 30 minutes it was done.

The jello soaked up the moisture from the rhubarb, and as the dessert cooled the rhubarb layer became firmer.

And here is a cooled slice.  It cut and stayed together surprisingly well.  But besides being day glow pink, you wouldn't even know that it had jello in it.  The pie crust-like base contrasted nicely with the other softer layers.  I enjoyed it, but am not sure if I would make it again.  First, because I rarely have jello on hand.  Second, because there are so many other recipes to try out!  What are your favourite ways to use rhubarb?