Friday Morning Yard Saleing

Katielyn and I have taken to going Yard Saleing every Friday morning trying to find treasures to add make our new house a home. Today didn't look promising with only one moving sale listed in the classifieds but we set out anyway as it was a nice morning for yard saleing and usually we find more sales on our way.

I was disappointed as we drove out to not find any more sale signs and the corner where we turn into the neighborhood with the one sale, usually is brimming with signs didn't even have one. I was hoping I could find the one sale as I hadn't bothered to write down the address. We drove through the neighborhood and still no more signs. I figured today would be a bust. Finally we arrived at the turn with the sign for the advertised sale and happily there were three signs there. Yeah!

The first sale we poked through the treasures and found, a couple of planter stands for outside (last week we went on a greenhouse tour and now we're determined to dress up the outside of our house!), an old paper holder for my office (needs some refinishing) and a tomato planter (of course I find this today as I just repotted my tomato plant yesterday). We bought these for the princely sum of $2.00.

On to the next sale. We didn't find much there mostly toys and clothes. Katielyn did find a feather boa to dress up a sign she bought a couple of weeks ago. This sale only cost us $0.10 cents.

Finally we arrived at the last sale which was a moving sale. They had lots of interesting stuff but not really what we needed. Katielyn found a folding chair she had to have, and I found a picnic basket that would be good for holding my office paperwork. I spotted a nice wooden cabinet with glass doors behind a pile of boxes and bags and asked if it was for sale and it was! We went inside to see the matching pieces and liked them so we dickered a bit and finally settled on $100 for the pair. Not exactly a steal, but I do like the pieces and can use them. The house was lovely decorated with Guatemalan artwork. I may yet get a nice woven rug bought...we'll see when I pick up the cabinets. I also found a blouse and a bird feeder with character (read needs work but looks nice and old). Total expenditure (not including the shelves which we'll pick up later) $5.25.

Here's our yard sale loot for the day:

Total purchase price $7.35 (missing the feather boa)

We've been doing the Friday morning yard saleing for a while now, here are a couple pics of finds from the past few weeks:

My $5.00 water trough, complete with spigot!

Antique trunk for KT's rooms that we plan to refinish $10.00 (we were offered $20.00 for it before we even left the sale!)

Cute bow holder made from a window frame $3.00

The green had to go...

I work out of my home. At our new house, my office is shared with the dining room. It didn't take me but a day or two working at the computer to decide the room was too dark. I bought a floor lamp hoping to brighten up my workspace and though it enabled me to work without squinting, the lights glow did nothing for the gloomy walls. The room's only window faces a North-Westerly direction so not much sunlight shines in and the drab green of the walls did nothing to brighten things up. 


So this past weekend the room got a much needed makeover. I think it's a tremendous improvement! My inspiration came from here:

Persimmon Ceiling -Inspirational Photo!

I wanted to add a bold color but was worried too much would be too powerful for a dining room. When I saw the above picture I knew what to do -paint the ceiling the bold color.  I picked up some color swatches and hummed and hawed for several days and finally picked out the two colors I liked. Last Saturday, I took the color swatches to Home Depot and had them mix me up the paint. On the way home we stopped at a yard sale and bought a chest which we squished into the back of my already overly full Ford Escape. Unfortunately, while taking this chest out of the car, a can of my paint rolled out and "poof" it hit the driveway and out spilled all the paint. What a mess. And let me tell you, cleaning paint off a driveway is not easy! I shoveled it into a bag as best I could and covered it with dirt to soak up. Later I took my mostly empty can back to Home Depot and told them my sorry story and they were kind enough to replace the paint. I started the room painting with the ceiling-knowing that it would be the worst part and if I did the walls first it might not get done at all. Here's the starting point:

You can see the drab green wall (left) and the plain ceiling-this is actually a photo of our cat in the pass-through from dining room to kitchen. 

Me, painting the ceiling. At this point I'm thinking "This is very very pink" and am having big doubts!

Here's a shot with ceiling done and wall started. What a contrast!

And finally we have the finished product. I'm tickled with the outcome. A pleasant surprise is how nice the casement windows look against the walls (yes these are old windows and open into the room). The room is very warm and inviting. I can't wait until the dinnerware I ordered arrives and then I can take a picture of the whole room. For now you'll have to settle with this teaser photo (and I can finish decluttering my office corner!). 

The finished colors

Plums Galore!

Wow. Big Absence -but that's what happens when a writer/homesteader/self-employed person moves! So much to do and absolutely not enough time to do half of what needs to be done.

I'm writing this from my new home office in Bailey, CO with a view of the mountains from my desktop. I still have a million and one things to do but feared my followers might think I'd disappeared on them like many bloggers do.

And curiously enough today's post is about what I left behind in Texas! Look what my husband posted the other day on Facebook:

This is the plum tree I planted 3 years ago -it's absolutely loaded with plums! The year after I planted the tree it had quite a few plums early on, but then the Texas spring storms came and storm by storm my plums were blown off. Finally I was left with two plums on the tree, just about ripe. We went on a trip to CO looking for property and returned a few days later to one sole plum hanging on, the other was on the ground ravaged by ants. Ughh. We ceremoniously picked the remaining plum (well truthfully it may have not been so ceremoniously, more like hastily plucked it off the tree!). My daughter and I shared it and to this day I swear it was the tastiest plum I've ever had the pleasure of sinking my teeth into.

The following year there were many blossoms but no plums survived the winds that the Spring of 2011 brought to Texas.

And this year 2012, what a bounty. I'm praying that I get to sample a few when hubby comes up from Texas in a couple of weeks time. He says each storm we lose a few and that they aren't quite ripe yet...Hang on plums you're almost there. If I don't get to sample a fresh plum, hopefully Jessica will let us sample some of the jam she made from plums she picked from the tree.