It Was A Dewey Saturday Morning...

The Ultimate Yard Sale
Bakersfield, CA

This home happened to be right off the Kern River and just off the back parking lot of Calvary Bible Church. A little history of the church...Pastor Peacock (who has passed...isn't that a GREAT name??) was good friends with Chuck Smith who founded the Calvary Chapel's. Pastor Peacock used the same blueprint for the church construction. So Calvary Bible looks exactly like Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. I was honored to be at one of pastor Peacock's last sermon's on we as the sheep of the Great Shepard. Wow, it was truly one of the best sermon's I've sat through...the kind you want to nudge the person next to you and say "can we get an amen!..." Pastor Peacock was old school but always brought a relevant message to the Church. How I wish we would have attended Calvary Bible when he was in his hay day. We would have avoided so many years of grief in search for a more contemporary message and "worship." Haha! Off my soapbox and on to yardsaling...where did that come from??

This was a great sale. It delivered what it advertised. Which if it didn't would be one of my pet peeves...FALSE ADVERTISING!! I purchased some really unique vintage chochkeys. This was a huge sale and the tables went on and on...reminded me of a church rummage sale but it wasn't. Just several families saling together.

I met a nice guy waiting to enter the sale. He had a graying, THICK. ultra long beard...kind of like ZZ Top long. It was really dark and I could barely see him through the dawn light...but he had a really sweet smile and was a super nice gentleman. He turned me on to various street fairs and flea markets he likes to attend up and down California. I would love to attend the market in Ventura...he says it's the best. Confirmation! Two weekends ago a lady who's yard sale I was attending told me about Ventura. I could do double duty and put my toes in the sand....ahhhh sounds vunderful!! By the way...that lady liked Jim and I so much that she brought out homemade chocolate chip cookies. She told us it was the recipe that Martha Stewart's daughter is famous for (I think Alexis is more famous for you-know-who!). They were funky looking but simply delish! Note to self: "Be nice to EVERYONE!! Who know what you'll get next!"

I purchased the material on the right from the sale...pic doesn't do it justice...is so nice. It's repo bark cloth with HUGE (they are literally 12" diameter) hibiscus flowers on it. The other fabric is black and white Toile (twall) that I picked up last weekend. The previous owner said there was 25 yards but I seriously doubt it. I'm going to work each night making handbags for extra Christmas money. I could get another job outside the home but why not work with what I have? God has endowed me with many talents that I have subsequently put on a shelf. I've kind of closed myself off from the creative aspect of my life since I started working full time. It's hard enough to get inspiration to clean a toilet let alone create a thing of beauty.

One of my favorite quotes comes from Erma Bombeck and it says: “When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, "I used everything you gave me.”

ARNELS BEAUTIFUL ARNELS...

Wow...this is my first post on my new blog totally dedicated to my yardsale finds. I can't believe I'm starting this because heaven knows I'm not the most FAITHFUL blogger. But I do delight in it and gosh darn I'm kind of addicted to it. It is absolutely not in me to laze around Saturday morning in bed. I can't do it...so I'm up at the crack of dawn plotting my morning. Jim gets the coffee going and we're out the door by 6:00 depending if anyone starts their sale that early. My husband is my trustworthy companion and chauffeur dropping me off at any entrance then he will park the car and saunter up checking to see if I've hit magic.

You might wonder what the picture is above? Well, the story about it isn't too lengthy. A few weeks ago I was watching my favorite morning show before work...on a Friday. Christina Loren is THE cutest weather caster in-the-world, I might add. She was on location at a former Costco warehouse building where our local SPCA was conducting a massive rummage sell benefiting the doggies here in Bakersfield. As the camera was scanning the tables it stopped dead-on a cookie jar with mushrooms on it. OMG it had to be the one I've seen on the evil EBay made by Sears and very collectible...well by me by ME anyway. Did I mention I have a new fetish for mushrooms?? My heart was really racing because where there is ONE cookie jar then the whole set might be there. Christina said that the doors open at 7:00 am and to hurry down and go shopping...okay I have a few minutes to spare before work at eight. So Jim and I tear down there and walk to the entrance. I literally had 5 minutes to look for said cookie jar. We start to walk in the door when a very nice lady said "that will be 5 dollars for the preview sale..." My brain is screaming ...what??? Christina didn't mention anything about five dollars for a presale. That would seriously eat at my bottom line...sheesh. I turned around and started at the car. Jim said "Honey...come on it's for the animals." I turned around and gave him the look. Of course he started to follow me. He told me that he would come back and look for the cookie jar. Now I could have said..."no way, it's the principal of the thing.." but I knew that at 8 o'clock entrance would be free so I said "go for it."

He got it the one I saw on TV!!! And the cherry on top was the fact that he bought it for 50 cents!! I couldn't wait to get home from work to see my Sears Mushroom Cookie Jar. I ran into the kitchen and stared at it...stared at it...stared. OMG this isn't my Sears Mushroom Cookie Jar!! ARGGGGHHH...oh man. But after looking at the bottom there was a stamp on it with the name ARNELS. I researched a little and found out that this one was probably more collectible than the Sears one...I thought the Arnels one was a rip off of the Sears one but turns out that the Sears is probably the rip off. OMG who really cares, right?? But I have this adorable funky cookie jar and it's me, really!