To Market, To Market

What a beautiful day for the start of the garage sale season! How could the city have known of this break in the weather when they planned a city-wide garage sale event months ago? Most weekends, there are only a few of our favorite shopping venues listed, but today there were so many we could pick and choose. And of course, we had to go to the stellar attraction, THE ESTATE SALE!

Not being in the market for anything in particular, it was just fun to be surprised with little finds: an old pewter pitcher, which makes a lovely still life with the large, lop-sided ceramic apple beside it that I bought; a lovely basket of the softest weave, the woven handles threaded inside and beneath to come up and make large loops for carrying; a toss-pillow cover, hand embroidered with birds and butterflies in red on a white background; framed art with just the right colors for my living room, and a beautiful Guideposts book on marriage called, “A Match Made in Heaven.” I can’t wait to read it.

And that was only what I found. My husband got his usual assortment of hand tools and noticed a great birdbath. He went back to the estate sale to get it for the backyard when it was half price a little later. I remembered a painting we had both admired, a charming rendering of a row of rural mailboxes and told him to see if it were still there. It wasn’t, but he got the birdbath and the top for another one! Insanity reigns after a long, long winter of garage-sale deprivation!

Days like this must be like market days in the old countries, a sociable time of strolling, examining wares, chatting with friends or acquaintances bumped into, and just getting out and enjoying the weather. A little perk here and there never hurts either, such as something the clerk at the estate sale said as we checked out. “I love your book!” she exclaimed. “I read it every night in the bathtub!” She asked if I had another one yet, and I was able to tell her about the Literary Arts Festival we’re having next month, when I should have both my books.

“Did you know Ree Drummond’s book is going to be made into a movie, with Reese Witherspoon?” she asked, referring to another “local” author from nearby Pawhuska, Oklahoma. We’ve had book signings at the same bookstore. Wow! A movie, and only her second book! She began as a blogger, too, featuring recipes and snippets of ranch life. Well, stranger things have happened, and my book may just hit the right market yet!