Mary Kay Andrews

Halloween Hijinks

Who doesn’t love a costume you can sleep in?

This year, Katie wanted us to win one of our town’s Holiday Spirit decorating awards. When the kids were little, my sister-in-law and I would go all out with the decorating. We always had a theme. I’m big into themes, but short on artistic talent, which is where Jeanne and Katie come in. One year we made our front porch into a circus. Another year we were a Used Pumpkin Lot–with ridiculous-looking pumpkins rigged out with signs like a used car lot. One year we were The Black Cat Cafe–and we dressed up as waitresses and had eerie menus posted on the porch columns. Another year we made the porch into a fortune-teller’s tent. Last year we had an infestation of ravens–including a scarecrow with crows all over him. This year I decided to make something big and basic that we could use over and over again, with embellishments added each year. We went with owls. Big–as in 8-foot-tall–plywood owls, posted on either side of the front porch columns. We found owl silhouettes on Martha Stewart’s website, and copied them freehand onto 4-by-8 sheets of plywood. We made their beaks from corner crown moulding pieces bought at Home Depot. Mr. Mary Kay and son-in-law Mark cut out their eyes, and we stapled yellow cheesecloth over the openings. We strung lights across the front of the house, and stapled eerie looking chiffon-type fabric so that it looked like vaguely ghostly draperies.

The Owl’s Nest

We got Molly into the first of her two costumes for the night–the Yellow Jacket costume picked up for $8 at a junkshop in Alabama. Katie and Mark dressed up in rain gear so they were fishermen from The Deadliest Catch (Katie’s favorite tv show). Boomerang Boy tried on Elvis, but decided that last year’s crayon costume was better suited for a night of partying. And his friends Madeline and Zack dipped into my costume closet for a waitress and Southpark Chef’s outfits.
Boomerang Boy Tried Out His Elvis Mojo

Conductor Blaine wasn’t sure he was on the right track

Madeline and Chef Zack cooked up a Party Look

Katie and Mark with a sleepy Yellow Jacket

I put on my pirate wench rig left over from Pirate’s Fest. Mr. Mary Kay went as his favorite character–himself. We hooked up the fog machine, and waited. It didn’t take long. The first trick-or-treater rang our doorbell at 4:45pm. The last ones banged on our door at 10pm–nearly two hours past our town’s curfew, when we were out of candy. No telling how much we gave out–we filled a huge cauldron one and a half times. And this despite steady rain throughout the evening. A good time was had by all. Molly changed into her pumpkin sleeper halfway through the evening. We had chili and beer and tons of junk food. Although–considering the shellacking UGA took from the Gators, some of my personal fun was dampened. Mr. Mary Kay was happy, because Ga. Tech beat Vanderbilt. And also, there was a LOT of chocolate floating around. And by 10 am today, Mr. Mary Kay had taken down all the decorations. Next year I’ve assigned Mark, who is a mechanical engineer, the job of making the owl’s eyes blink. But in the meantime, we didn’t win an award this year, because we missed the judge’s deadline. Curses!



Sweet Home Alabama

Come help me celebrate fall Thursday night, Oct. 22, in Mountain Brook, Alabama at the Emmet O’Neal Library in beautiful Crestline village. We’ll start off with a wine reception at 6:30 pm, followed by a booksigning and talk–by me. Get the details here. And oh yeah, I’m open to junking suggestions for the vicinity!

Falling for Autumn



When we were at Tybee for Pirate’s Fest at the beginning of October, the temperatures were in the high ’80s. Hot and unbelievably muggy. But lately here in Atlanta, the weather finally turned from just plain wet and sloggy to fall-ish. It was so cold we had our first fire in the fireplace while watching Saturday college football recently. (Go Dawgs!) So I got the yen to decorate. Out came the Halloween bin. Or to be truthful, bins. Two of ’em. I don’t do a lot of interior decorating for Halloween, but I do like to acknowledge the changing of the seasons. And it was time to put away all my summer seashells anyway. I love reading blogs and magazines to see all the creativity others pour into their seasonal decorating, but while I have the crafty instincts, I am seriously craft-deficient. So my efforts are pretty uh, minimal. Also cheap. For the past few years I’ve picked up these fake crows–or ravens–at Tar-zhay and Dollar Tree, and some fake gourds and pumpkins picked up on sale at Michaels. I string ’em along the mantel in the living room, wire ’em to the dining room chandeliers, and prop ’em on top of lamps in the living room.

Living room mantel–still life with crows

Mantel–fake crows and fake gourds

I’ve got a fake owl too. I thought he looked pretty good on the console table behind the living room sofa. Beside him, I filled a big silverplate punchbowl with some real acorn and butternut squash, some real gourds, and a fake pumpkin. I saw a photo on the Cote de Texas blog of a similar arrangement, with deer antlers, and I thought, hey–I can do that. So I plopped in a pair of antlers brought home from the woods by our deer hunting son Andrew. And then, I was in Antiques and Beyond, a great antique mall on Cheshire Bridge Road here in Atlanta, and I saw a fall arrangement with some pheasant feathers, and I thought–hey, I can do that. Mr. Mary Kay is a bird hunter, and kindly saved me some feathers from a hunt a couple years ago. So I stuck in a few of them.

Punch bowl–with gourds, found antlers, pheasant feathers-plus Tar-zhay owl

For the mirror and chest in the living room, I strung up a feathered wreath I bought on sale–another Tar-zhay find, on top of the mirror. I stuck a crow on there. I had this little chalk bust I bought at a yard sale, or maybe Ballard’s Back Room. She got a little black construction paper carnival mask and a feathered boa courtesy of last year’s Halloween finery. I collect silver trophies, so I put some estate sale candles (a true old lady estate sale always has at least one box of candles stashed somewhere) in some of ’em, and put some eyeball candies in the porcelain hand dishes. And that’s my Halloween decor.

Living room chest with bust, silver trophies and fake crows

We’ve been watching Eddie Ross’s Halloween Block Party special on HGTV too, to see how the pros do it. Eddie I’m not, but we’ve got a little sumthin’ cooking up for the exterior Halloween decor, so stay tuned.

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The Lost Day

Molly, at about six weeks, in my office
After being out of town for more or less two weeks, I had big plans for Monday. I was going to get back to writing. I managed to bang out fifty pages of the new book while I was holed up at Nags Head, NC the week before, so why couldn’t I just manage a page or two once I was home? Sunday night, I set up my laptop beside my bed. The plan was to replicate my Nags Head experience. Go to bed with the book in my head, wake up with the book in my head. Lean over, grab the laptop and start writing. Simple, yes? But there’s this saying; “Man plans, God laughs.”
That night, around midnight, the phone rang. My heart stopped. Midnight phone calls are rarely good news, and this one was no exception. It was our son-in-law, Mark, telling us that he was taking our daughter Katie to the emergency room. They’d had dinner at our house a few hours earlier, and before leaving, she was complaining of stomach pains that she’d been having off and on for the past two days. We joked about the possibility that she was pregnant–NOT!–because our Molly is only three months old. Could they drop the baby off at our house? Of course. Molly was delivered to our doorstep, sound asleep, wrapped burrito-style in her pink Sleepopatomus thingy. We popped her into her crib here, and I waited, anxiously, for news from Mark. He called sometime after 1 a.m. to report that the doctors thought Katie had a bad case of food poisoning. We drifted off to sleep, and Molly, the angel, slept until 7 a.m. A couple hours later, Mark dropped Katie off so that I could tend her and Molly, and he dragged his very tired butt off to work. So….no writing got done on Monday. Molly seemed to sense that her mama was sick, so she wasn’t cranky, but she definitely wanted to be held and cuddled. And that’s what we did. I fed her, burped her, changed her and held her. In between, I fetched Katie’s meds and ginger ale. We lounged around the house and watched HGTV. The bed never got made, the laundry never got started, dinner became leftovers. I tried to remember how I managed to work as a freelance newspaper reporter when Katie was that age, and my own mother lived five hours away. I recalled attending a press conference with Katie in her infant carrier the same week I brought her home from the hospital. I remembered packing a breast pump in my purse when I was on out-of-town assignment, and sitting in gas station restrooms expressing milk to be stowed in a cooler in the trunk of my car. I remember juggling her on my lap as I typed away on my second-hand electric typewriter–this was WAAAYYY before the days of laptop computers or the internet. I’d call the newspaper office in Atlanta and dictate my stories to a typist, hopefully while Katie was napping.

Mom and her brood, that’s me in the middle back

And if I happened to mention to my mother that I was over-worked and exhausted, she’d helpfully remind me that she’d had five babies in six years, starting when she was 19, and, oh yes, this was in the 1950s, and that she’d managed this feat without disposable diapers, a car of her own, and most of the time, without a clothes dryer. And during a lot of that time, she was working too, as a waitress, manicurist, or secretary. When I fell into bed Monday night, exhausted, and Molly was still fussing, I thought about my mom, and how often these days, I wish she were here to see my granddaughter. I thought about how glad I am that Katie and Mark and Molly live only a mile away, and that when those midnight phone calls come, I can take delivery of a drowsy pink burrito baby. And suddenly those lost hours, cuddling a baby, don’t seem so lost after all.

A Week at The Beach

Sunrise, Nags Head

I’m in lockdown. At the beach. Nag’s Head, NC, to be exact. My antiquey buddy Beth and I came here right after Labor Day to scout out locations for my next book. I’d never been to the Outer Banks, Beth hadn’t been in many years. We stayed in a way cool inn I found online, First Colony Inn. Very reasonably priced, nice room with television and an in-room fridge for those all-important morning Diet Cokes, and lovely full free breakfasts, not to mention afternoon cocktails. We drove up and down the beach, looking for just the right little hidey-hole for me to write in. At first, I despaired. It looked like Nags Head and all the other towns along the Outer Banks had fallen victim to the heinous “ginormous mega-mansion by the sea” virus that has infected every other spot on the East Coast of the U.S. I’d seen this at our beloved Florida Gulf Coast, where cute little Grayton Beach has been squinched on all sides by expensive developments of tasteful? second homes. And I was disappointed to see all the huge houses shouldering out the little cottages here at Nags Head. But we started cruising up and down the Beach Road. We slowed down, took a closer look. And we found some throw-backs, modest, homely little beach shacks. I found a sign at one little string of three cottages, called the number on the sign, and Bobbie, the owner, agreed to meet us to let me take a look. I fell in love. Windswept, my cottage, is just a nothing wood-frame house. But it’s got character. The kitchen cabinets have been painted white a gazillion times. There’s a chippy enamel-top work table for a counter. I’ve got a little front porch where I can go out and sit in the sun after I’ve been typing away for a while, and there’s a wonderful dune-top deck where I can sit in the late afternoon and scribble on my yellow legal pad.

Windswept, scene of the crime

The weather is spectacular; cold in the mornings, sunny and mild in the afternoons. There’s a rusty fat-tired beach bike I took for a ride after lunch. I rode it past the line of hundred-year-old original Nags Head cottages, the ones they call “the unpainted aristocracy.” I’m angling to get a peek inside one, for research for the new book.

Original Nag’s Head Unpainted Aristocracy Cottage

It’s delightfully quiet at the beach this time of year. I can empty my head here, shut out the familiar voices and noises of family and home–welcome as they are–and just live in the world of my book. This afternoon, I got so absorbed, I began to wonder what the mechanical noise was outside. I walked out to the driveway and discovered that the little beach cottage across the road was being gobbled up by a bulldozer and dumpster. When most of the rubble had been scraped up and hauled away, I walked over to talk to a man who was busy tinkering with something beside the old wood-frame garage, which had mercifully been spared. He cheerfully reported that he was the owner of the cottage, which his wife’s family had bought back in the forties. He said the house was probably built way before that, maybe in the twenties. It had fallen into such disrepair that it was no longer practical to keep fixing it up, so they had it taken down, and they’ll build a fine new house in its place. He seemed like a nice man. I walked back to my side of the road and crawled back inside the world of my book. I think I like it better here.

Junk in my Trunk

After a hard week of writing down at Tybee I decided I needed a junking treat. So Friday morning, I saddled up and rode over to an estate sale run by my favorite dealer. The sale was in Buckhead, which usually means primo stuff. Not this time! I should have been tipped off by the fact that Vicki, the dealer, was standing in the front yard of the house when I pulled up. Why? Because the house in question had been shut up for five years, after the late owner’s wife passed away. And during that time, the rains came. Followed by the twins; mold and mildew. EEEEWWW. A huge dumpster in the backyard had already been filled up, and the rest of it should have followed. Vicki admitted that she would have been standing out in the street, if it were possible. I did, however manage to scrape together a cardboard box full of stuff priced at the grand total of ten bucks. For my money I got some nice old ’20s-40s sheet music, a small white matte pony-shaped pottery vase, a big seashell and three silverplate dog show coasters. All of this is destined for my booth at Seaside Sisters. On Saturday morning, the one day when I had only two hours to junk because I had a date to babysit Molly, there were sales galore. I was headed out to some sales in Midtown when I happened across the Lake Claire neighborhood sale. Now, in Atlanta, I have pre-determined ideas about what kinds of loot certain territories will yield. Buckhead? Pricey (and over-priced) designer goods and primo estate sale stuff. Morningside? Yuppies selling their old Pottery Barn stuff, plus the occasional good granny estate sale–at which there will inevitably be a 1920s Grand Rapids mahogany dining room suite, a moth-eaten mink collar, a walker and a potty chair. Decatur? Mid-century ranch homes with endless basements featuring rumpus rooms with moldy sleeper sofas and elaborate built-in bars with kitschy cocktail accessories and 40-year-old unopened souvenir rum bottles. Candler Park? Once in a while you’ll hit a good estate sale, but these days, I expect to find badly-framed posters, old bongs and the inevitable Whole Earth Catalogue. So I had no expectations for the Lake Claire sale, which is sorta part of Candler Park. I was cruising down the street when I passed a sale featuring racks of children’s clothing and toys. But out of the corner of my eye I spotted what looked like a piece of wicker. My husband thinks I have a built-in wicker warning system. I slowed and then backed up. I sauntered over to the wicker, which turned out to be an adorable rocking chair, which was heaped with over-priced used children’s clothes–like a $10 Baby Gap dress. I asked the price. The woman running the sale wrinkled her nose in disgust and explained that it was her husband’s grandmother’s chair “and it’s been painted like, a hundred times.” So? “Would you pay, like, five dollars?” Would I???? Sensing she had a sucker on the hook, she demanded a whole dollar for the accompanying wicker stool. Sold! The rocker is destined for Molly’s room, the stool will head down to Tybee.

Five dollar rocker, $1 stool, $12 baby shoes didn’t even break a $20 bill

With little time left, I discovered that Druid Hills was having their neighborhood yard sale. Talk about frustration. In the past two years, I’ve scored big in Druid Hills, which, for those of you outside Atlanta, is the neighborhood around Emory University, where DRIVING MISS DAISY was filmed. Huge old homes, big money, even more monied yuppies than Morningside. The sales were scarce, because lots of people had decided that more threatening rains would mean more flooding. But I did find a sale at a huge home where the owner was closing out her children’s clothing and accessories business at the Merchandise Mart. With the clock ticking, I scored three never-used pairs of baby shoes for Molly. Total price–$12. This morning, Katie wanted to get in on the fun. We hit several sales, picking up nothing except for a couple of DVDs for our movie library at the beach. And then we went back to Candler Park, hoping for another good score. And I hit. Check out the vintage dime store shopping baskets and the rack they were displayed in. I remember these baskets from Kresge’s and Woolworth’s when I was growing up. They’ll be headed for sale down to Seaside Sisters.

Collapsible canvas dime store shopping baskets–these could be yours!

And Katie and I will have to get busy making a chair cushion for the wicker rocker that will match the pink and black decor in Molly’s room.

Tybee Time–Again

Truly, I had no idea Atlanta would be subject to torrential rains and flooding over the past week. It’s just that I had a speech to give in Savannah, and another down on St. Simon’s Island, and then a book-signing with my friends at GJ Ford Books on SSI on Thursday. And so Mr. Mary Kay and I planned to spend the weekend at The Breeze Inn. And a very pleasant weekend it was. The summertime heat and crowds are gone, the weather had a hint of fall. The news from Atlanta was not good though–our sump pump conked out, the basement flooded, hot water heater had to be repaired to the tune of $400, ect. But hey, our damage was nothing compared to what I’m hearing and reading about other parts of the Atlanta area. On Friday we kinda messed around the house, kicking back. We had dinner at our favorite restaurant, Sundae Cafe, and went to bed early. Saturday morning, we went out in the boat. The tides down here have been freakishly high this fall, so the fishing wasn’t great, but it was good to get out in the boat and be on the water again. Saturday night we went to a fun dinner party at Hallie’s house–billed as a “Deen Family Reunion”–but without any known members of Paula Deen’s family in attendance. (Unless you count the life-size cardboard cutout of Paula.)
Our hostess’s request was simple: bring an appetizer, side dish or dessert culled from any cookbook written by Paula or any of her family members–you know, like Bobby and Jamie Deen, or her brother, Bubba Hiers, whose Uncle Bubba’s Savannah Seafood Cookbook was co-written by my good friend Polly Powers Stramm. We chose to make Black Pepper Shrimp from Paula Deen’s Kitchen Classics. And when I say we, I mean, Mr. Mary Kay, because he is the seafood chef at our house. The recipe was simplicity itself; very fresh shrimp right off the boat, sauteed in butter (of course!) and garlic, liberally sprinkled with fresh-ground coarse black pepper and baked in the oven at 450 degrees for about five minutes on each side. Naturally, we had to gild the lily a little, garnishing it with thin slices of lemon and finely chopped fresh parsley. Everybody raved about the finished dish. And of course, the buffet table–spread with all that buttery Paula-inspired goodness, looked like a cardiologist’s worst nightmare. We joked that we should have had a dish of Lipitor in the middle of the table. Thankfully, two people did bring fresh green salads. But it was all yummy–especially the four different dishes contributed by our friend Diane of Mermaid Cottages. The cream cheese frosted carrot cake she brought–with little candied apricots made to look like carrots, was just outstanding. Sunday morning, before taking my husband to the airport for the flight back to Atlanta, we decided to try a new restaurant on Tybee, JJ’s Cafe. It’s located on Highway 80, where George’s used to be. I’m happy to report that the food was great, and reasonably priced, so we’ll be back. And now, with Mr. MaryKay back in Atlanta, dealing with non-functioning air conditioners, and refrigerators on the fritz, I’m hard at work again on SUMMER RENTAL, my book in progress.

Fish Camp Cottage

Because the Breeze Inn was booked with guests this week, I’m staying at another adorable Mermaid Cottage; Fish Camp. Fish Camp Cottage is a Jane Coslick masterpiece, which has been featured in COASTAL LIVING AND COTTAGE LIVING magazines. Painted morning glory blue, it’s just the happiest place to write. In the early mornings, I have my wake-up Diet Coke and check email on the little screened porch on the side of the house. There’s a daybed in the converted front porch. That’s where I write in the afternoons. At the front of the house, there’s a little office area where I set up my laptop and get down to business. For nap-time, I like the sofa in the living room. And in the evenings, after I have my ritualistic spaghetti and chardonnay, I write at the kitchen island. When I’m not writing, the weather is so pretty, I take a spin around the island on the beer bike–so named by Boomerang Boy because its double saddle-bag baskets are each the perfect size for a 12-pack of Bud Lite after a shopping trip to the Tybee Market.
The Church of Disney on Tybee
This week I’ve been intrigued by what I call The Church of Disney, which sits catty-corner across the street from Fish Camp. The church is actually a set that was built by the Disney folks this summer when they were filming the Miley Cyrus movie LAST SONG. It’s the sweetest little white clapboard-painted country church you ever saw, with a little red-tin roofed spire, and gothic arched windows and a sign that proclaims it to be the Tybee Island Baptist Church. My understanding is that the movie people have donated it to the local historical society, and that once adequate funds have been raised, it’ll be moved from the vacant lot across the street down to the historic lighthouse on the north end of the island. Once it’s there, they’ll have to do some structural work to make it more than just a movie set, and then people can have weddings and other functions there. Who knows, when SUMMER RENTAL comes out, maybe we’ll even have a book signing there!

Whispers from My Past

I’m consumed with book love right now, and both the objects of my affection are books I read long, long ago as a young girl. If you’re reading this, chances are that you, too, are a die-hard booklover. Myself, I was reading before first grade. I had an older sister and a younger sister, and all three of us devoured any books that came our way–no matter the reading level. We gobbled up the Nancy Drew mysteries, Donna Parker, Trixie Belden. Then we moved on to Louisa May Alcott, (yes, I know you read LITTLE WOMEN, but do you know LITTLE MEN? JO’S BOYS? The book about cousins–can’t remember title?). Of course we adored the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. And somehow, we found the Maud Hart Lovelace Betsy-Tacy-Tib books. For young girls growing up in 1960s Florida, reading about a trio of best friends in turn-of-the-century Minnesota was just too wonderful. How I loved those books. Now, here’s the best part. They’ve been re-issued by my publisher HarperCollins, in truly adorably illustrated trade paperbacks. My friend Virginia Stanley at Harper sent me a box of them last week, and I dropped the grown-up stuff I was reading and dove right into the first, which is HEAVEN TO BETSY/BETSY IN SPITE OF HERSELF . Oh, bliss! I was transported back to that time in a skinny minute. My only complaint? My mystery writer buddy Laura Lippman got to write the foreword for these re-releases. I am simply pea green with envy. By coincidence, I was also recently given a re-release of another classic blast from my past. I’ve long been a huge Daphne DuMaurier fan. Her REBECCA is my favorite book. Ever. But as a young girl, I’d read another Gothic suspense novel, about a Victorian-era governess who takes a post at a mysterious estate in Cornwall. I knew the title, MISTRESS OF MELLYN, but couldn’t remember the author. Lo and behold, the author was Victoria Holt. I am re-reading, and loving every minute of MISTRESS OF MELLYN. Truly, the book holds up better than I remembered. Now, do yourself a favor. Re-visit an old book friend from the past. And tell me what YOUR favorite was.

Brazen Self-Promotion–One Last Time

I am really, really, no kidding winding down my promotional blitz for THE FIXER UPPER. I’m starting a new book, and really, I am so ready to ditch the whole make-up and Spanx routine. Not that I don’t love meeting and talking to you guys. I just wish I could do it in my jammies and scuffies. But there are a few more events this fall where you can catch me. And Spanx or no, I’m really looking forward to all of ’em. The first one is this weekend, at THE AJC DECATUR BOOK FESTIVAL. Oh yeah, there’ll be some other authors hangin’ around. Like 200 or so, including my former AJC colleague and Pulitzer Prize winning buddy Doug Blackmon, and Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse books that are the basis for HBO’s TRUE BLOOD series, and an awesome range of children’s authors. As for me, I’ll be presenting Saturday at 10 a.m. at the Decatur Presbyterian Church Sanctuary stage. Hey, my kids went to pre-school here! So you could get your funnel cake and then come see me. Details here.

After that, on Sept. 16, you can put on your fall finery and join me at the SMART WOMEN LUNCHEON in Savannah, to benefit St. Joseph’s Candler Hospital’s Mary Telfair hospital for women. It’s a good cause, and I promise to be extra glammed up and funny. Check it out here. The next day I’ll be slummin’ at The Cloister, but if you’re not a member there, you can always come to my book signing afterwards at G.J. Ford Books on St. Simons Island, Thurs. Sept. 17, from noon-2p.m.
And finally, I’m gonna be in the company of some amazing Southern writers of the female persuasion at a CELEBRATION OF SOUTHERN WRITERS being held Sept. 20-24 at the beautiful Old Edwards Inn and Spa in Highlands, NC. Come and get a sneak preview of fall at one of the South’s most stunning inns. Pardon me for name-dropping, but do names like Kathryn Stockett (THE HELP), Cassandra King (SAME SWEET GIRLS), Margaret Maron (SAND SHARKS), Patti Callahan Henry (DRIFTWOOD SUMMER) and Gayden Metcalfe and Charlotte Hays (BEING DEAD IS NO EXCUSE) ring a bell with you? There will be seminars and luncheons and drinks on the veranda, and laughing and lots of good talk about good books. To get all the details, go here.

Junk Love

On Friday and Saturday, I finally got to do a little junking. Jinxie and I were the sole posse members available for the hunt, but we went in style. Our first stop was for a sale promoted as “Fabulous Gays and Fashionistas”. #$@&!!! We were so there. But no. Tragically it rained like a mofo on Friday, and the Gay/Fashionista apparently did not want to get their designer goods ruined, so they posted a tiny little note on the door saying, essentially, like, later. On we went to what we thought was a sale run by our favorite estate sale pro, Vicki Taratoot. But as soon as we walked in, we smelled a rat. Wait. No. That wasn’t a rat. It was eau de urine. There was tons of stuff, yes, but it was all hideously, laughably over-priced. We’re talking $35 for a ’40s luncheon cloth–and not even a pristine, original label tablecloth. $95 for a skanky chenille bedspread. Huh? We looked around and realized we were at the wrong sale, so we high-tailed it outta there. In another block, we found Vicki’s sale. Big relief. Jinx bought a great maple dresser for $50, but all I scored was a set of cutie-pie cocktail napkins and a couple kitchen things. The next day, we vowed to go back to the Gay/Fashionista sale. Sadly, this was a case of ad copy being better than the actual goods. The Fashionista was a size zero, and anyway, we weren’t really in the market for badly-done bootleg Chanel and Louis Vuitton handbags for $45. On we went to a sale advertised on Craigslist as Attack of the Killer Yard-Sale. Finally, I hit paydirt. Or should I say, cat-dirt. I got some good stuff, like this lady-head vase. I’m not an expert by any means, but I think it could be Napco. Note the pearl earrings and necklace and the brush fake eyelashes.

And this fab retro lime green swordfish dish. We kinda have a fishing theme going in the living room at The Breeze Inn, but do I really need one more green thing?

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And this cool pretzel bamboo lamp table. Who doesn’t love retro bamboo?

And this unusal chenille bedspread with red on white candlewicking. It had some inkspots. And it, like everything else in the yard, smelled like a catbox. But I’ve treated it to three washings of Oxy-clean, and it’s now daisy-fresh. And most, if not all of the inkspots are gone.


All of it will soon be headed down to my space on Seaside Sisters. Because I am all about sharing the junk love.