Sunday

Well I never finished my post from Thanksgiving day. There was more that I wanted to say but I never got back to the blog that day.

I forgot to mention my buy at my regular VV store on Monday. In their toy bin I saw my son's current favorite toy: Kacie the Kinderbot robot. I bought one (new in box for $3) at a yardsale a few years ago, and so now we have a "backup" and it was only $1. When they were at Target, they were $39.99

Well in my previous post, I said I wasn't one of those crazy early bird Black Friday shoppers. Well I guess I lied. I was at a Staples at 5:30am on Black Friday waiting in line to buy a 19" flat screen monitor for $199 for my husband for Christmas. But at least I am not one of those tent people camping out at Walmart. I steered way clear of Walmart that day. So while some of you may think I am super cheap because of all my yardsale buys, I don't think I am since I *do* spend money at regular stores (but I just like to get a great bargain). Also bought my husband a 512 MB MP3 player (off ebay) as a gift recently.

We live about an hour away from a regular indoor shopping mall so I didn't go to a mall on Black Friday but didn't manage to hit these: Staples, Giant (grocery store), Target, Bath & Body Works (twice), Belk Dept. Store, JC Penneys (for free mini snowglobe), CVS, VV (yes, they were open and they even had a sale - fill a huge bag of clothes for $3), BJ's Warehouse, and Ace Hardware (for their One Day sale).

I had two coupons for Bath & Body Works: free item (up to $12.50) with any purchase and save $10 off $35 purchase. Well on Black Friday they had a sale on their fancy room deodorizers for $5 (normally $12.50) - but they don't call them "room deodorizers", they call them "Wallflowers". So I used both coupons and I bought a bunch of the room deodorizers as gifts plus a candle (to give to my sister in law). As I checked out, they gave me another $10 off $35 purchase coupon. So then after I left, I started thinking about what am I going to do for gifts for my son's 5 teachers (1 teacher, 2 assistants, 1 Speech Therapist and 1 Occupational Therapist. So I thought what the heck, I'll give them "Wallflowers" and I went back and bought more and used the coupon they had just given me a little earlier.

Today I got "my" Christmas gift from my husband - a Sony S90 Digital camera. It was no surprise since I'm the one who saw it on sale at Target ($199) and he told me to buy it. We had seen that model before at a different store and liked it. My current digital camera is held together by duct tape (I dropped it and the battery compartment won't stay closed on its own).

Oh here's something I forgot to mention the other day, I did a phone interview with a writer from Better Homes & Gardens magazine. They are doing an article about yardsale safety in their April '06 issue and I should get a mention of yardsalequeen.com in it. Knock on wood.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving. It started off pretty rough for me - wasn't feeling well last night or this morning. But I snapped out of it and I'm feeling better and cooking a turkey breast.

I plan on doing a little bit of Black Friday shopping tomorrow - but I don't plan on going crazy and set my alarm for 4am or anything.

Yesterday was the only day this week that Smile was going to be open but I didn't go (actually I couldn't go and it drove me nuts. My 5 year old son had off from school and I won't take him to Smile anymore since he is not a good shopper). I did go to both Vintage Value stores on Monday though. They have two stores and I normally don't go to one since it's a lot smaller and further away, but I went on Monday and found several nice tops for me (and they also have .30 days so my new-to-me clothing was .30 each, Liz Claiborne, St. Johns Bay etc).

My buys this past week

Went to my thrifts this week. My favorite buy was this Espirit purse for .50 at Vintage Value - looks brand new, no marks or anything inside. Since I went to VV on a .30 day I also bought some clothing including a new looking Johnny Knoxville Jackass shirt (probably for me) and a Ralph Lauren short sleeve buton down shirt for my husband (each were .30). At Smile I bought my son a Fisher Price tape recorder with microphone for $1, a reversible talking Veggietale Larryboy plush (for ebay) and bunch of other little stuff.

I had to stop at Walmart for something the other day and I wish I had had my camera in my car. I parked my car next to a grassy patch and when I got back to my car, I see someone had parked their Amish horse and buggy next to it. Acck...with all the car traffic at the Walmart, I feel sorry for the horse who must be scared.

Bought two turkey breasts (.99 lb) at the grocery store for Thanksgiving. We'll have one next week and save the other one for later.

My buys

My favorite buy this week at Smile was this great vintage picnic basket for $3. The manufacturer's label depicts a Native American Indian and the politically incorrect name Red-Man Quality Baskets Peru, Indiana. I just love it because of the design and the fact that it will be great for storage. With all the stuff I buy, I gotta have my storage! As I was walking around the store with it, one lady came up to me and said "wow, what a great basket". I love it when that happens, it just reaffirms that I think I have a good eye for junk.

I also bought some other stuff, a Boy Scout uniform shirt (for ebay) that was .50, a very cute battery operated dog (called Artlist Collection dog) that barks and wags his tag furiously ($1). Plus other stuff.

Today was another beautiful fall day and there were two large outdoor yardsales, one at a school and one at a church. Bought some Christmas sock monkeys at $1 each, an old green handled egg beater $1, a Smokey the Bear ashtray $1 and two sealed boxed sets of the 80's tv show Five Mile Creek at $3 each (pictured above). I had never heard of it but knew that the boxed DVD sets of any program usually sell for $25 and higher. I put one of them up on ebay already.

My husband took off half a day and we went out to lunch to a Lonestar. Then stopped at Target to look around. Just bought one thing. They had electric 6-sheet paper shredders on clearance for $2.48, normally $9.99. It fits over a trash can. Or in my case, I'll shred whatever needs shredding into our paper recycling bag. (I'm a big recycler). I don't think I'll need to do a lot of shredding, but as it is now, I tear up credit card applications etc.

It was a beautiful Fall day here in Maryland. Found lots of yardsales but I had my son with me so I just went to a few and was home by 10:30am. The best buy was a set of 4 like new patio cushions for $5. If you've ever priced patio chair cushions, you know they aren't cheap. Of course I bought a bunch of other stuff, but nothing to write home about.

Forgot to mention that a year ago yesterday was when I got filmed for movie "Zen in the Art of Yardsailing" by
ThUnderground Films The last I heard they were still in the editing phase, I'll probably get edited right out of it - LOL! Here's a photo of me with the director and the sound guy. My house is a mess as usual, but they did rearrange somewhat for the filming.

My buys

First let me say that the Message Boards are back to normal (they were only out of commision for a few hours the other day). If you haven't checked out the boards, please do, the link is there on the left.



On Wednesday, I was at a CVS store and they had all their Halloween Candy priced at .50 a bag. The above pic is a small sampling of what I bought (I ended up buying 16 bags, but gave a lot to my dog's other family. Long story, my dog lives part-time with another family). The previous day at Walmart, I got some other candy. I bought bags of Hershey Kisses and some other stuff. I think I'm going to make those cookies with the Hershey kisses in them. But if I had known I was going to get so much candy at .50 a bag at CVS, I would not have bought the candy at Walmart.

On Wednesday at Smile, I bought several bottles of nice perfumes at $1 each. Sunflowers (Elizabeth Arden), Velocity (Mary Kay) and Calyx by Prescriptives. I had never heard of the Calyx but I knew Prescriptives is an expensive brand name.



On Thursday at Smile, I bought myself a Jack Daniels cowboy hat. It was only .50 and it looks brand new, and it's my size. Now I just need to find a rodeo to wear it to. A while ago, a regional shopping mall had a phrase in their ads "Buy the dress, the party will come". So I guess I could say something similar, Buy the cowboy hat, the rodeo will come.

The Mary Moo Moo that I bought last weekend for .10 bit the dust. I accidently knocked it over and it fell about a foot and a hefty chuck broke off. It surprised me how easily it broke.

It's going to be a nice day tomorrow, so there should be lots of yardsales. I'll have my son with me, so I may not get to a whole lot.

Message Board problem

My message board is having technical difficulty...hopefully it will be fixed soon. I'm not going to start up a back-up board until I hear news about how long the downtime will be.

Buys last few days

Went to a few yardsales yesterday (Friday yardsales are very rare here). And bought this fish windsock decoration. It was brand new and never assembled - the original price was $26.99, I paid $4. And bought another Little Tikes wagon ($10) for my son, it's nicer than my other Little Tikes wagon. At Smile I bought two old (1940's) University of Maryland college yearbooks. $2 each. I never see yearbooks for sale, so I felt compelled to buy them.

Today went to a few yardsales and an estate sale. I bought a nice lamp for .10 - yes, .10! It doesn't have a lampshade though (but I'm sure I can find one cheap at a thrift store). Also bought a Mary Moo Moo figurine for .10 and a cow bobblehead for .10. The bobblehead is a particular brand that my mom buys at gift stores, so that was a good find. And at the estate sale I bought a bunch of full bottles of various cleaners for $1.50 - cans of Scotchgard, Shout, Armstrong floor cleaner, Spot Shot, Rug Doctor Pet Stain remover, full can of Lysol etc - all for $1.50.

In the afteroon, I took my son to a trick-or-treating event in a local park Ann Marie Garden . They get about 50 vendors to set up booths along the trail and give out candy. The admission cost is $1 per child or a can of nonperishable food. The park is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute, so they do have a bunch of sculptures on loan. Admission is free, except like today, when I had to bring a can of food.

Missed out on a pizza bargain...

I really don't pay attention to football much at all. But in our house we root for the Vikings, not the local teams (the Redskins or Ravens) - but shush don't tell anyone, I don't want my house TP'ed on Halloween! Well anyways, at our local Papa John's pizza, every week during football season they have a promotion. For every touchdown the Redskins get during a game, the next day you can get a free topping on a pizza. And if they win, the toppings are doubled. Well anyways, because of all the touchdowns last game, on Monday I could have gotten a 14 topping pizza for the plain cheese pizza price. Can you imagine 14 toppings on a pizza??? I was reading about it, and Papa Johns was telling people that getting all 14 toppings would result in an inadequately cooked pizza. I will have to pay attention to the Redskin scores from now on.

And speaking of the Redskins, I met a Hogette today and got a free autographed poster and football card - LOL! For some reason, the Hogette that lives in our little town was at Smile (in full Hogette regalia), making an appearance and giving aways posters. Had him personalize the poster to The Yard Sale Queen and the card to my son.





Heck, even when I actually met a pro football player in person I never thought to get an autograph. Many years ago when I was flying first class (I had a free upgrade coupon), I sat next to Dave Meggett when he was with the New York Giants. Very nice - he even ordered a rum and coke and gave me the rum bottle to stick in my purse for later. I love my rum and cokes! Actually what was pretty funny was that my husband was actually sitting back in coach at the time (he didn't have an upgrade coupon) and here I was chatting away with a pro football player.

Anyhow, didn't buy much today. Bought a .25 spoonrest to replace the one my husband broke and a $1 baby sling for ebay.

Spent $17.50 yesterday

Went to Smile yesterday and spent more than usual. Above is a few things I bought, $1 McCoy planter and two pairs of Easy Spirit slingback shoes ($2 a pair). No, they aren't mismatched, I bought a black pair and a tan pair, but only took a picture of one of each. Also bought a navy blue blazer/jacket for my son. It was more than I normally spend ($5) but it was in perfect condition and from Nordstrom. It's too big for him now, but will fit in a few years. I always buy things like this for him and put away for the future. I'm sure he'll need to dress up occasionally when he's older and I think its good to have some items like this on hand, so I don't have to run out and pay full price. Also bought a fancy Christmas dress for a little girl ($3) for ebay. I know this doesn't add up to $17.50, but I can't remember what else I bought.

No plans on doing any shopping today.

Another new lamp

Went to Smile and Vintage Value today. At Smile I bought 10 Wade figurines at .25 each. I collect them, since they are small and I can find them pretty cheap. Since I am cutting down on my "collections", I can still collect Wades, since they are so small and don't take up much room. They are a small giveaway that comes in Red Rose Tea (I don't even drink tea.). You can see what they look like at Red Rose Tea

At Vintage Value, it was a .30 clothing day. I bought 4 pieces including a like new Girl Scout Leader sweatshirt (for ebay) and an orange t-shirt for my son. I got a notice saying that his school is having a "Harvest Day" on October 31. Costumes are not allowed that day. No parade around the parking lot. Sheesh - his old school allowed Halloween parties and costume parade. Well anyways, his new school wants children to wear orange and black on Oct. 31. Oh boy, does that sound like fun.

Well anyways, at Vintage Value I bought this awesome floor lamp for $4! The camera flash washed out the beige color of the ribbed lampshade. Has a cracked glass (?) decorative thing at the center. As I waited in line to pay for it, several people commented on what a nice looking lamp it is. Here is a photo of my new lamp, and the photo below is the old lamp which it is going to replace. My old lamp is at least 17 years old, the gold is discoloring at the base and the shade has some paint splatters. Wanna buy it? It will be at my next yardsale.

Oh, I forgot to mention, about the "rumage" sale sign I saw, I'm going to be sending a copy of it to the guys at ThUnderground Films. They are looking for pics of funny or unusual yardsale type signs. See my website for more details: click here

I also forgot to mention what I bought at yardsales this past Saturday. I had my son with me, so I didn't go to many. I bought: $2 lead crystal decanter, a large 6 drawer plastic upright storage dresser (I love storage...). Paid $3. Later in the day, I went to BJ's Warehouse and happened to see a similar but smaller one for $19.99

Also bought a nice Welcome sign for $2 (painted on a piece of heavy slate), got a fancy fake diamond ring for free and 17 music CDs for .10 each. I had picked out about 10 when I saw the ".25 each" sign. But then when the seller was ringing me up, she said "oh, how about just .10 each". I love it when sellers reduce the price on their own. Anyhow, when she said that, I said I'd get the rest too. And they are all pretty decent CDs of mainstream artists (Bon Jovi, Janet Jackson, Bonnie Raitt, etc.)

My bargain today happened while at Food Lion. At the meat counter, a meat clerk was marking down a big bin of 93% lean hamburger to about $1 a pound. I bought 9 lbs of it. It was NOT past the sell-by date. I'll freeze it.

More about our trip

I finally downloaded the pics I took of our trip to Wisconsin (to attend a wedding). The wedding was held in a little town outside of Milwaukee. I finally got to go to the Taste of Home (magazine) visitor's center and the surrounding stores and had lunch at the nearby restaurant with my mother-in-law from San Pedro and my Wisconsin sister-in-law.. I bought a few things at the Reiman Publications store but spent less than $10.

On our drive there, we stayed overnight in Dayton, Ohio and went to the park at the river and saw their big fountain. Since it was late in the season, everything else was closed.

The wedding was held on a Saturday afternoon, so in the morning, I had nothing really to do...except go to a few yardsales! As it turned out, it was raining in Maryland that day, so I didn't miss any good yardsales back home. One thing I noticed about Wisconsin, is that they call their yardsales and garage sales "Rummage sales", or even in at least one case, "Rumage" Sale.

There were only a few sales, and I only found one with stuff worth buying (no, I didn't buy a big Packers blow up - that sale didn't have anything I wanted). That day I bought a cut glass pitcher for .25, a pair of sexy Aerosole shoes ($1) and a bunch of VHS for .25 each, including one of the old show: Ma and Pa Kettle. And when I went to Smile this week, what did I find? Another VHS of Ma and Pa Kettle, so now I have two to put together and sell on ebay.

The wedding was fun. Jacob and I viewed the wedding from a special sound proof booth...haha. Geez, I wonder why.

On the way back, we stopped briefly in Chicago to visit one of my internet emails friends who I have met a few times before. Took some pics of the Sears Tower while driving past....it takes a lot of skill to photograph the Tower while it's being partially obscured by a tractor trailer.

Just got back from Wisconsin

We took a roadtrip to Wisconsin to attend a niece's wedding. Will write more later. Oh and of course I went yardsailing in Wisconsin on Saturday and bought a few things. And of course I took lots of pics.

Geez, what the &*$%@#! is going on with all the stupid spam comments??? (see the below post with the 12 spam comments). I changed the settings on the blog, so from now on, if someone wishes to leave a message, you have to manually type in a code first. A real pain but maybe that will help with the stupid spam comments.

Today my favorite church had their semi-annual yardsale. They have awesome prices - so many things are marked .05 or .10. I spent $3.50.

My favorite buy of today was a pair of lamps for our nightstands. Since we got rid of our old bed with the built-in lights, we needed lamps for reading in bed. I love them (paid $5 for both), here's what they look like:

I went to Smile both on Wednesday and Thursday. I sorta collect old tin spinning tops (if they are cheap enough) and I found one for $1 this week. Also bought a vintage (?) apron with embroidery for $2 (for ebay). Also bought some Baby Einstein vhs for .50 each.

Almost bought a Sony S90 digital camera on clearance at Staples today, with a coupon it would have been $209. I was going to buy it but they didn't have any more left. Sheesh, then why do they still have it on display?? That irks me when stores do that.

Free Hat with Haircut

I spotted this ad in our local newspaper and it amused me. Ok, you all know I love free stuff...but this ad doesn't give me confidence to get a haircut done tomorrow if they have to give you a free hat afterwards....

My buys from last Saturday:

.25 bottle of Canoe cologne
.25 each, bottles of Estee Lauder products (foamy gel cleanser, deep clean mask, lotion etc)
.25 small cookbook: BBQ with Budweiser
.50 large baggy full of Mighty Beanz toys
.25 two brand in package (fake) diamond tennis bracelets

Then at a church yardsale (where nothing was marked), I filled up a grocery bag full of stuff and then at checkout, the cashier would name a price. My bag of stuff was only $2. In my bag, I bought two brand new packages of freezer storage containers, Blues Clues software, a new zipper pull with my son's name on it, a Plankton (Spongebob character) watch in decorative container, a few books, a Tweety bird ceramic spoonrest, several small toys, a button that says "I am not your maid" and some other junk.

Buys this week

I went to Smile on Wed, Thurs and today (Friday) and bought stuff each day. (They are closed Sun-Tues so that is why I never have any Smile purchases on those days - haha). On Wednesday I bought some vintage melted plastic Halloween decorations (paid .50 each, they are destined for ebay since there are a lot of people who collect vintage Halloween). I also bought a bunch of women's books (by authors Lori Wick and Beverly Lewis) for .50 each that should also sell well.

Also bought some vintage souvenirs (.50 for the Bermuda tray and .75 for both of the Florida ones). I love Bermuda - I went once back in my 20's for Spring Break and would love to go back someday.

Also bought some Beatle's music. For $2 I bought "Snoopy's Beatles Classiks on Toys". It features the Peanut's Gang doing renditions of Penny Lane, She Loves You, Yesterday etc. all done on children's musical toys.

For $4, I bought two nice storage bins with hinged lids. The kind that small stores use when restocking their shelves. They were probably stolen from somewhere and somehow ended up at my thrift, where they had them for sale.

On Wednesday I went to V V (it was a .30 day). I found a great Dockers Golf shirt in my husband's size for .30. Also bought a vintage Rainbow Brite doll (.50) and a vintage Halloween witch decoration for .50.

Today at Target my bargain was on some clearanced Tilex cleaner for $3.48 - it was specially packaged and included two Clorox Bleach pens. I bought two. I just love those Clorox Bleach pens and it was cheaper than buying the bleach pens individually, and plus I got the bottles of Tilex.

In the mail I got another free coupon for a can of Starbucks's Doubleshot. I got one a few weeks ago when I filled out the info at www.doubleshot.com (click on where it says "This one's on us" and today for some reason, they sent me another.

Also in the mail was a certificate for a 60 day free membership at our local BJ's Warehouse. That works for me! I always hear good things about shopping at Costco, but we don't have one anywhere close, so BJ's is the next best thing. Pretty soon I'll have some new local stores to shop at, we are getting an Old Navy, Best Buy and a Ross. Right now if I wanted to shop at one of those, I'd have to drive 50 miles. But soon, they'll be within 20 minutes of my house.

My dog came home for a visit tonight. He's been steadily living at his adopted family's house for about the past month. His other family lives a few streets away and every so often he comes "home". After living here for 10 years he decided he wanted to live elsewhere and found a new family on his own. He has been going back and forth for well over 2 years now.

Yippee, tomorrow is Saturday!!!