Thursday, June 28, 2007

Baltimore Inner Harbor today





My husband took the day off so we decided to go to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. Even though we live about an hour and a half way, we hardly ever go there. Well that's gonna change. A month or two ago we joined the National Aquarium of Baltimore as members (they had a family special for 15 months for $124). Considering if we were to pay out of pocket today - it would have cost us $63.85 (plus tax I assume). Two adults with the dolphin show $24.95 ea and one child $13.95. Yikes! So we just need to go one more time by Aug 2008 to make the membership *worthwhile*. Despite what the picture above looks like, the place was packed. Doesn't anybody work?? (That's what I say when I go someplace during the day and there's tons of people.) So even tho we're members, it wasn't exactly free to spend the day there. Parking was $15 and of course the gas to get there isn't free, then add in lunch at the ESPN Zone. But didn't buy anything at the numerous overpriced gift stores sprinkled throughout the aquarium.

So now that I know where to park etc, I'd like to take Jacob there at least a few times on my own, like during the school year when schools are off for some reason or another.

Look at that poor froggy - sure he's dumpy looking but actually naming him that I think is kinda insensitive to his feelings.

Then we took a different way home and ended up in Annapolis. I made my husband stop at Toys R Us there to use a $3 gift card (GC) that Jacob got for being in their birthday club. The card was expiring soon so I had to use it. Bought him a shirt on clearance for $6 - so used the $3 GC and used another GC for the remainder. We use a Toys R Us VISA card (and pay if off every month) and they periodically send us gift cards depending on how much we use the card.

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Zipgarage.com - new website to find yardsales & to place free ads

the coolest site to find your neighborhood garage sales

I recently found out about a new website where you can search for yardsales according to your zipcode, its called Zipgarage (click on the banner above). It's really simple and FREE! You know I am a big fan of free! If for some reason the banner isn't working, visit them at Zipgarage.com

Monday, June 25, 2007

Maryland is for crabs and rubber ducks



Maryland is known for crabs, but a lesser known tasty treat is the fine Maryland Rubber Ducky. This weekend was the annual harvesting of the little creatures and I managed to surreptitiously snap a few pics of the brutal event to send to PETA. They are a little too rubbery for my taste but the locals here love them (the squeeking when you throw them into the pot of boiling water really makes me lose my appetite.)

Sunday, June 24, 2007

No Doobie Brothers for me - my In-box is one big black hole

I am so bad at organizing my emails. With Microsoft Outlook I have my two primary accounts and then one "communal black hole" type box where emails also go, mostly e-newsletters etc that I've signed up for (and never read). So anyway months ago I emailed the volunteer coordinator of the Calvert Marine Museum about volunteering when they have their twice yearly concerts - some up and coming artists and other artists who are past their prime.

I thought I never heard back from the coordinator about volunteering. Oops, the email with the volunteer registration form was in the black hole in my inbox. Today is the Doobie Brothers concert - I guess it's a little too late for me to volunteer for this one. Oh well. I saw the Doobie Brothers Farewell Tour in 1983 so once is enough. And even bought a damn $15 t-shirt since it was their last tour forever and I knew I better buy a shirt that would one day be a collectible.....since it was their Farewell Tour and all...

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

My $5 Tent from Target (no, the Yardsalequeen doesn't do camping)



I bought this tent about 3 or 4 years ago at a yardsale for $5. It was still new in the box. It's the brand that Target sells so I remember checking out the retail price and it was $49.99. Anyhow, back when I got it I remember looking at the instructions on setting it up and getting confused (it doesn't take much), and put it back away. Well yesterday I decided it was time to try again and ta-da, it's up and in our backyard for Jacob to play in. It's not like I plan on going camping. I like my A/C and computer too much. Its a 3 person tent and has a rain shield thingy too. And it turned out to be a quick and easy set-up.

Yardsale treasures and junk from Saturday



The above pic is some of my yardsale buys from Saturday. Not everything is shown in the pic.

$2 Green depression glass refridgerator dish
.25 ice cream scooper for my collection
.25 Smurf glass
$1 handheld Yahtzee game for Jacob
$1 Radio Shack remote control in the shape of a football (new in package)
$2 metal frog (not a flower frog, a regular frog frog - to put outside for decoration)
.50 Little Black Sambo Golden Book (larger size from the 70's I think), I even bought another kids book just because I didn't want the seller to wonder why I was only buying one book. I also carried around the other book to cover the Sambo book, so other buyers wouldn't say "Oh that is a collectible Little Black Sambo book" very loudly.
.50 twin bedskirt for Jacob's bed
$1 HC cookbook for my mom - Two Fat Ladies Ride Again cookbook (one of the Food TV shows which was cancelled)
.50 vintage shaving stick canister to put alongside my shaving brush collection
.50 vintage Amoco bridge (cards) tally booklet
.50 - old plant waterer - in the shape of a toilet
.25 HP inkjet cartridge (to recycle at Staples for $3 coupon)
$2 Julia Child cookbook
.50 small glass jar Yankee Candle (unused)
.50 three vintage Disney placemats for kids
$1 large roll of metal fencing. To stop my dog from digging under fence.
$2 Fenton Milk Glass candy dish
free - small christmas ornament that looks like a hightop converse all-star

probably the best find of the day: two vintage TV computer games (like the old Atari) but its called Odyssey by Magnavox. Two controllers, one in original box and a ton of games. Price: FREE. The seller said I could have it all if I took everything.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Weekend Update

Saturday was a good yardsaling day. Bought a collectible copy of Little Black Sambo for .50 and a green Depression glass refridgerator dish for $2. Most of the stuff is still in the car so I will take a photo tomorrow.

Then in the afternoon, my husband's company had a picnic at a AA Minor League ballpark. It was like a whole day event - buffet picnic lunch, games going on in the outfield, bouncy bounce things for the kids to do. Free beer. No I didn't have any, beer is not my cup of tea. Although in my earlier days, if someone said "free beer" - I was there! And of course, free tickets to the game that night.



So anyway since the game didn't start until 7pm, we had some time to kill so we got our hands stamped and went across the street to go shopping,(Kohl's, Staples etc). And since it was a just a short drive, we drove to Bowie Town Center and walked around (I had never been there). Its an outdoor shopping center that is supposed to have the feel as if you are shopping at Main Street America. Assuming that there's a Victoria's Secret on Main Street in small town America. I don't shop well when I am with my husband and son. I do much better as lone bargain hunter. Didn't buy a thing.

At that point, my husband wasn't feeling good. He's been sick off and on the past week or two. But geez, the game was only an hour away. I felt like telling him to man-up and lets stay for the game or at least part of it. No, instead we left and went home. But we stopped at a deli so he could get a corned beef sandwich, apparently for medicinal purposes.

At the event, all the employees were given $30 gift certificates to spend at the ballfield either for concessions during the game, or for stuff at the souvenir shop. So with the $30, I bought Jacob an overpriced $18 t-shirt (which I am sure I probably could have found eventually for .35 at VV.) Also used the remainder to buy other overpriced stuff. I wanted to take this little guy home, but he wasn't for sale.



It just so happened that on Friday, I took Jacob to a new indoor bouncy bounce place ($6 for all you want to bounce). When we got there, Bob Barker's final episode was starting in the little cafe thing they had for parents, so Jacob sat and watched Bob. Good thing I wasn't paying by the hour to have him bounce. If I had known there was going to be bouncy things at the ballpark, I wouldn't have taken him to the indoor bouncy place the day before. (I would have spaced it out better).

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Some buys from the past week



I went to VV yesterday to get one last thrift shopping fix in before end of school year. Today is the first day of summer vacation for kids here. I don't thrift addictively over summer like I do the rest of the year (too difficult with a 7 year old). Sometimes I manage to sneak in a thrift shopping excursion every once in a while over the summer. And I do continue to hit the yardsales every Saturday.

I found several pairs of shoes yesterday (Born and SAS for resale), Skechers for me and two pairs for Jacob. And this time I'm not going to have to use shoe polish on the suede shoes to turn pink shoes into black/semi grey like I did when I found some pink shoes for him. (go to my blog archives over on the left and find the pink/black shoe experiment from June 14, 2006). And yes, he's already outgrown the pink/black shoes I bought last summer. The shoes at VV are .50 a pair. I also bought a few shirts at .35 each (not in pic)

No, the Berenguer doll is not for my son (he prefers Dora the Explorer anyways). I will put it up on ebay along with my other cheapo Berenguer dolls and see if I can get some doll "reborner" to buy them for much more than I spent. I paid .50 for this one. If you've never heard of Reborn Dolls and the certain type of people who buy them, it's definitely something alright.

The Arizona jeans ($1) are for my son to grow into. And the books (.10 - .25) each are for ebay.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Mailed off the winning gamepiece today

I stopped at the Post Office today to mail the winning gamepiece off. The contest rules state that it needed to be mailed via Registered Mail. Do they know that Registered Mail cost $9.50? Do you think I'm going to spend $9.50 (plus .41 stamp) to mail off to get Walkie Talkies worth $24.99? (the value was stated in the Rules). So anyways, I just mailed it off with a .41 stamp and if I don't get the walkie talkies, I'll just complain to Kraft. Haha.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Even when I don't try, stuff finds me....



I hit a few yardsales today but nothing to write blog about (of course I bought stuff, but nothing newsworthy). Instead I'll tell you what I found several weeks ago in my yard. I live on a pretty busy road in my neighborhood so I find the occasional stray soda can etc in my yard. But this time instead of a soda can, I found an empty Lunchables box. I saw there was a contest on the front of the package so I look inside and find the game piece. The package was an instant winner of a set of walkie talkies. How funny is that!? And it's not expired so I just need to mail it off to claim the prize.

Found someone cheaper than me

I forgot to mention this but a few weeks ago I found someone cheaper than me! I sold something on eBay and to ship this item via Priority Mail would have been $5.70 and they would get it in a few days. The other option was Parcel Post shipping for $5.60 (a whole DIME cheaper) and it would take a week or so for delivery. They chose the Parcel Post shipping to save a dime. I mailed it via Priority anyways just so I wouldn't then get an email from them asking what was taking so long for delivery.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Filing Cabinet makeover



Shopping for junk is my passion, but another passion of mine is finding storage (the two are sorta related....) Anyhow at the other day at VV, I walk in the door and see this off-white two drawer filing cabinet, without a price tag. I ask one of the cashiers, who happened to be walking by and she tells me $4. I go up to the cash register to pay and tell the other cashier it was $4. Then the two cashiers who were at the registers grumble and grumble to each other and make comments like "that should have been $8...so and so doesn't know how to price things". Sheesh. I did get it for $4. I had to bite my lip, I wanted to "Well if you were so concerned about underpricing items, why do you sell shoes for .50 a pair when I can turn around and get $100 for them on ebay?" Remember those red ugly Dansko clogs I bought a few months ago...they sold for over $100.

The tan filing cabinet is replacing a junky particle board tiny filing cabinet that I think we bought new, circa 1989. (I didn't really get into yardsaling until about 1990 so I would never buy a junky particle board filing cabinet now knowing what I know about buying used). I donated it yesterday to Smile. It was so small, it was frustrating to use as a filing cabinet since the drawer barely opened up far enough.

Thanks to all who voted for Dawn (my previous blog posting). She won!

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Please take a sec to vote

One of my MySpace friends is in a contest (to win a job actually) and needs votes before this Thursday at 7pm. Her name is Dawn Avello - the last name on the list - I met her last year when she worked at a radio station near me. She was super nice to my son. I'd love to see her win this so please take a second to vote for her - Dawn Avello

link deleted - by Chris (due to voting has ended)

Thanks!

Saturday, June 02, 2007

yardsales buys Saturday 6/2







I had to take Jacob with me today so I didn't get to shop as thoroughly as I do when I am alone. He does like the $2 Flokati Walmart faux fur rug. It still had the tag on it so I know it's machine washable.

At the last yardsale I stopped at (right down the street), I got this huge roll of foam carpet padding for $5. It's cheap quality but I don't plan on using it for new carpets. I'm going to cut it up into squares to use as package filler for when I sell breakable stuff on eBay. I better start selling some stuff and quick.

Also bought:
$3 box of new greeting cards
.25 splash guard thingy for showers (Jacob is always pulling on the shower curtain so he may like this)
.10 Doggy do-do bags. I may attach the package to a street sign, I have this neighbor who always walks his 3 dogs right past my house and lingers and lingers until his dogs crap....then goes right back home.
$2 Canon Canonet camera (note on it said it needs work). I bought it anyways since I have this exact camera and I know people still like this particular model.I may take to a camera store and see what they say or put it on ebay as is.
.25 - package of bamboo skewers
$1.50 ugly green and pink fake Crocs for me - new - of course they've never been worn - they're so ugly! But gotta say, even being fakes, they are comfortable.
$1.50 black pair of SAS shoes for resale (that is just flash at the toes, not major wear)
.25 As Seen on TV purse light - for a quarter, I had to buy it
.50 new roll of blue painting tape
.10 Gurley pilgrim candle (I wish there were more of these but oh well)
$2 - white flokati rug (may work good as background for ebay displays)