Spring/Summer 2008
Estate sale
I've given up garage sales. From now on, I want all my experiences of secondhand junk to come from estate sales. Estate sales are good like that first sip of freshly brewed hot coffee. On the first day of your holiday.
Well, ok, you know deep down that I could never ever give up garage sales forever. Sorry garage sales, please take me back, I'll do better!
This afternoon after having had several pleasurable garage sale encounters, we came across an "estate sale" sign. My husband is perhaps from a rare breed of men who thrills at the sight of those words. He almost flew across the highway to get there.
I was somewhat reluctant to go because it was about 1:30, we hadn't had lunch yet and I wasn't sure what was meant by "estate sale"- sometimes people will just mean big garage sale or maybe some sort of auction and you have to queue to go in.
But this one was just perfect for a lazy Saturday afternoon. It was unpretentious in the most pleasant way. I understand that if we had gone there early we could have found all sorts of treasures but I was happy to take away the experience I did.
The kitchen was unassuming and painted all a powdery pink, pink wooden shelves on each side of the window above the sink, pink cupboards, pink walls. A dish set of matching pink rested on the counter. Round salt and pepper shakers with salt and pepper still inside were sat on the grey formica of the workspace and there, I noted a faded spot near the sink. I thought, this is probably where she cut up veggies and prepared her toast. The chrome toaster (0h but yes!) was still there, close to oven . I thought; like my mother's counter! I thought; like all the places in our lives where we live life, where our life somehow remains.
Then I saw above the sink; what she would have seen when making coffee and washing dishes and maybe checking on children playing in the yard. A clothesline hanging close by, looping under tufty round trees.
The view from her kitchen window, brought to my skin and to my hair, a breeze lost long ago. A moment when her arms were bare, ingénue drops after the wash, after the laundry that hung there, where fragrant wind touched her temples and made her feel alive and fair!
After we bought a few pieces, I asked the people holding the sale if they could tell me if the lady who had lived here had passed away or if she was in a home. They confirmed she was in a home and I was glad to hear it. I liked thinking that although she might never see that view out oft his window again, I got to do it for her one more time...That I would like to know, if I were in a home, that someone paused at my kitchen to consider what I had felt and lived.
The frames come from a garage sale we visited earlier that morning but the pink shell dishes I got for a dollar, they were in the pink kitchen of the estate sale. So is the piece of linen that says "staff of Life" with a wheat bundle embroidered in gold, the reverse says "Hot rolls", I thought this was an item that really spoke of a time where the art of maintaining a home and taking care of people, was given a place of choice in everyday life.
I wanted to share with you my take on the 4th of July. I'm French Canadian and we live in Quebec but my husband is from Montana so I'm always happy to celebrate the place where he comes from except we rarely get around to it.
This year I did it! I made fried chicken for Virgil so we could take it cold with a picnic, macaroni salad, chips, juicy peaches and we sat around by the lake and watched people playing volley ball.
There never seems to be enough time and I would love to celebrate all kinds of things, May day, Canada Day, heck, even moving day! I love exploring themes with decorations and menus and dressing up, and making an occasion out of simple things. But my imagination runs away with what I could do and who I could invite and pretty soon I'm overwhelmed by what there is to do. So, I pass this piece of clever musing unto you: do it small then! Decorate just the side board, just one window sill. Make one special dish or a couple of jell-o cups. But most of all: do it anyways!
Virgil was beside himself because I had made the chicken. And I got to participate in a time honoured tradition and celebrate a country where some of my favourite people come from. I wouldn't mind hearing what some of you did on the 4th?
Intact In Tacked
I knew things had gone too far in the Ebay dictionary of no return when I saw this in an Ebay listing:"...... are in tacked with no pealing...."
People! What is a tack and how do I come to be in it? I am seeing this made up word "in tact" more and more often and I just keep thinking, "wouldn't I wonder what it means as I'm writing it down?" "In tacked" is even better... it's been conjugated, like it's a verb, my friends.
I'm the first one to admit I make mistakes in my Ebay listings, typos do happen but I try not to insult people's intelligence and to spell things so I can be taken seriously. It's ok to ask for help! Spell check is good too.
I know it may be traditional of me but using real words to convey meaning; it works!
Travel jars
A few weeks ago I found this Mexican vase and corked pot for 2$ at a garage sale and fell under the charm of its simple but intriguing style. The colours melt into each other, smooth and rough textures are juxtaposed, a whole little world created in these two small vessels. Now they have pride of place on our mantelpiece.
I also love the fact that they are someone’s travel souvenirs. I’m particularly taken by the possibilities and experiences of someone else’s travel. Strange how we can get so engrossed in other people's happiness. Travel is a time of experience and self discovery, of romance with the unknown, wading into the dream which had been up until now only imagination and hope, all of it distilled to its essence and carried to others in a little jar.
Small salvations
A very strange thing happened in our household last night. We returned from dinner at my parents' around 10:20 pm and my husband says "oops" as he points to the back door. I stand there staring at the open sliding patio door and Virgil says, astonished, "we must have left the door open." And all I can think to ask is "but was the screen door open?" Arou, our cat, came into our life, having been declawed by his previous owner so he doesn't go out. Virgil's saying something about what must have happened and how the door looked but all I keep asking is " but was the screen door open?" because I know what it means if it wasn't, it means it's very likely that we've lost our cat for good.
For approximately 36 years of my life, I couldn't have cared less if I got a pet or not. I had had a dog and a few cats as a kid, they were fine but that's where it ended. A couple of years ago my husband and I started concretely pursuing a suggestion my husband had made on and off for the past few years that we should look into getting a Big Maine coon cat.
For some reason by the time we discussed it seriously, I was very receptive to the idea. Was it the great companionship depicted in the Stewart McLane short stories we would read to each other by our fire? I know that helped. One thing that I think really had an impact on how I felt about acquiring a pet was the quality of life and relationship that I have the privilege to enjoy with my husband. Virgil is the kind of husband who makes you feel like everything is going to be ok even when he's not absolutely sure that it will be. Because you know somehow he would weather the hard times and although he wouldn't be able to hold everything at bay, he would pull you right along with him and through the storm. And his laid back perspective has changed my way of seeing a lot of things. So if a cat came into our life and happened to be a bit of a handful and required some compromises, it wouldn't matter that much, it would be worth it and we would manage. We would enjoy another side of our relationship through the care we give this pet. And maybe he would even show us what we were capable of.
So yesterday evening when I saw that the screen door to our patio had been left open for the better part of 3 hours, my first thought wasn't to check for intruders or check that our valuables ( is Ebay stock considered valuables? Coz that's probably the only real thing of interest to thieves in my house...) were ok, my first thought was that our cat was gone.
Virgil went to the basement to get a flashlight and search the yard, I went upstairs on very shaky legs on the off chance that the cat might be sleeping somewhere and hadn't noticed the open door.
Our cat was lying down at the top of the stairs when I got there. I wanted to pick him up and kiss him but I know he hates that. So I just said "He's here!" and my husband and I walked back to the couch and collapsed there.
It has now been two years that Arou has been destroying our flocked Christmas tree and I can honestly say he's made our life even more well-rounded than it already was.
It was hard to start out for work this morning and leave the cat home.
Great Glebe Garage Sale- the deserted porch
The porch was empty as a desert wind, as the breeze ruffled doll clothes in dozens of boxes.....
I approached this house after the Great Glebe community garage sale was over, with some caution. There was still a lot of stuff on the lawn; books on a swing, an open wooden jewelry box with a few pieces inside, large cartons containing plush animals, tables strewn with baubles....everything looked as though the person holding the sale merely got up and walked away forever.
As I carefully made my way over to inspect what there was to see; I found a soft round basket, just the type of thing I had been looking for to use in my bathroom for lip gloss or moisturizers. Oh, but as the twilight sun dusted across the lovely straw of the basket and caught in its golden arc the grass beyond, I noticed that the basket was stuffed with vintage gloves. Suddenly everything seemed caught in this light as I realized that each shelf of the stand in front of me held something from another era. Boxes of delicate vintage handkerchieves, scarves, an old leopard skin hat. And dolls!
And for a moment, I was there. That place you are in a dream where you discover a door in your house you didn't know existed and as you open it you see the room beyond is full of vintage stuff and you can rummage through it to your heart's content, knowing it's yours to keep. That place I've seen in my dreams where I walk amongst discarded things in a field only to realize they are vintage china, vanity items, dolls and all manners of traces to the past and I can pick them up and carry them away.
I was there.
I saw a doll bed and Dawn dolls scattered in it, vintage glamorous,gauzy red doll skirts, pleated and vaporous, all manners of vintage doll things, clothes, baskets and miniatures. I hastily piled things in the little doll crib and carried it away with me to our car and almost did an impression of the Ikea sales event lady "Start the car! Start the Caaar!" but I didn't, actually I made sure that the stuff was up for grabs, and put a little money into the mail slot of the house just for a thank you...
After examining my haul, I knew only part of it was going to appeal to collectors. But perhaps the reason why this experience was so much fun is the world of possibilities it opens up. The effervescent Ebay opportunities and the ones that I get to share with my husband and my mom as we have fun going through everything, being near it, discussing it, discovering new threads to the past and the hope and magic they weave.
Card rack love
"You walked out of my dreams and into my arms..." this card stand is Exactly what I was looking for. A couple of years ago I saw a feature in a magazine where someone used a similar card stand quite well to display inspiring things. 
These sort of things usually depress me- I feel like "Aw- someone's already had that idea! It's "taken " now. It's like it's engaged to someone else!" But I liked the idea so much that time that I kept it in mind. But little did I know I would find one at a little "antiques" shop near Mont-Tremblant amongst cardboard mounted posters of Marilyn Monroe priced at 40$ (??wtf??).
Price:5$. Ooooh, that feels good- I've been having a tough time finding one of these so 5$ sounded like a very sweet bargain.
What it is:
Metal card rack or stand used in yesteryear's five and dimes to display greeting cards but I imagine it could be as late as the 70's ( hard to date isn't it- if someone has an idea how to date those I'd love to know) I love being in the proximity of its cute vintage store feeling, seeing the store clerk at the counter wearing a fetching suit and maybe even a velvet orchid pinned to her well pressed lapel, sporting a well groomed hairdo full of meandering waves. She would show me her refined selection of stationary and engage in the type of conversation that would make me feel like I was a prized customer. Now that is a hard core fantasy.)
What I love about it is that you can completely personalize this stand, you can recreate it any time you want and that it's a vertical way of displaying things so it doesn't clutter up my desk too much. I could even paint it a nice mocha or matte blue colour.
Drawbacks: the clips don't hold much so that limits your selection of what to display( but perhaps that's a good thing? "Sorry, I can't come to work to-day, I'm still trying to decide what to display on my card rack")
Quirky love:And perhaps most of all, this way I can have a spot for things to tell a story and help me express my true bohemian self, while not losing Ebay customers' orders.
Or my glue gun.
A box and a dog
My husband and I went out for a nice walk last night in a neighbourhood we don't know very well. There in the middle of our ramblings, we happened by a woman working in her yard. She was dressed in a relaxed palette of grey and white, in clothes that have more to do with welcoming Spring by kicking back than by making sure you're on top of everything, she was talking to someone we couldn't see. As we moved a little further we saw the neighbour she had been talking to from a distance, making her way to her little garage. The neighbour was accompanied by her dog and carrying a small green box in one hand, she walked unhurriedly closer to the woman in grey and white where they continued their conversation before she carried on her business with the green box and the dog.
And this sight just stopped us in our tracks, the weight of the day dropped from my shoulders.
They weren't doing anything important. They were not working at making everything perfect and making sure that no time was wasted.
Sometimes, I really need to be reminded of that. When I feel unsatisfied because I don't do enough "important" things or squander my time, I need to be reminded that some people can be very satisfied to have a nice chat with a neighbour, with a box and a dog.
And that I am lucky enough to have my own version of a dog (our big main coon cat) and a box, whatever task of minor purpose that I have chosen to do or has been asked of me, and that it's ok to let them satisfy me more often.
Such a small thing can turn your perceptions around.
What do you see or perceive on your walks?
Posts: 4
Reply #4 on : Sat December 24, 2011, 17:53:23