Friday, June 13, 2008

Yard Sales = Heaven!

Once again, I have to gush about the yard sales here in the mountains! I love, love, love that yard sales begin as early as Thursdays here, but the really good ones are on Fridays. Saturday is the day where there are the most, but Fridays, oh Fridays!

Hubby had to take my mom back home yesterday, all of us sad to see her go, and sad that baby couldn't make his appearance while she was here. Spotted some signs advertising yard sales for Friday, so we made sure to go out that way today.

I really ought to take pictures of the signs, though I'm sure many of you have seen yard sale signs, the ones here are so different from what I am used to, even after three years of living here. This particular sign said: Yard/Field Sale, Friday-Saturday, 3.7 miles. We drove the 3.7 miles up and down country roads, passing little country houses and bigger, newer houses and older, smaller, falling-down shacks. All of a sudden you see bunches of balloons showing the way to the sale. Yard sale? Field sale? More like Flea Market! Oh! If all the yard sales could be like this one!

I wanted to take a picture of all the tables, but I was so excited and got out of the car, trying to hurry the children out so we could dive right in and claim our finds. Right off the bat, we spot old glass gallon jugs sitting in the grass, perfect for the strawberry wine to ferment in. 50 cents each! Took all 4 of 'em! We found everything from vintage, metal tool boxes (2.50) to vintage tin measuring cups and shakers (1.00 for all), old clothespins for crafting (1.00) to several dozen canning jars (2.00 a doz), of which I picked out the fat, squat ones they don't make anymore. There was a pile of girl clothes and the older two pounced on some swimsuits and sandals (1.00 each) and youngest was entranced with some little people toys. The people there even threw in an old, vintage fisher price phone made all of wood that was in great shape and we were perfectly willing to pay for it, but they said "for the little one". Thanks!

We spent a total of $15 there and came away with full arms and bags and boxes of goodies. We are revved up for another day of yard sale-ing tomorrow, and this time we are going in the opposite direction and packing a picnic lunch. I'm so glad that the husband likes yard sales as much as I do, and there is perfect harmony when we all head out as a family. Even the girls get excited about heading out and I enjoy explaining what something is, if they ask.

In case you're wondering.. some of the things we buy, we keep for ourselves, to use or for decoration. About half of what we get, we sell on eBay and at other places we go to. I always keep an eye out for children's items that I can sell at the store in the Spring and the Fall, and then I keep an eye out for vintage dishes and bowls like Pyrex and Fire King to sell on eBay. Hubby collects vintage cars and toys, so that's his thing that he keeps an eye out for and he weeds out some of what he has, for me to sell on eBay. We can't make a living out of it yet, but we do well enough to pay the bills here and there.

Pictures to come soon, after we get home from tomorrow's sales!

5 comments:

IndianaJones said...

This sounds like heaven. I was just thinking today about retail therapy. It makes me feel so good to find beautiful things and at such great prices. You wouldn't find anything close to those prices out here.
You must be so close to your due date...I keep thinking about you every day waiting for the announcement!

Unknown said...

Funny, Every time I search something on DR You always enter my mind. Lo behold your blog appears magically. heh. Love love what Universal offers me.
I miss country barn sales, yard sales, flea markets. I live in city now, yard sales like "yawning" nothing strikes me exciting as much as country sales do. I 'm always on lookout for sales anyway.

Enjoy your blogs, makes me feel- like home again.
Keep blogging,okay.
And happy birthing, is that sooon?

DJ Kirkby said...

Sounds like a glorious day my friend.

barefoot gardener said...

Ooohh, sounds like so much fun and so many goodies! I have been wishing to go "saleing", but with our move coming up I didn't want to get more stuff that we would need to haul.

Thank you so much for sharing, so I can pretend I was there! ;)

jenny said...

Summer-- It was a very good day!! Always nice to get out and find goodies. That's part of the thrill, the hunt for the unknown. I always laugh when I see "experts" advising you to go to flea markets with a set list-- how do you do that when you never know what you'll find?

I'm less than 2 weeks away from my due date, so any day now!

ls-- When we lived in the city, the thrift shops replaced yard sales. Now that we are here, the thrift shops are few and far between. More fun with yard sales, but now with the gas prices.. we will have to restrict our distances now-- no more driving miles and miles to one sale anymore.

My due date is the 22nd, so not much longer now!

Dj-- it was! But I bet it was just as fun as when you were a kid and when to the dumping site where you lived! THAT would have been FUN!

Barefoot-- good idea. No need to pack more than you have to if you can avoid it. We had a yard sale before we moved, but it ended up raining just about every weekend and we didn't unload much. We wound up having a yard sale after we moved here, which turned out to be a blessing because we met some of our new neighbors. Good luck with the packing-- it's a lot of work that I don't care to go through again!