My Sick, Indulgent Weekend

Sick as in ill.  I watched the whole 1st season of Girls, which I found at Value Village for $3.99, and ate Wagon Wheels.  I dunno, I get weird cravings when I have a cold.  Wagon Wheels still taste good, but have you noticed that they are tiny compared to what they used to be?

Back-to-School Fashions....my way

I wasn't going to buy any back to school clothing.  As a mature student, who has been teaching for the past decade, I have a fairly decent wardrobe.  And, I need to pinch pennies since my professional program is an expensive one.  
But, this weekend my parents visited, and my mom is a good thrifting partner, AND a new Value Village just opened near my neighbourhood.  So mom and I went to check it out.  
The stock there wasn't great.  Perhaps they haven't yet had many community donations.  But we did buy a few things.  Mom got a sweater for dad and an audiobook on CD.  And I ended up buying fairly typical back-to-school fashions...Mary Janes & a plaid jacket!

 The Mary Janes are Josef Seibel, and have been hardly worn, it at all.

Whoever priced them probably didn't know the brand, since they were only $9.99.  Value Village often prices shoes like this for $19.99.

And I love the retro vibe of this plaid jacket from Christopher & Banks.  

Look at the buttons! It was a little more expensive at $12.99. I think it would look great with jeans or a dark skirt or whatever.  It is quite light, so I probably will wear it as a blouse.  Even though school starts tomorrow it will be too warm to wear it, so I'll have to bide my time for a few weeks.

Thrifty Fifty Cent addition to my '70s Rumpus Room

It didn't take long.  Here is my first thrift find in Edmonton, and it cost a whole fifty cents!

Cool vintage "made in England" cocktail sticks.  Here is a closer look:

When we were there on vacation two years ago, we loved the names and signs of all of the inns and pubs.

And now that we have a '70s era rumpus room complete with bar, they have a home!  As well as a bunch of other stuff from our old house that doesn't fit into our '50s era kitchen! Can you spot the sticks?

 Look closer on the bottom shelf...

There they are, next to the vintage cocktail tray!  When we viewed the house these shelves had a bunch of bowling trophies on them.  When we'e done a little work to it, (like furnish it), I'll show you the rest of the bar and rumpus room.

Kitchen Discoveries and Other Happenings

We are still unpacking boxes and putting things away.  Our new house was immaculately clean when we moved in, and we thought that nothing had been left behind.  Except for a few neat "discoveries" in the kitchen. One is this GE electric slicing knife mounted on the end of a cabinet. 

I'm guessing that the previous owner painted around it, so there it will stay.  I don't eat meat, so I'm not sure what I will use it for.

The next discovery was in the cabinet next to the oven.  The original 1959 cabinets here are pretty cool.  The fronts are not straight, but sit on a slant, so they sort of flop open. This corner cabinet is also pyramid shaped, which makes for pretty unusual interior shelving.

But I was quite surprised to see food still in it....Vintage food!

The top can seems newer, but I would guestimate the bottom one from the early 1980s!  I couldn't take the cans out, though.  They were holding up the shelf!  

As for other happenings, we did get a nice break from unpacking.  Our only friend here secured us tickets for the Edmonton Folk Festival on Thursday!  So nice for him to think of us.  The energy from the crowd was amazing...

And the city views were fantastic....

And the music, including Feist who headlined, was great...

It was an excellent introduction to Edmonton's cultural scene, and we are looking forward to more!

The Big Move and First Impressions

We've done it.  Packed up our household, drove for two days, and ended up in our new digs in Edmonton.  Yes, break out the cowboy hats...we are Albertans.  (Actually, I haven't seen one cowboy hat in the week we've been here...maybe that's a Calgary thing).

Can't say too much about Alberta yet, as we've only just arrived.  But the first paper we recieved had this cartoon in it. (click for bigger image).  I think they like the stereotype about themselves.

Funnily enough, on our first weekday here, Hus got two jobs! 

The move was exhausting, and we've been busy setting up house and taking multiple shopping trips to get garbage cans, and shelf liner, and picture hooks etc.  I hate to buy all of that stuff, but we thought we'd better get it over with so we can get on with enjoying our new house and new surroundings.

As for first impressions...I love our new neighbourhood.  It is very established, with many senior citizens living here, and it is so quiet.  It is a typical suburb with most of the houses build in the late 50s.  I keep wanting to take pictures of all the cool period houses and yards, but that might be weird and unwelcome.  Our house was built in 1959 and we are the second owners!  As we do a few projects around the house, I'll be blogging about it.

There is a huge park and lit cross country ski trails literally three houses down from us, and Saskatoon berries are abundant.  I'll be picking some tomorrow.  In North West BC, their time has come and gone.  I was so sad to let them go to waste there, but I'll still be able to freeze some here!

Rufus is settling in fine.  Here is a picture of him in the backyard on our first night.  If you look closely beside the door, you can see where he "christened" the garage.

On our dog walk tonight a hare crossed our path.  He has never seen one before and was straining on the leash like a crazy dog trying to get at it.

As for myself, I've been settling in in one particular spot to read, and plan and write multiple shopping lists.

This is a little corner in our living room.  On the other side is a built-in closet.  I have no idea what kind of wood this is, but I love its rich colour.  My knock-off Eames Chair fits in well.  It was a gift from Hus when I finished my last degree.  The lamp is from my parents.  They've had it since before I was born, and the poster came from our trip to London two years ago.  There is hardwood underneath the carpet, but we've decided to keep the carpet in place at least until winter has come and gone.

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!