Pathetically Shameless Garage Sale Score Blog

This blog is for my moms and my coussies, who dig the heck out of the g-sale hunt.  It's kind of a pointless blog, except to brag about how awesome my garage sale karma was yesterday and to remind everyone that when your husband's been laid off and you work for the state, you still don't have to live a life utterly devoid of cool stuff.  And since you're reusing, kudos to you!

We all know that little rush that comes from getting a good garage sale deal.  Yesterday, the cousins took me and the Bot to a neighborhood garage sale in Owasso and had a great time...it was Victorian Tumblers and Skeleton Suit Day all over again!  We piled five kids and five adults in the bargain wagon and trucked around the neighborhood, hopping out at the more promising looking driveways.  I love this so much I dream about this sort of thing...meandering through piles of once-beloved linens and tsotchkes and home crafted items fit only for cat ladies.  It was great fun, even if every single stop ended with me ungraciously dragging my indignant, occasionally unwittingly shoplifting child away from some half-destroyed Barbie house or Happy Meal toy he'd fixated on in the ubiquitous "mystery bin."  I had twenty-five dollars to work with.  Here's what we scored:

 

Graco branded swing, baby carrier and pack 'n play for the Bot; his are actually in a matching blue and white pattern rather than the one shown above...they are this pattern (although we don't have the high chair):

It's important in helping create good fathers from childhood to allow little boys to role play with "babies," as exemplified by this conversation, excerpted from Joel Troxell's essay (linked below) on Mothering.com:

But even if there was nothing inherently wrong with Nathan having a doll, was there any actual benefit to it? When I asked Amanda this question, I was floored by the level of thoughtfulness and insight revealed by her reply.

"Do you want Nathan to someday grow up and be a good dad?"

"Well, I hadn't really thought about it," I said, "but of course I do!"

"So he'll need to have qualities like compassion, sensitivity, and patience, as well as some practical experience with things like holding a baby, right?"

I couldn't disagree. Having refused to hold babies in the past, I had no choice, when Nathan was born, but to learn quickly. And never in his life had my brother looked as uncomfortable as when he held Nathan for the first time. "Of course," I said

"Then the earlier we start teaching him these things, the better. What better way to begin than with a doll?"  

And it makes me so proud to think that Arthur will become a super dad someday.  

Here are some articles on Guys and Dolls:

http://www.helium.com/items/300212-the-value-of-playing-with-dolls-for-girls-and-boys http://www.mothering.com/parenting/real-boys-play-dolls

We also picked up The Adventures of Raindrop on vinyl...it's about time Arthur had his very own record (although he does have the old school Fisher Price Sesame Street music box record player thanks to Auntie Taeh).  He has taken to carrying them over to the player and trying to get them going when no one's looking (Daddo plays Pink Floyd often when they're home together during the week).  

(Here's where you just pretend like our living room floor isn't trashed)

By the way, there's a whole web page dedicated to Raindrop where you can even print off cool vintage coloring pages.

Arthur isn't trying to feed the record to the TV set; he's demonstrating to us where it needs to go (turntable lives on a shelf way up over the TV in anticipation of the new ultramegagiant TV one of our superBFFs is sending over this week).

We also picked up three Melmo videos:

We aren't a use-the-TV-as-a-babysitter kind of a family, but sometimes it's nice to just mellow out together and enjoy a show, and both Justin and I remember very fondly the occasional reward of settling in to watch Fraggle Rock, Sesame Street and the Muppets.  In fact, we adore Frank Oz!   When Arthur's doc told us an occasional hour or less of TV for wind-down time or sick days is totally fine, we decided to institute a Family Movie Night.  As a couple, Big J and I have always loved having our one TV show we look forward to every week or going to the movies, and as a lit/drama geek, I've always seen TV as an art (and just as there's good art, there's plenty of crappy art, or guilty pleasure art, a principle that holds true for TV as well).  Emancipated of the guilt that we're rotting his little brain (as children of the 80s, TV and video games were a major part of our lives), we now make family TV night somewhat epic...I lay out a rocking palette on the floor (inspired by Miss O, who also loves TV and movies [and Muppets]), pop up some popcorn, and we all snuggle up for the big show.  I promised Arthur we will watch the movie of his choice later on tonight after Daddo goes to work and we're both looking forward to it, especially since the poor little bug has been running a fever today.  I even think a little ice cream might be in order!  

And three Little Golden Books (more Frank Oz action here!), which of course any 80s child worth their salt adored the heck out of, to add to our already ginormous book collection (hey, I'm an English teacher, for Pete's sake!).

  

(That last one will be great if my family ever lets me take a job in London!)

And we can't get enough of these.  I always loved them and my pre-ks loved the heck out of them at Bryant when I taught over there.  Go Playskool!

  

More Grover!  And I think Donald may make it on our Disney trip for hotel room down time (ten days is a long time!)  We also picked up a really cute little farm animals puzzle with pegs and another wooden letter puzzle with a ram on it.

And then my cousin found what my little Justin clone needs desperately for his no-butt: a super sweet toddler train belt.  Do you have any idea how rare it is to come across belts for these little people?  And Arthur loves trains.

But our twenty-five dollars wasn't done yet.  It was my turn to get goodies!  

Of course, I came across some jewelry I loved, like this antique pendant which will come to live on some lovely grosgrain later today:

And while it's too tiny too see, here is a vintage pendant with....drum roll...a windmill in delftware!  It's like Rotterdam is calling us back...

But there was more shopping to be had.  I soon came across these cutie pie sneaks in perfect condition!  They had "happy Disney World feet" written all over them!

     

And these little slip-ons, also in perfect shape:

And I picked up these tights, new in the package:

You all know how I feel about funky tights...my darlin' doula Joey Stenner got me hooked on funky legwear when she brought me the world's raddest labor accessory so I could experience my birthing experience in style.  What a gal!  It's just plain hard to be cute when rocking the librarian chic every day, so I just love this splash of color kind of business.

And to hide my ample cleavage at work, I picked up two jewel-toned Massini camis, one ruby, one teal, similar to this one.  They are so sweet, I decided today I would schlump around the house in the teal cami with my sugar skull N&N pants.  

And I then found a lovely little batik-styled earth mama top with the deep azuls I love so much:

Then I came across a perfect blue mirrored Indian bag, and I love all things Indian.  Should I ever make it to the market in Mumbai, I will probably spend every dollar we have on saris and handbags!  Thank heaven there's no Fake India at Disney World, since I have to budget every year for the lovely things at Mitsukoshi, Fake Morocco and Fake Mexico.  My bag is identical in style to this, with a slightly deeper blue and a deep sienna where the red is here.  The embroidery around the mirrors is alternating blue and red.  It's lovely.  Hello, airport security person.  Yes, I can remove my shoes.  Yes, I know I'm cute.

If you like the bag, by the way, it's available with a hundred other lovely Indian goods or so via Dolls of India.

Surely I was out of money by then, right?

I still had enough left to pick up a brand spanking new bottle of this

and this

(from Victoria's Secret).

And I also found some silly knit house socks for our Disney vacay.  Hello, geekdom!

Finally, I found three of the prettiest mosaic tile candle holders, in guess what...blue!

Now I am off to spend my Saturday night in the dorkiest possible way: I see in my future Journey singalongs with Arthur, some LOST fandom in my downtime, perhaps pursue a mother-son quest create and photo shoot some strange sculpture from my the bot's toys and miscellaneous footwear.  Because we're the Yorktown Owens, and we don't got to impress nobody!

Peace to you all.

Arthur's top toy pics

Arthur's faves at 17 months old

Fisher Price Classic Musical Teaching Clock

This a new version of a vintage toy...the kind of thing A's Mom and Dad go bananas over...and Arthur loves turning the knob, making the clock go.  This is a repro of the original clock produced in 1968 up until 1983, and we dig watching Arthur play with the kinds of simple toys that thrilled the heck out of us until we got cracked out on Atari in the mid-80s. It's sturdy, a plus, although to be fair, Abot isn't very hard on his toys.  And although the vast majority of Arthur's faves are "unplugged," so to speak, I can't underestimate the beauty of a toy that doesn't require batteries, its benefit to the environment, our bank account, our sanity.  The number one coolest thing about this toy is that the tune, some delicate, cute little lullaby we don't recognize, is not only not annoying, but is soothing at naptime.  Although we've only had it for a week or so, Arthur loves it to pieces and it's a pretty good chill out toy if he's too wound up and needs a little refreshing.  The little hands on the clock move to teach a child to tell time, and images of a little girl on the side show twelve, three, six and nine 'o clock positions using her arms.

Fisher Price Little People

Arthur is CRAZY about Little People!  And like Chloe Bedoe's mom and dad did, we are obsessed with buying them.  We stand by our "second hand is best" mantra, so we have inherited plenty of Chloe B's Littles (thank you Chloe B!), but Arthur is so batty over them we have built an entire bizarre Little People village, which takes up approximately 1/6th of the open space in our Sears kit home living room floor, and we keep adding to the community (what can I say, they are friendly in Arthur Town?!).  For their 50th anniversary, FP produced several sets of old school Little People.  Maybe it's the whole reliving our own childhood thing, but we can't help ourselves.  He has the classic schoolhouse and farm and will hopefully have the firehouse and family house to go with.  But citizens of A-Town don't discriminate; they play together, classic and new alike.  In fact, they even invited some other toys to play.  

It was all well and good until the dinosaurs and the horses had a bit of a skirmish.  

But the purple alien in the treehouse helped Strawberry Shortcake's little friend bring peace to the village over tea and cake, and later they all got together to make a stop-motion animation with Arthur's dad, which with any luck we will be posting in the near future.  Little People are awesome for many reasons.  They encourage imaginative play, and it is adorable to watch a 1.5-year-old talk to his toys.  They are portable, which means they can travel to a friend's house when we come to visit.

Chinese toy drum

This thing has been a favorite for a long time, and we are happy to see its staying power.  Arthur loves percussion, and we are convinced that percussion instruments are well-suited for introduction to infants and toddlers.  They naturally love to bang on things!  It took Arthur until recently to get good at using this little thing, but it didn't matter.  The satisfaction he gets from hitting it right has always been exciting.  I don't recommend this for all babies and toddlers (many will put the little balls in their mouth and it could be a choking hazard), but Arthur always uses it while attended by an adult, and responds pretty well to the "not for your mouth" rules...except when it comes to dog food, which is why the dog now takes his meals outside.  Back to the drum...we took it with us to Bonnaroo along with several other small instruments to entertain him through the shows...worked like a charm.