I've basically been feeling like sticking my head in the oven for the past month or so. Between feeling down and being exhausted from my daily bicycle commute, I haven't felt like being social. I'm feeling a little better now and I'm way behind on sharing my finds. I might find a lot of fun stuff, but that is never a substitute for a good friend. When I was a kid, I had always wished that the Friend of the Friendless group that picked Lucy up when she was down were real and would find me. Instead, I got needy cats.
We have to go way back to the end of May. I saw a picture on Craigslist with a snowflake open baker advertising a little vintage shop out in Hastings, which is kind of a drive from Minneapolis. Luckily they are open late one night a week and we were able to make our way over there after work. I had no idea if it would still be there two days later or if it was in my price range. It was a sweaty car ride and most of the downtown shops had closed for the day so I was really hoping that it wouldn't turn out to be a wasted trip. At first, we walked into the wrong shop and were disappointed to not find even one piece of Pyrex. Luckily the shop owner pointed us in the right direction and it was still there! Unfortunately, it is pretty dishwashered, but it wasn't a bad price, so it came home with me. Story of my life...
I decided to skip the estate sale line that weekend and opted for garage sales instead. People are lining up the day before and/or getting there at 1am or earlier for pre-numbers. I just can't. It's depressing to get there at a decent hour and get a high number. So ridiculous. I really think that if people stop showing up so early, the lines won't start so early. Also, if people refuse to pay crazy inflated prices for Pyrex, the prices will fall back to a normal range, but humans are greedy creatures so what are the chances of that happening? End rant. The garage sales weren't amazing, but we did okay. The first sale we went to, we got a cute chalkware cat set for .50 and a pair of plastic heart earrings that I'll convert to clips for a dollar. BJ has this weird thing about buying in whole dollar amounts at sales. I told him if they can't break a dollar for fifty cents, they shouldn't be having a garage sale. I was surprised when the lady running the sale actually had to reach into her pants pockets and pull out all of their contents and barely managed it. What? You used to be able to buy things with just coins at garage sales...
The next sale we went to was in Northeast, where I always seem to find really great stuff. If it weren't so far away from my comfort zone stores, it would make my short list of places to look for houses. I picked up an Early American 444 for 1.50, same for the pink elephant watering can, and $4 for the cool tiered table. It needs to be refinished, but for now the "music man" lamp is covering the worst water stains. Didn't the original owner's mother ever tell him/her to use a coaster?!
(This is the lamp. I didn't realize that it was so suggestive until a few days after we'd brought it home. It was on the 1.99 tag sale at Goodwill in Hopkins. We got it for BJ's future music studio. I think it's hilarious!)
Then we went out to a sale in Eagan that was half off everything on it's third day. I wasn't hopeful that there would be anything awesome left, but figured it was worth a look. We walked away with two vintage bangles, a gold and turquoise Avon decanter, a cast iron rooster trivet, and a vintage candy jar with a bell on the lid (not pictured.)
On Sunday, I found a garage sale that listed Pyrex as a keyword. I was working, but luckily it wasn't a day that I had to stay my whole shift because there wasn't anything to do. As soon as I was done, we drove up to North Minneapolis. This is considered "the hood" of the city, but I don't think it's really as bad as people suggest. Most of the houses and lawns are well maintained. Someone made a video recently about it. When we got to the sale it was towards the end of the day and they were packing up. That always makes me nervous and feel intrusive, but they said that the people in the area weren't really interested in vintage glassware so they were packing up because they weren't hopeful for more sales. They were really nice and let us go into their porch and look through the boxes they'd already packed up. It was a worthwhile stop because I found a few flameware sauce pans that I'd been wanting, Spring Blossom and apple tree carafes sans lids, a brown onion Pyrex with plastic cradle, and a cool Fire King casserole with lid. I also found a floral bubbles lid at the thrift store earlier that morning. It's such a lovely lid that I think I'll just display it rather than look for the bottom (which I'm not a huge fan of anyway.)
I think I'll leave off right there and continue with my finds in one or two more posts. This past weekend was extremely giving, so stay tuned throughout the week!
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