Garage Sale Bonanza

Those of you who know me well know how much I LOVE garage sale-ing each Saturday. I get up early and peruse the newpaper columns for sales in my neighborhood, making special note of sales listing kids' clothes, because that's my primary goal...

I have a few rules...

1. Stay between 14th street and 57th, High Drive and Regal Street. Anywhere out of those boundaries and I'm generally not going to find anything good.
2. If they're leading the sale with luggage, just keep driving by. This means if the stuff they put out front of the lawn to grab your attention is a set of Jordache tweed luggage or Samsonite hard sided suitcases, you're in trouble... that's the best they've got, and you'll waste your time getting out of the car. The only other things they'll have are stacks and stacks of National Geographics and a box with aluminum kitchen utensils for ten cents apiece... and maybe a 35 year old canvas tent with more poles than Barnum and Bailey...
3. Only buy lemonade from kids if it's less than 50 cents a cup - otherwise it's a racket. DON'T - in any circumstances, drink the lemonade.
4. Pick up anything you think you might remotely be interested in buying. Carry it around with you until you're ready to pay, then decide for sure. If you don't pick it up, someone else for sure will and then you'll realize it was the one thing you've been looking for all your life.
5. People who overprice must not be encouraged. If they're selling coffee mugs for a dollar apiece, just leave. The books will be two dollars and the clothes will be OUTRAGEOUSLY priced, like $5 for a pair of jeans - RIDICULOUS!
6. The garage sale economy is separate and exclusive of any other economic system. That $5 pair of jeans I just scoffed at would be in my cart faster than you can say "clearance rack" if I found it while doing conventional shopping. But at a garage sale, $5 is a large purchase, only to be considered for items that are NWT -(new with tags).
7. You must garage sale religiously if you expect to find anything good. People say to me all the time "I never find things at garage sales". When I ask how often they go, they'll say once or twice a summer... well, duh! I have lots of weeks where I'll come home with nothing or nearly nothing. And then there are days like today when I find TONS of treasures. You gotta persevere and be consistent to find the great stuff.
8. Here we have great sales on Fridays and Saturdays. On Saturday, do not go to sales that were also held the day before. All the good stuff was sold on Friday. One day sales are best.
9. Never - I repeat NEVER - follow the signs you see posted on telephone poles, unless they are sales that are already on your carefully planned out list that you made while perusing the paper. You'll waste valuable time driving around trying to find a sale that was actually held last week by people who were too exhausted after the sale to drive around and take their signs down.
10. Used underwear are not an option.

Here are my finds from today's sales...

A set of REALLY cool notecards with great collages on them - $1.00.

Kitchen tongs and a wooden ruler - 10 cents each.

A darling new mug for my morning cupajoe, a stapler, because I need one for the office and one for the kitchen, and two darling shaped paper clips,

one shaped like the Eiffel Tower!

The MOST adorable teeny-tiny set
of dominoes you've EVER seen. They
serve NO practical purpose, but I
had to have them...

And the granddaddy of them all - yep, it's a stereo cabinet,

complete with record player.

Now, I know you're wondering,

"Why the heck would she want that?"

And I'm challenging you to guess...

Leave me a comment and give me your best shot at why I would spend $10 for this piece of furniture... I will tell you that I am ABSOLUTELY giddy about it...

I'll post in a couple of days and show you what I'm doing with it...