I Even Bought Their Yardsale Sign!

The weather here has been absolutely NON WINTRY! I have been desperately craving rain and windy storms but since I can't have it my way then I decided to take advantage of the 75 degree January weather and hit some yard sales.  I grabbed my friend K last weekend and we found a few good yard sales and a really dirty estate sale!  At the very last yard sale that we walked up to there wasn't much out in the driveway and I felt a sense of disappointment that it would end like that.  But then, as I turned to walk back to the car I looked at their yard sale sign.  It was a cool, giant cabinet door painted as a chalkboard.  I jokingly asked the man if he would sell me his sign.  I was a bit taken aback when he actually said "SURE"!  I asked him how much for the sign and he said, "you can have it for two dollars."  SOLD!!!!  It is so awesome with two locks on the bottom and hinges on the back.  The back of the door is painted black and the front is a green chalk board.  I plan on taking the hinges off and hanging it on the wall over our desk/work station!  So, beware, sellers...nothing is off limits to me!!!





Speaking of off limits, I will also buy your mailbox from in front of your house...I will give you back the bills inside.  No, I kid, this mailbox was for sale.  I picked it up at a block sale and paid $10 for it.  I may move it to a new location in my garden but I did buy it intentionally for the backyard as a decoration.

Here are some of the other items that I picked up on the first weekend out with my friend, K.

A Redmon Basket.  After conferring with a blog friend that collects these, I think this is a newer one and not worth as much as the antiques. It is still super cute and well worth the $1 that I got it for! 

I have been wanting one of these bicycle baskets to hang in the garage to coral some of

the random balls that are rolling around.

I am still in awe of these beakers and test tubes (5 beakers and 11 tubes in all) that I picked

up at that dirty estate sale.  The man that passed away was a Horticulturist at

the local university.  I have seen some cute ideas for these on Pinterest.

The prices were decent, $2 for the beakers and $1 for the test tubes.  I could

have spent all of my yard sale money on them.  There were over 300 test tubes in

the garage!!!

I envision using these baskets to hold craft items in my craft room.  I have

no idea what the red handle wire items are but I think they will look great

holding cards that I create.

This weekend I had the opportunity to get out and sale again with another local friend whom I actually met in blog world!  Crazy story...Angie of All My Treasures and I "met" on another blogger's comment section.  We realized that our comments about our cities sounded too similar.  Long story short, through some emails, we figured out that we lived in the same city.  After a few years of communicating through emails and each others' blogs we met this past summer when I went to her yard sale and bought some furniture! 

So, back to this weekend.  Angie and I went out salin' and had a blast!  I haven't laughed so hard in a long time.  My sides were aching for hours afterward!  We found ourselves exploring a few cities away.  Thank goodness I drive a minivan and carry a tape measure in my purse!  Here is what the damage looked like by the end of the day!

Filled to the brim with baskets, frames, books and odds and ends!

Angie scored a fabulous vintage settee in pristine condition and a coffee table!

Oh, that giant frame on the top of it all, that is MINE!!!! I can't wait to paint it some gorgeous color!

Some of the highlights of this weekend with Angie would be: The man that told us that he had some sweaters that would fit us...because they were stretchy!  The settee was snatched up for only $20 and the old lady started at $40.  We measured it and knew it would fit but Angie wanted to think about it. I guess the lady thought we were playing hardball.  She kept coming back and saying, "okay how about $35...I will come down to $30...alright I will give it to you for $25...I let it go for $20."  Angie never had to say anything, she really was trying to decide if she really wanted it, but for $20 we couldn't say no to something we would never see again!!!  Or how about the house that was so gross that we felt dirty just driving by it!  But best of all was this building...we had to turn around to take a picture...I almost peed myself laughing so hard!

Phore Sail

4.5 Achers 3 Loughts

Ummmm....Yeah!  That will sell really fast!

That is all of my adventures for the month of January.  The rest of my weekends are filled with real life obligations.  I fully intend to get out again in February!  Happy treasure hunting to you all!



Getting in The Christmas Mood

We have all been fighting this cold virus...one at a time...here at our house.  So, I did not get to do any of the baking and crafting that I wanted to do early in the season.  I was all over Pinterest pinning away all of the fabulous things I was going to make to give to friends and neighbors.  But when I finally felt well enough to do anything it was already the 19th and there really wasn't much time.  Then, Hubs came home sick from work and that blew any plans I had, right out of the water.  I am very much a germ-phobe and will not bake something in a "sick house" to give away to someone else.  But my desire to bake was so strong!!!!  I gave in and searched out the simplest recipes I could find and whipped those up...only after I Cloroxed the entire house!
I wanted to share the links for these ideas, they are so simple that you could whip them up today! Just in time for Christmas and run them over to the neighbors and impress them with your creativity!!! Or...keep them for yourself and eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner like me!

First up were the most delish chocolatey-minty cookies!!!  And they are made with only 4 ingredients!

Andes Mint Cookies

These Holiday Pretzel Treats are so addicting and so easy to make!

Holiday Pretzel Treats

These Candy Cane Marshmallow Treats were super easy to make.  I just copied the picture as there were no directions to go with the picture.  *Note, the link may not always go back to this picture.*  But, as you can see it is a mini candy cane, stuck into a large marshmallow, dipped in melted chocolate (I just melted semisweet chocolate chips in my mini crock pot) and rolled in crushed candy canes.  I ran out of crushed candy canes and rolled some in sanding sugar and it looked pretty too!  I thought these would be fun for stirring hot cocoa.

Candy Cane Marshmallow Treats

Well, I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas...and are all healthy!

Busy as a Bee

I am sure at this point nobody even stops by my doorstep anymore.  There is dust on the knick knacks and cobwebs in the corners.  I have been away for far too long.  I said in my last post that I would have so much more  free time once the kids went off to school.  Well, I had no idea how wrong I was.  With Diva in kindergarten and Professor in second grade I now have two pick up times.  I am the room mom in both classes with teachers to love.  I volunteer in each class for a few hours once a week.  I don't even have time to go thrifting or to yard sales!  It is a fun and busy time for me.
Among this busy life I have decided that I want to start a business.  I have loved photography since I was a kid.  It took me over two years with my Nikon D90 to actually take it off of the AUTO setting.  WOWZA! Once I did that it was like a whole new world opened up right in front of me!  I have been soaking up as much information as I can.  I have been taking as many pictures as I can.  My journey toward being a professional photographer is taken in baby steps.  This makes me more comfortable and there is nothing pushing me to go any faster. I want to figure out who I am in terms of what I like to shoot, how I shoot and where my comfort zone is.
I hope that I will have more to share here in the near future but that all depends on how crazy busy things get!  When I do get that photography website up and running I will post it here...if I still have any devoted readers.
Merry Christmas to you! Hope you are healthy and happy this holiday season!

A Colorful Bounty

I have been away from my blog for quite some time now.  Although, I have composed so many posts in my mind and have taken the pictures for them, getting it all onto the blog has been a different story!  We have been so busy.  One thing that we have discovered this summer is our local community Farmer's Market!  It is just up the street and they have it every Sunday.  It is on the small side and you can walk it in about 5 minutes!  I really hope that it grows and I would love to see more local growers from within our own city.  I have taken my neighbor and my family.  I hope to have a day when Hubs and I can take our bikes and ride to it...but that would require babysitting for the kids!
I have only purchased the food items there.  I am funny about craft items at markets. My first thought is that I can make that too.  Of course, I never get around to doing that but then I guess it means I never really needed that item.  Maybe near Christmas time I may pick up a few things as gifts.
I thought I would share a few pictures of our latest bounty since it was so beautiful in its coloring!
We are winding down our summer and starting or back-to-school shopping.  Hopefully once the kids are out of the house for a few hours I can give more attention to this blog!!
Hugs!
Le Anne


Love the colors!



So many things to do with these tomatoes!



Buttery, flacky goodness!



Only way I can get farm fresh eggs! (until I get my own hens!)



It's Crunch Time

Sorry I have been here for a bit.  It is busy season here.  Counting down to the last day of school means lots of room mom activities for me.  Planning our vacation.  Diva is still doing her competitions which means twice weekly practices.  Professor is finishing up his first year of cub scouts.  Hubs and I are trying to find time for our own getaways.  We are getting new floors throughout the entire house!  That is a chore!  I am packing and purging and throwing away 9 years of married crap (you know, the stuff people gave us at our wedding that we never used but moved three different times)!  We are planning a fundraiser yard sale for our gardener and his family so it helping to purge for a good cause.  So, we are busy right now.  A good busy but busy none the less.  So if I am not around that is why.
I will leave you with a picture of the Zac Brown Band concert that Hubs and I got to go to just last weekend.  It was so awesome!  They are our favorite band ever!  We were in the 6th row and dead center at the Hollywood Bowl!  I danced and sang the entire night...never sat down!  Oh, it was so amazing!

The picture is from my cell phone so it isn't the best! But I was snapping away all night!

Happy May!  I will probably talk to you all in June!

What Are People Coming To?!?

Today I got a sad phone call. 

It was from the wife of my gardener...the man that mows my lawn, trims my hedges, pulls my weeds, edges the lawn, turns the soil, fertilizes the yards, fixes the sprinklers and will bring in my trash cans from the curb on trash day.  He is a friendly guy that really likes to chat with me about anything and everything when he catches me coming or going.  He works hard and has been hit even harder by the economy.  We can see it from our window...he doesn't use a trailer to tow his equipment anymore.  His truck is a smaller, older model.  He no longer has help but does it all himself.  All of his equipment is now secondhand.  Well, as it turns out that last one, the secondhand equipment, is for a rather awful reason.  Some men stole his good stuff...right out of the back of his truck while he was mowing the side yard of a client.  What is wrong with people.  Manny is a really nice guy.  He is always offering to help with anything he can see that needs to be done.  He is just like everyone else, just trying to keep his head above water and the wolves at bay.
But that is not what the phone call was about.  The phone call that I got today was from his wife calling to tell me in a broken voice that he would not be here today to cut my grass, he was in the ICU.  My first thought was that this has all caught up to him and he had a heart attack.  But she explained that he had an accident on Monday.  Well, being the concerned person (or nosy) that I am, I asked for more specifics.  This is where it truly gets horrific.  This is where I lost my composure.  I lost my faith in human nature!
It seems that while he was on a job this past Monday, some men came along and stole some of his equipment from the back of his truck...AGAIN.  This time he saw it happening and approached the truck to talk to them.  He must have put his hand on the door frame in some way because he was holding onto the truck when the driver accelerated and drove away.  The driver dragged him down the road!  Dragged a man down the road just to steal his lawn equipment!  It still makes me cry to imagine the scene.  Manny came through this with broken ribs, a broken clavicle and a removed spleen.  He remains in the ICU for now and is awake.  This is all that I got from his wife, whom I do not know.  All she wanted to let me know was that he wouldn't be able to cut my lawn today. 
What I want to know is what kind of lowlife drags a man for a weedwacker?  I am hurting for this family.  So, if you can take a moment to say a quick prayer for Manny and his family.  They are going to have a rough road ahead of them.  He will lose so much income while he is in the hospital and during his recovery.  I hope that in the end of this tragic story there will be some sort of goodness.

Spring Time

Spring has been a fickle character around here.  One week she shows up with beautiful temps in the 80s and gets us all outdoors soaking up some vitamin D.  The next week she creeps in with damp foggy skies and barely reaches above 60 and forces us into our jackets.  For Easter she is treating us to some drizzly wet yuck!
We love the warm weather, of course!  I love the chance to put the ipod on the back patio and dance with the kids, get my hands in some dirt and create lovely little planters for my front porch.
So, I thought now that it is gray outside it would be nice to share some of the gorgeous colors that would greet you at my front door!
Happy Spring and Happy Easter!

Welcome!

I love to collect enamel ware.  This piece works perfectly as a planter.

Hello Mr. Ladybug.

Love the bright colors of these pots.

String of pearls hanging in a pitcher.

Mr. Toad is hiding from the sun.

I just love the color orange right now.

Love the ruffles of this mum!