Garage Sales & Second Hand Stores

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From the Mom, Oldest Daughter, and Youngest Daughter:
(Posted and written by the Youngest Daughter)

On Friday the three of us girls went garage saleing and second hand store-ing. :) It was great fun. I decided I should show you some of our very best finds.

First we have the best of Mom's finds:

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. For 50 cents.

Dr. Seuss books in great condition! For 49 cents each. To be honest, this teenager is rather jealous. :) I love Dr. Seuss's weird artwork and funny writing.

And more childrens books! Mom claims they are for future grandchildren. But I think she just likes them herself. :)

Oldest Daughters best finds:

A beautiful Barnes and Noble copy of War and Peace. For a whopping 50 cents.

Cool coasters that you can put pictures in!

And I'm not very happy about this spectacular 50 cent find. Why? Because she found it before I did! :(

;)

The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket. (Don't you just love his pen name??)

And finally the best of my finds!

A hardcover copy of Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis.

This shelf for $1.00. It was ugly brown with all kinds of scratches, but once I spray painted it, it looks almost brand new!

A beautiful copy of Jane Eyre. I've never read it, and have no idea if I'll like it, but hey. When a book's that pretty, you just can't pass it up!

This cool little lamp. Won't it look sweet once I find a good shade for it?

A brand new looking copy of the Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks.

And lastly one of my favorite finds, a cute messenger bag! It was five bucks, which seemed outrageously expensive compared to all our other things. But ya know, I think it's OK to "splurge" once in a while. :)

Garden

Posted by Mom (after being threated with indescribable terrors by my Youngest Daughter ... Mom! If you don't POST ... )

Mid-Summer growth. I love how my new garden space is beginning to fill in.

A few tobacco plants and sunflowers self-seeded. The bamboo fence is great!

(So much better than the chain link it is hiding) A little privacy is a wonderful thing.

Guest Blog :)

From the Youngest Daughter :)

Hi everyone! I just did my very first guest blog post! Basically that means I post stuff on a different person's blog. That person would be my very good friend "Storyfingers"! She just started a blog all about writing. I have a feeling it's gonna be a great blog! Storyfingers wanted me to post one of the stories I've written, so I did. You can see it Here. In the future she wants to post some really fun writing projects, tips, and of course more stories. So feel free to comment and follow along if you want. I'm sure she won't mind. :)

P.S. On a random note, cuz as you all know I'm all about random, this is our 60th post on this blog! I think this deserves a celebration! :)

Siamese Cherries

From the Youngest Daughter :)

(I'm hoping to get someone else to post soon! This isn't just my blog after all! Supposedly...)

Anyway, look what we found in our cherry bag! :)
I had never seen one like it before. But maybe they aren't as rare as I thought. Cuz after this one we found a few more...
Seven altogether!

Have you ever seen one of these before?

Smile yet again

From the Youngest Daughter :)

(Who else?)

5 things that make me smile:

1. Rainbows. Need I say more?

2. Making dolls out of the hollyhocks in my garden. :)

3. A crazy bean from our garden. Can't you just see a toy car go at full speed down the ramp, upside down through the loop-dee-loop and out the other side?!

4. A circular cucumber from our garden! What is with our veggies this year!?

... Not that I mind or anything. :)

5. And lastly this super cool vase my grandma gave me!

Isn't it pretty?

Cool Randomness :)

From the Youngest Daughter :)

WARNING: Long post ahead!

We just got back from a short vacation. Aaannd I decided that while traveling I would take pics of the cool things I saw! I was hoping for a ten foot tall inflatable rubber ducky (believe it or not, I have seen one of those before!) or maybe a car pulling a trailer with a hot tub on it (which I have also seen.) Or maybe an Uncle Sam on those really tall stilts walking down the highway (OK, I have never seen that one. I wish though. :)

I didn't get pictures of any of those things, but I did find some pretty crazy stuff. :) So here we go! The first kinda crazy thing I saw was a teenager driving this pretty zany car.

Then I saw this sign thingy. Doesn't it look like the head of a grasshopper!?

In our hotel we found this sign:

Because obviously I'm gonna want to buy an out-dated alarm clock that about a million different people have used. Duh.


How's this for a cool roof? (Happy 4th of July, BTW!)

We went out to eat at a taco place. The burritos are huge and they're wrapped up in tin foil. Rather difficult to eat, unless you know the proper procedure:

The burrito place had a kind of beachy theme. They had a lot of funny decor! Including a surf board with a shark chomp taken out of it. And this kinda crazy sign:

Then we saw this cool place with a grass roof! :)

Ever seen a sign that said this before?

Check out this crazy boat! [note: This was parked in front of a house that had a crazy bright yellow, overly polished sports car in the garage. Hmmmm. Rich much?] Just look at that engine!

Oooh, and look at this crazy house! It would drive me crazy living there, but it was pretty awesome to drive past. :) On your right you see about a million garden gnomes, and on your left you see an eclectic collection of roosters and American flags. Niiiicce.

And just when you think you'll never see another house like it, you drive past this baby. It looked better in person, believe me.

Note: if I saw a teenage girl sitting in a car full of pool noodles and taking picture of my house, I would be creeeeped.

Check out the zany owls in the tree!

I think someone had a few too many campers/boats on hand. So they took their pop-up camper, sliced off one of the beds and stuck it on the back of their pontoon. Then they took their RV chopped out the center and pasted it on too. And there you have it. I call it the pop-up ponRV.

Wooof. Look at that junk heap!

And then I saw this cool car. I just *had* to photoshop it to make the photo look vintage. :)

Ever seen this sign before? No? I didn't think so. I believe it's warning people not to play on teeter-totters while driving. Yeah. That must be it.

Look at this cool pic! I stuck the camera up against one of those binocular thingies that are on stands on observation decks. Don't know what they're called. :-/ Anyway, I like the way the picture looks. :)

We saw a herd of black cows. With one lonely white one. :)

And then we saw a herd of white cows with one lonely brown one! (OK, there were actually two brown ones, but hey. Close enough, right?)

It took me forever to get the picture above. The white cows kept hiding the brown ones. :(

They all came up to the fence and stared at me like I was a martian.

I love their earrings! And man, they even had tattoos in the form of brands! Crazy cows.

All she needs is a nose ring and a red Mohawk.

Perfect.

And while we're on the subject of cows, check out this monster! Her name is Sue. No joke. That's me hugging her foot for scale. :)

This was my view while hugging her:

Aaand that about sums up our crazy sightings. We did see some hitch-hikers walking on the highway (tisk, tisk) but of course the camera wouldn't cooperate at that moment. :-/

Anyways, here's one last cool pic for ya!

I love this lake. It's so beautiful. :)

What crazy stuff have you seen?

Link

From the Youngest Daughter :)

Hey guys, just in case you're wondering, this is the shop where I bought my Air Plant! http://www.etsy.com/shop/tohold

Sorry for the lack of posts. There's a new "real" one coming soon! :)

Air Plant

From the Youngest Daughter :)

I've been having a lot of fun finding a good display for my new air plant! Me thinks this one is my favorite: Pretty, no? :)

Package!!

From the Youngest Daughter :)

Today this came in the mail for me!! :-D

I ordered it about a week ago, and it finally came! Any guesses what it is?
Come on now. Guess!

*Waiting* hurry up and guess!!






*Twiddling thumbs*




Did you guess?




Good.



Ready?


Here it is!!

I bet you didn't guess that it's a tillandsias air plant!
Know what's so cool about it? It doesn't have roots and it doesn't live in dirt! It gets all its water and nutrients straight from the air! All I have to do is get it wet twice a week. That's it. :)
Know what else is cool about it? They are members of the pineapple family! :) Aaannd in the wild they grow on tree branches. *jaw drop* How cool is that?!
Btw, it's really fun to hold a plant that doesn't have dirt involved. :)


I was trying to find a good display for it. I liked it in this triangular glass thingy with sand in it.

And I liked it sitting on top of this gorgeous piece of pink quartz that my grandparents gave me years ago.

It's so much fun, because I can just pick it up and move it into a different spot/container without worrying about dirt!

Oh, and just in case you can't tell, I like crazy plants. :)

P.S. Including shipping, it only cost me $6.00. Maybe you should get one too! ;)