Monday, bloody Monday

Usually I look forward to Mondays. This was not the case when I woke up this morning, however.

Despite the gorgeous weather, i’m kaput today. We were outside for most of the weekend. Soaking it in, as it were. We went garage sale hunting. And by ‘hunting’, i mean we became cartographers of the Eastside. I was born and raised in Southern California and you couldn’t walk out the front door anytime of the year and not stumble on three yard sales within five blocks. Here you have to map it, chart it, research it, route it and plan plan plan. It takes the whole spontaneous fun out of garage sale-ing! And you would think with modern technology, smart phones, smart cars, GPS systems, and google maps it would be a cinch. noooooOOOOooo. We showed up to the spots directed and at least 40% of the time it was the wrong place, or no sale was happening. Wrong turns, U Turns, cranky kids, cranky co-pilot/navigators (i.e. moi) and grumpy husbands … well, husband. I couldn’t and wouldn’t want to deal with multiples of these.

We have also lived in Arizona and Texas. Finding a garage sale in Arizona, as i remember it, was tricky also. Rarely will you find someone so desperate to empty their treasures and clutter they risk buring alive on a driveway for half a day to sell it off at a quarter per piece.

In Texas, you must plan as well. And sales are nil on Sundays. As are most activities. Hell, you couldn’t even buy liquor at the grocery store there! You have to make a plan to be an alcoholic in that ‘great state’.

I suppose here in Washington, the weather being as unpredictable as it is, there is actually a season for garage sales. Winter and early spring are not it. We did manage to find some great deals, but given that we had a car full of family, i’m still trying to convince myself it was all worth it.

We found a very cool hutch, a bakers rack, a cute end table, a wine rack/table combo and a desk for my son’s room all for less than 100 bucks. Not too shabby.

The toys used as bait/bribery for the littles came free with goobers and germs and crusties

If you don’t hear from me in the next week, assume the bubonic plague has taken hold, and was introduced from one such piece of furniture/garbage (gar-BAAAAAHj)