Friday Fun with SallyAnn !

Current Mood : Autumn-ish

Ahhh…it’s deliciously cool today. Our thoughts turn naturally to rich, warm, dark coffee. My poor attempts at making coffee without a coffee maker have been just that – poor. Takes forever, and isn’t nearly as good. I was about to try boiling the grounds then straining them when we had a few bucks come in from eBay sales via our checking account. We withdrew a $20., for Dearest Son’s allowance and for me, Beloved Hubby said I could spend it on whatever I wanted. But I knew the thing that’d improve the mood most around Chez Insanity would be a coffee pot. So, cash in hand, Dearest and I headed for Salvation Army.

It’s funny. Not too long ago, I was always saying I never found anything at SallyAnn, and preferred GoodWill to even the home-grown thrifts. Recent visits to the local and GWill have been tragic. Broken stuff priced at maybe 25% off the brand-new price, and you can see that it’s broken. Messy, overcrowded stores, stuffed full of dinged merchandise and grabby people. I don’t even like going anymore, and that’s almost a 180-degree about-face from where I was just a year or two ago. I can’t really say if I’ve changed or situations overall have.

Either way, my luck at SallyAnn has been great. I love the fold-down ironing board we got a couple weeks ago – it works great, and paying $3. instead of $30. makes it all the better in my book – and my goal of a under-$10. (preferably $5.) coffee maker was easily in sight. I found two right off, one for $6. and a slightly newer one for $8., and was debating between the two when I spied a third on a higher shelf. It was in the best shape, was pretty basic (no timers or such), and mostly already clean. The heat plate did its thing quickly when I tested it, so I had our new coffee maker – for $4.99. Score ! Yeah, I could have gone brand-new for $15., but I hate to buy new when we’ll use it off and on for three or four months, then it’ll sit ‘til Fall again. And I didn’t want to wait for Black Friday deals, I don’t want to even be out in that mess this year, either. So this new gadget is perfect for us. I couldn’t wait to try it out.

For his part, Dearest can always find something in a pile of junk that he has just the perfect use for, and I have no idea where he gets that from. He’s been looking for a doll to use as a prop in his planned horror movie, and you just know he found it today. It’s a porcelain bride doll, one of those that looks identical to six million others, and the eight other porcelain dolls sharing shelf space, only the apparel changes. And cardboard-y white satin gets dingy, dirty, and yellow fast. Amazingly, she was intact, fingers, shoes and even a card with her copyright date (1988), but still made of cheap porcelain, badly painted, and poorly dressed when ya looked past the tulle and crap satin. During the collectable doll craze, someone probably paid $25. for her, and I thought she was overpriced at $10. today, but her ticket color was designated half price, so we both thought that was reasonable. And still left him a couple bucks, so when we found that 1985 cartoon Chipmunks fast-food premium glass, he snagged it eagerly. He was proud and happy with his selections – and still had $2. left !

We traversed the whole store, but the only other thing I bought was a tall mason jar that once held popcorn-on-the-cob. Once it’s clean and de-stickered, it’ll be perfect for either the open box of grits or the open bag of cornmeal in the fridge. Not bad for a buck, and if there’d been more than one, I’d have bought the lot. Pantry Moths attacked what I thought was an airtight glass jar of rice last month – luckily we didn’t have much in the jar anyway – so now I’m on guard. Since we also still have an occasional bug sighting, I’ve been hunting airtight containers. I had bunches, but most got left with the food inside at M & FIL’s.

Used the sad remnants of that ill-fated $20. to secure vinegar (to clean the coffee maker) and our favorite brand of frozen pizzas, and headed home. What a great afternoon ! Hope you get to do some junking this weekend. If you're into that sort of thing !