Cruisin’ on a Friday Morning

I am going to start off by saying that I am grouchy.  Colorado has been having a spate of near 100-degree temperatures this past week, and our house does NOT have air conditioning.  I feel that is probably an excuse for all sorts of things, so be glad no one is near me when I have a butcher knife in my hand and am hanging out by a hot stove cooking dinner.  We had a reprieve one night.  The power went out.  Didn’t bother us—no air conditioning to knock out—and I went outside and cooked dinner over a camp stove.  It might have been an improvement.

But heat will never keep us from garage sales.  We bravely don our sunscreen and hats and head out, so lucky you!

Caught an estate sale a couple of weeks ago that might have been the mother lode of crazy stuff.  The guy was a wood-carver and how:

And lest you think he only did animals, here are the people:

And there were more on the other side of the room! Deb and I couldn’t resist; we each picked out a critter, a moose for me and a beaver for her.   Here is my moose.  I love the look on his face, and let’s just say the anatomy in the rear was “all male”.  My husband thought it was hysterical:

They really were pretty well done, but I feel bad for a body of work that large being sold for a couple bucks a piece.  Hope lots of people adopted a carving.

Deb here with a pic of the beaver I bought:

My hubby has collected beavers for 40 plus years, and I’m always happy to find one that he doesn’t have!  I’m impressed with how much personality this little guy has crammed into his three inches.

The rest of the house was a little crazy, too.  Take this light fixture, for instance:

I suppose it could work, but man, has that thing been hanging around a long time.  It was not a genuine antique but a reproduction from the ’60s.  Probably the original light in the dining room.  There were a few other oddball things there too.  Check out the wall-hanging towel rack:

Well, I guess you have to hang your towels somewhere, but given the choice, I might have just driven a rusty old nail into the wall and called it a day.  When they replaced the towels, they obviously were not able to get that fashionable avocado green to match the macrame and had to settle for a slightly bilious mint green.  Too bad.  Might as well go all the way.

I don’t believe these were at the same sale, but they might as well have been:

At least there are his and hers.  No man should have to suffer these alone.  In a pinch, you could cut off the yarn and recycle the beer cans, but that is a lot of work for a few cents!  I have no other blessed idea for what to do with these.  A sunburned head would be a better choice than wearing them.

While we are in a crafting mood, these yarny animals seem to be starting a “thing” right before our eyes:

Can’t tell whether the pig is happy about it or not, but the crab is probably just debating how far up the leg he can inch before he gets a porcine slap in the face.  Sometimes I worry about the way our minds work, but then I ignore it and go happily about my business.

Take these poodles, for instance:

Deb and I both had to admit that we found them rather fun.  We only paused an instant to contemplate what this might mean about the state of our mental health before we moved on to something else.  Maybe that is the key.  Short attention spans.  Anyway, we thought they were rather clever.  I might have gone for a paint redo and made them black, so I could tie big pink and black polka-dotted ribbon around their necks, but since I am not a poodle person, I was off the hook for buying them and Deb didn’t have room.  Whew, dodged a bullet there.

I did succumb to one of these:

Only because I can’t resist awful Barbie-clone dolls, but in my defense, I only purchased one.  The gold outfit on the left was actually a pretty good Vanna dress.  These were hocked on The Home Shopping Chanel in the ’90s, and I am sure that Vanna took a stab at peddling these to the limited edition (of 2 million) buying public.  I wonder how she did it with a straight face, as the dolls are pretty dreadful.

On the other hand, there is no excuse for this doll:

My gosh, that child looks way too happy with a toy this horrendous.  Really bad cheap clone that probably flops all over the stand looking like she has some terrible nerve disorder.  Bet it only ever came out of the box ONCE, and no, I wasn’t even tempted.

I do have one leftover that I purchased in Vegas, just because it is pretty.  I love vintage tiles, and have collected them for years.  That sort of moves me over into the area of trivets, too.  I spotted this one in our old favorites, Savers:

It’s not super old, but I just loved the white rabbit.  I adore Alice in Wonderland, and this is definitely moving in that direction.  It was a grand total of $1.99, so what the heck.  I was tickled that even the back of it was pretty:

Nice to see some enchanting detail on a newish item.  Did I need it … NO, but what has that got to do with anything?  If we only bought what we need, our houses would be empty, and what is the fun in that?  No matter what those anti-clutter folks say.

We are supposed to get a couple of days of slightly cooler weather, so my family should be safe for a bit.  You might want to wish some arctic breezes this way, just to keep me sane, that is, if you have any to spare.  Some rain would be nice too, while we are wishing, and that number one Barbie had better show up this week as well.  OK, maybe going too far, but a girl’s got to dream!