Current Mood : Eager to read !
Spent at Habitat for Humanity sale : $10.
Yup, I had a huge bagload of fun this morning ! The local Habitat for Humanity Re-Store is less than a mile from Chez Insanity, so when I read their Craigslist ad for a yard sale, you know I was going ! Since they don't have to go by the ‘home' yard sale rules - $10. license fee, can only hold the sale for three consecutive days twice a calendar year, no refunds for rain - it began today. Like any volunteer-run organization, there's always delays and glitches, so I waited well past the opening hour.
They were still setting up when we left, but I made some great hauls ! Dearest Son found two action figures and a copy of A Dog for Life he liked, but the rest of the paper grocery sack was my stuff. Mostly books. When they're 50c for paperbacks and a buck for hardbacks, it's stock-up time if you find stuff you like ! I got a h-u-g-e Barbie coloring book - that sucker's 20 inches tall - mostly uncolored, and five various paperback Doll ValuesDon't Know Much About History for Beloved Hubby, as a bedside reader. books (they're out of date by the time they see print, but I love to look at the photos), and a paperback
As further proof the Universe loves me, I'd just finished A Charming Princess Collection last night - for a paperback Scholastic pre-teen volume, it had a lot of great fairy tales I'd never read before - and was bemoaning my lack of new stories, thinking I'd pick up my read-cover-to-cover copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales that I've had since college. It's a great research volume, heavy with annotations, history, and interpretations, and I'd always meant to go back and get the companion Hans Christian Andersen volume. You know where this is going. I found hardbacks of Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales, The World's Best Fairy Tales, and The Complete Illustrated Stories of Hans Christian Andersen. Not the same as my Grimm near-textbook, but I was thrilled. All the books are in fantastic shape, and I don't see me wanting for bedtime reading in the near future ! Just bookshelf space.
But there was yet more in my bag. I found four pretty blue table napkins to embroider, a set of four ‘decorate your own' glass ornaments (yeah, sure, now I find the darn things !), a pair of American Girl-sized doll boots, a Kelly-size dress and shirt, a Barbie dress and two blouses, a Princess Annika (Magic of Pegasus) Barbie still with her crown and two-way gown, and the big 18-inch soft body bedtime Barbie, for her crushed velvet nightgown. It fits Tiffany Taylor, so now I have one that isn't so wrecked.
Whew ! There was a lot in that lot ! When I got it to the register, they offered $5. for the whole shebang, but I insisted they take $10. I had nearly that in books alone ! And it's a fundraiser for a group I believe in. I would have felt like we were taking advantage of them (and cheap) for only giving them five bucks for so many wonderful things. And my second-hand mantra is, ‘It's not fun or a great haul if you feel bad about it !'
Princess Annika's dress had a couple odd stains and storage box dust on it, so it went through the doll clothes washing machine, conveniently still out from when Friday mouthed a pair of Prince Ken knickers. Not sure what the rusty spots were - food, possibly - but they came right out, and the dress is drying on one of the Castle turrets. Similar stains dotted the back of Bedtime Barbie's nightgown. So I did a doll clothes wash mini-marathon, and everything's drying nicely. Poor Bedtime has to go naked until her velour gown dries. Annika is kicking back in the narrow-box floral dress I also got at the sale, for now.
I may go back Saturday - yup, the sale is going on through then - without Dearest Son. He's a great shopping buddy, but he gets restless long before I'm done looking at everything...twice.
