Tiny Adventures

We see light at the end of the tunnel! Deb has had both her shots, and I have had my first one. We have tentatively decided that thrifting together should be safe enough after I have had my second shot, and we will continue to wear our masks. The thought of being able to get together regularly sets our little hearts aflutter. Plus, it’s looking like there will be some garage sales this summer. We are not sure we will be brave enough to wade through the crowds at an estate sale, but that’s OK, we do better at an average garage sale anyway.

I did make a flying trip to the thrift store last week to get something I needed, and my hubby and I trekked up to Cheyenne to a nice little flea market up there that we love to go to. It’s great, as there is usually only us, and the clerk in charge in the whole place when we go, so no worries. As an added bonus, I found a post’s worth of weird stuff, so wins all around.

How Daisy Crazy should you be?

I would say a bit less than this lamp warrants. I don’t know what it is with the splotchy paint job. Looks like it was done by the sub they hired for the day, and gave a five minute airbrush lesson to. It might have been super cute with just the centers on all the daisies painted yellow, or something, but it never should have been a living room lamp, and that is what size it is. Smaller, painted better, and only in the bedroom? Still a big maybe.

Around here we call this Rocky Mountain Elk Water:

We can make fun of Coors—we live here. This is quite the lamp. I wasted a few minutes wondering if the center had some rotating lights somehow, but I didn’t take the time to investigate, as the next booth over almost always has some things I like, and I get distracted easily. Oh, squirrel!!! I’m back again. This is only good for a man cave, and only if he can get in the door without his wife seeing it. The last woman who got a look at it promptly sold it to the first picker she could find. Sometimes I like old brewery stuff, but this is a hard pass.

I did like these:

Bright and cheery. Just what your cute red and white kitchen needs. I know I would smile in the morning when I saw them. These are actually pretty hard to find in good shape, as they are made of the old hard brittle plastic. One trip to the floor and they are goners. Unfortunately, my kitchen is not red, so these stayed where they were.

We also loved this:

This very early fireman’s outfit is in remarkable condition for something that must have seen some pretty hard wear. Unless this was for the wimpy fireman who hid out at the station all the time. Maybe he drew the short straw and had to do all the cooking, or maybe he volunteered to clean the bathrooms often enough to earn a break. It really was that rather odd shade of purple, but it may have faded to that. Still a very interesting item. Forgot to look at the price, but it was probably pretty hefty for something this rare.

This next item caught my eye for its sheer size:

Normally these little hand carved Victorian catch alls are not more than ten inches or so tall. This one was a solid two feet high! All hand carved and painted. Not a really useful item, but then the Victorians were not that into practicality. These days, I guess you could hang it by the door and drop your car keys in it as you came in. Even at this size, it wouldn’t hold the junk mail for a day, and it’s not really conducive to being a match holder, being wood and all. I still sort of like it. Can’t help myself, I think I am a Victorian at heart.

This next item doesn’t look too bad on the surface:

But, it’s a vase. How odd would it look with a bouquet of daisies coming out the neck hole? Make it plastic daisies and it gets even worse. I just don’t get it. Unless they had to make it a vase, just to justify its existence. It was rather large, in the twelve inch range, too.

The thrift store yielded a couple of crazies as well. I am hoping this apple is poisoned:

Because honestly, she should eat it and die, and put the world out if its misery. I would like to say this was made by a kiddo, but no such luck, I think someone was serious. At least seriously deluded. Snow White, she is not, but chew on that thing anyway, and we will keep Prince Charming from breaking the spell.

I am totally on the fence about this lady:

On the one hand, she has some sassy leopard print going on, but I am really worried about her body type. It brings a whole new meaning to pear shape. She has some cute red hair, and not too bad an expression on her face, so all in all, she is not too offensive!

I am also confused by one of these mugs

You guess which one. Yep, why is it present? Do you lift it in salute when the teacher does roll call? Are you supposed to be there, as in “here in the present” Or is just a present, as in it was a gift and they really wanted you to remember it was one, and not pass it along to a thrift store? Of course these are quite a bit older than the common advent of thrift stores. While caught up in the conundrum of the gifty one, I almost forgot to comment on the weirdness of the patterning on the other one. Very strange overlapping of trim pattern and roses. I really can’t make heads or tails of either one. Even though they are over 100 years old, they stayed right there on the shelf.

Speaking of tails, I have to share this adorable dish towel I found, at the grocery store of all places:

I don’t know why it tickled my funny bone as much as it did, but it jumped into my grocery cart, even though my hubby was standing right there. He didn’t even have a chance to tell me I didn’t need it. Not that it would have done a lick of good; I wasn’t putting it back.

And just in case you need a dose of Ramses for the week, here he is watching his very first squirrel. We don’t have many in our yard, but he was down where I work and they have several in the yard out back.