Dining Room Chairs-Finally

In November, 2017 I wrote about the retro, Target butter dish and how we didn't have any dining room chairs. Well, a year and a half later...drumroll...we now have two! Here is one of them. They are identical twins, so just use your imagination. And I guess, as with many identical twins, there are small differences that give away who is who; (I read somewhere that 'whom' may soon be going the way of the Do-Do and good riddance.

In this situation, I can tell the chairs apart as soon as I sit on them. One of them (Let's call her "goody-two-shoes") reacts like one would expect a chair to act, in that when your butt hits the seat...you're sitting. The other one (Let's call her, "The Black Sheep"), reacts by giving way to over plushy-lack-of-firmness needed to provide comfortable sitting posture.

I shouldn't complain because we found them on the side of the road.  I don't think I can rightly claim dumpster-diving street cred because technically they were not  in the dumpster, but in front of the dumpster. And it wasn't me who got out and Tetris-esquely put them into the back of the car.  But it was me, who expertly spotted them, turned around, and sacrificially allowed my 9 year old to do the honors, while I never figured out how to turn on the hazards. You're welcome, dining room!

Ironic Things

Does anyone else find this a bit ironic, seeing as this miniature plate is, in itself, a thing. It's an interesting sentiment though, because many people collect things, and it's not  considered a bad thing, per se, unless it becomes a hoarding situation, where the collected things, start taking over ones mind and life and house, and then they become the unwilling beneficiaries of the show "Hoarders". But then, if we delve deeper, the quote seems to be implying that collecting "moments" is superior to collecting "things."

I feel like every time I turn on Twitter or the news, I see another article exploring the superiority of "experiences" over  stuff. Here's an article by Uptin Saiidi explaining this phenomenon, https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/05/millennials-are-prioritizing-experiences-over-stuff.html.

Here's an article: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2016/06/28/experiences_over_stuff_is_a_tired_and_sexist_idea.html by Elissa Strauss, taking the devil's advocate point of view, of the elevation of experiences versus stuff.

I have to say I agree with Elissa's point that one can't experience "experiences" without stuff facilitating those experiences.

Nevertheless, the plate's sentiment, though not without controversy, is still a quote I might find myself saving in my Quotes Board in Pinterest, because it sounds cool.

I didn't buy the plate. I took its advice however, and made a moment, out of writing this blog post. I haven't written in months and the plate's somewhat hypocritical statement, inspired me. Inspired me to troll it, by blogging about it. Inspiration comes from everywhere, moments and stuff alike, and you can quote me on that.

Target butter dish

I found this cute fluffy yellowy butter dish at Goodwill! It looks retro-y but it’s originally from Target-2013...good enough for me. I’ve been hunting for a cute-enough-for-me butter dish for years...They are there but when I come across one it’s usually either seasonal-ish or plain ugly or just plain-plain. I could turn a 7$ profit on eBay if I wanted, but I don’t. As of now, we do not own any dining room chairs so I’m not sure when my new dish will make her debut...I’m not putting her on the arm of the couch where my morning coffee and breakfast cereal bowls, and dinner burrito plates, and dinner cereal bowls go...we’ve had some fiestaware causualties...some are still hard to face...like the yellow pitcher...but in the end it’s just stuff and it’s replaceable...except the chairs...those seem hard to come by.

Yard Crap

The past couple of weeks, we've been working on the backyard. It's a first for us, and we've been here almost 5 years. We have a pile of crap waiting for bulk pick-up, which will pick up our crap, in a couple of weeks; we picked up mounds of trash, which resulted in our finding a flower bed. So, this morning, we planted flowers in the flower bed, once trash dump.

I found other cool things, but accidentally broke the coolest one, and so after deciding that it wouldn't make or break my future (documenting the coolest item found in backyard), I bravely decided to march on and document a few remaining treasures, big foots and albatrosses aside...

These 4 multicolored bb's are just a small sampling of the hundreds we've come across. I'm no archaeologist, but I'm pretty sure my backyard has seen at least one, epic BB gun showdown!

My two year old knows better than to eat them...so far, but it will be a momentous and probably sad day when there are no more to be found...Because finding them has become part tradition, part clean-up. Once, they've all been removed, like the little annoying, treasure-trash they are, new traditions will have to be forged. But I'm up to the challenge.

I think the year on the penny is 2002, although it looks pre-Civil War. At first I thought I hit the
jackpot with it because it looked like Lincoln's head was upside down, in relation to the tails side...but it was a false alarm. I'm only a cent richer.  I dropped it down the disposal trying to clean it, so the  date is technically still unverifiable.  My husband just told me that it's in the sewer now. So, if anyone finds it, check the date and get back with me...or just keep it. You're welcome.

Pyrex Mugs

Found these at Savers; The one on the left came in a set of 4; the one on the right, a set of 6; I left with 10 of these and another random mug for less than $6.

In all I should've paid about $13 for the 11 (4+6+1-random mug=11) but the cashier brushed off my questioning of her scanning stating: "They way they price things is weird." I'm not complaining. I'm starting to like mugs (sheepish emoji).  My husband collects mugs and his locker full of them is overflowing and now these take up a whole top shelf in our kitchen.

It's time I face that fact that I'm horrible at selling cute, vintage things I find at Savers. What I need to do is invest in a hutch.  There's no room in my house for a hutch, so I'm not sure where that leaves me because I can't afford a bigger house right now, if I could then I'd be buying a hutch on Craigslist and researching how to paint it.  It's a cycle; a cycle of the law of space, which probably says something like: "Stop buying crap when you're out of room." Fortunately for us, Savers takes crap too and thus the cycle continues, which is less redundant sounding than saying, the cycle-cycles.

Escape and Shop: Square Glass Jar/Lid and New York.

I found this at Savers.  It was election night and everyone else had the same idea; escape and shop.  It was almost past my bedtime so I was at a disadvantage as I fought off imagined Pyrex hunters and Fiestaware butter dish connoisseurs. The truth is that this night, I didn't really know what I was looking for.  I checked to see if a Pyrex bowl I had previously passed on was still there; no luck.

I gazed at the random-est of the random junk in plastic bags hanging on the hooks.  I thought about buying my 7 year old some paper and crayons but remembered that my one year old would just eat them.

It occurred to me that tonight I should look for things I might not usually look for or at least keep an open mind.  My sleepy eyes and brain gazed at the cute glass dishes and fake depression glass that has in the past faked me out more than once.  Not tonight, fake depression glass, not tonight, but you know who you are.

Eventually I found myself staring at the plethora (The Three Amigos) of mason jars and glass cookie and coffee jars.  This treasure was hiding but couldn't hide for long.  I loved it immediately (which is a thrift shopping rule that is much easier said than done; only buying what I love).  There have been things I thought I've loved but could live without.

How could anyone live without this??  If the original owner is reading this, I will take pity on you for your lapse in judgement.  Just joking, finders keepers, losers you know how the story ends...

I googled and googled and could not find anything similar.  It has a friggin' square lid and it doesn't screw on; it just sits perfectly on top therefore not stealing any space from the jar itself. My husband says it reminds him of a jar that used to be in his grandmother's bathroom, that held cotton balls.  This jar deserves more than cotton balls but I'm not sure what, yet. The bottom of the lid and sides of the jar are beveled squares.

It reminds me of a skyscraper.  I've been adding tons of New York pics to my New York Pinterest board and having it sit beside two other plastic and more non-descript skyscraper-esque kitchen containers has me feeling New York-ish as I've got the beginnings of my own Manhatten skyline going on. On a side-note I really need to google if the verb form of Google is capitalized. I think it is.

The Faker

Pyrex "Museum"

This is my Pyrex Museum. It's not much now, but in a few decades it might take up a whole hutch or even a whole wall, maybe even a whole room. The newest addition to my museum is the white, ribbed Pyrex bowl. Guess how much it was at Savers? .99, so with tax $1.08. Not too shabby. I can't bring myself to try to sell it because then my museum would grow at a much slower rate. I saw a matching green faded/white bowl similar to the pink faded white bowl the other day and erroneously failed to pounce on it. In my defense, it probably wasn't 1.08 (including tax). Still I admit I should've pounced on it. 

I'm not sure exactly the science of  how the coloring on Pyrex bowls slowely fades, but in my opinion, it's beautiful, less valuable maybe, but still beautiful. I remember watching an episode of "Northern Exposure" a looonnggg time ago, and they were analyzing a painting. It had some kind of flaw in it and it was suggested that perhaps flaws, and the absence of perfection, hold a kind of beauty that no thing of perfection can. That's all I remember of Northern Exposure, besides the moose; Who can forget him?? Not I. 

Therefore, even though I would have preferred the green and pink bowls to have retained all their color, I'm also happy with their imperfections, because the white underneath is still really cool looking. The color that remains at the top tells its own story; And even though it's faded, the Pyrex bowl itself is still perfectly intact and useful; it's still 100% capable of fulfilling its mission in life, to be a good little bowl and to be a Vintage rock-star that everyone wants to collect and show off in their own  Pyrex Museums. Damn I should've bought the green one! I'm still not very good at letting go of opposite-buyer's-remorse. This is a common theme in my life. The movie "Let it Go", I mean "Frozen" obviously didn't get through to me, because I struggle with regret a lot, in general. But seriously why didn't I buy it? Let it go! Okay, thanks I'm healed.