Sailing Season

Spring is making a tentative entrance here (though I'm not kidding myself -- there'll be plenty of freak snowfalls well into May), which means it's time to scan the streets for garage sale signs as I drive around on the weekends. I love garage sales. I haven't hit a whole lot of them in recent years since we didn't have a car for most of our time in Toronto and Ruby is just getting old enough to accompany me or stay at home with Aaron while I dig for treasure. I was pretty excited to see a moving sale poster in the hood when we came home from my sister-in-law's birthday party on Thursday, so Friday morning Ruby and I were off for the first sale of the season.

The great thing about our neighbourhood is that it's populated by older people, many of whom want to cash in on the city's super hot real estate market (prices have more than doubled in the last two years -- it's crazy) and move into condos, so they need to get rid of a lot of stuff. The house we went to on Friday was awesome -- an early '60s mod two-level split, inhabited by a woman who very proudly told us she was a great-grandmother. Most of the stuff was inside the house, which meant that we got to see the interior -- it was so cool. I kind of wanted to ask if she'd already sold the house too, but with prices like they are, it was probably going for about half a million dollars. Like I said, crazy.


Anyway, she had plenty of cool old kitchen appliances and furniture, but I promised Aaron I'd stay practical, since he hates the excess stuff in our house. I picked up this great Blue Mountain Pottery vase (we do actually need vases), mostly for the nostalgia factor. Blue Mountain was huge when I was a kid and I fondly remember a pair of ceramic dogs that lived in our living room for most of my childhood (my very non-nostalgic father long ago threw them out). I also couldn't resist this ceramic tray, because of it's overwhelming housewifey-ness. It's got a recipe for Ham Salad on it! I don't think I'll ever be able to bring myself to actually make ham salad or to serve it on the plate, but a girl can never have enough serving trays.


But, the true treasure was this 1957 issue of Family Circle, which the lady gave to me for the amazing price of absolutely free. Look at the smiling lady and her delicious cake, made completely out of pre-packaged foodstuff. It's a real gem, lots of thoroughly disgusting recipes, a fashion spread, mothering advice... but the ads are the best. My favourite advertises "And my doctor agrees that Jell-o is just the thing for babies" and features a six month old babe eating sugar, food colouring and gelatin. My crafty side wants to carve this thing up, but I think I'm going to leave it as-is for now.