Hurry Yard Sale Season

by Lorraine Bartlett / Lorna Barrett / L.L. Bartlett

This time last year, Mr. L and I were snowbirds for the first (and possibly last) time.  Of course, the current weather (with temps as low as the 30s) in Clearwater, would have made it rather unpleasant.  When you have cats, rental possibilities aren't that frequent and we were STUCK with a terrible rental house.  (The world's most uncomfortable beds, a house surrounded by millions of LIZARDS, and nightly kitchen visits from palmetto bugs, who usually died overnight -- but not always. That was the house from hell.)

Paid $2 for these three cocktail shakers for Mr. L's collection.

Good things?  HGTV. Publix. The Cricketer English Pub. And thrift shops and yard sales. There were scores of thrift stores near where we lived, and we visited every one. And then eagerly searched the online listing for sales in our area.  We learned Clearwater pretty quick driving around town looking for sales.

Our first weekend there, we went to five yard sales and a rummage sale.  IN JANUARY.  Now that's one part of the Florida lifestyle I could get used to in a hurry. We won't see a yard sale here until at least mid- to late April. *Sigh*

A prize from my holiday FB event.

No doubt about it, I'm a collector of many different items, but I also subscribe to the "catch and release" program. When I had a booth in an antiques arcade, I would buy stuff, live with it for a while, and then sell it. Now ... I mostly give stuff away.

I especially collect teacups and occasionally give them to readers via events on my Facebook. I should give away more of them, but have you seen the weather?  I haven't taken my car out of the garage since before Christmas. I probably won't need gas until at least March. But getting to the PO this time of year is proving to be a problem.

A rummage sale find.

Another problem I have with all this stuff is storing it so I can actually see it. I'd be giving it away. Wayfair had a great sale on storage cabinets back on Black Friday and I thought I had ordered one. But apparently I didn't finish all the steps.  Say goodbye to that cabinet.  They don't stock it anymore. It was perfect for a spot in my basement. Haven't found anything the right size since. Right now most of the teacups and plates are carefully wrapped in paper and sitting in boxes. I don't have x-ray vision, so to find everything, I need to haul them all out and unwrap them. Kind of messy. I need to come up with a new system.

I love cookbooks and last summer I bought more than 24 of them. I sorted through them the other day and today those that didn't make the cut (for one reason or another)  are going to the Friends of the Library bookshop. (When I left Florida, I left another 10-15 of them at my favorite thrift shop so that someone else could enjoy them.) They cost as little as a quarter and as much as a dollar and gave me many hours of pleasure.

If you'd like to see some of my yard sale treasures, you can find them on one of my Pinterest boards.  This one is called (funny enough) "My Yards Sale Finds."

For now, I'm going to start dreaming about the upcoming yard sale season. Maybe I'll write a short story about going to yard sales so I can live vicariously through a character.

What do you look for at yard sales?