Stir-Crazy

We were all feeling a little bit of cabin fever, so we loaded up the van and went for a little drive over to the next big town where there is a great indoor flea market/antique shop. It's this huge warehouse where half is cheap-priced flea market items and the other half is higher-priced antiques of all kinds.

We love going there, and almost always find something-- either for us, the home, or the kids. Most people wouldn't think of taking 4 little ones to a place filled with break-able items, but we've been taking the kids to places like this since they were babies, so they're used to it, and plus we go prepared: snacks, drinks and toys in the car so they are not so restless or complaining they're hungry or thirsty. Plus there is the chance they might find something and mama and daddy just might say "yes."

Here are a few of the things we admired and didn't take home with us:

Love, love, love this old shortening tin. It's huge! I'd display this in the kitchen if we had more room in there, but as it is, we have enough stuff cluttering up the place, so a picture will have to do.

Very Mad Hatter-ish, isn't it?

I'm sort of glad that the days of women wearing fancy hats like this are gone. I'm not a hat person, but I do like the clothing styles from the 40s, 50s and 60s.

I'd get this metal doll house in a second if we didn't already have a similar one at home. The one we have sits high on a shelf in the basement away from the rough and tumble hands of the girls. They don't exactly take the best care of their toys, so until then, it stays in the basement.

This is just the coolest hutch ever! I've seen this at another antique shop and was surprised to see it here. What are the odds of seeing the same thing at two different shops more than 100 miles apart? We admired it at the other place and still admire it now. It has a cute clock in the top center of it, and the shape is just so sweet. If we had a big old farmhouse, this would look great in there! But, alas, we'll just have to keep admiring it from afar.

We love these old soda bottles. I miss drinking out of glass bottles.

Remember in the 80s when the bottles were more rounded and stocky, and if you were really careful, you could twist/pull off the label intact and then loudly pop it back on? Did anyone ever do that or was that just me being weird?

-

At one time, we would have bought several of these, and we had them displayed above the cabinets in the kitchen. But the house we live in now has no space above the cabinets, and all the bottles we do have sit in a box in the basement. Might be time to let them go and sell them. Hmm.

-

Going to places like flea markets and antique shops are fun. We didn't find much this trip, but I got a great old glass jar. I don't know what I'll do with it just yet, but I saw it when we walked in and it was still in the back of my mind 2 hours later. If I left it behind, I knew I'd regret it, so it's mine now. I'll get a picture of it later on after I figure out what to do with it.

-

Looking forward to yard sale season starting up again. We need to have a yard sale of our own as soon as it warms up again and the driveway isn't a big muddy mess anymore. We didn't do much yard sale-ing last year because money was so tight, and we just couldn't afford the gas to drive around looking for sales. I'm hoping this year will be better, and it already is looking up. For one thing, no more car payments to worry about-- we paid off the car last Oct, so that's a load off our wallets. Fingers crossed things keep going well for us.

-

Happy Monday!