Shop At Moxie

Megan's Been Busy

Buying these....

All from one glorious estate.  Mostly all size 9.  Can you believe it?

Now should you be thinking......hey how does this happen?  I'd like to tell you all that it involved an out-of-state road trip, some meanies, sleeping in my van, an elbow in my face, profanity, a pickle bucket potty, a beer, a friendly redhead and three more nights spent sleeping in a chair because my back went out again after all of the above mentioned activities.  

Was it worth it??  Heck yea!

Would I do it again??  As soon as I possibly can!

An Estate Sale Adventure You DON'T Want to Have!!

A short story for you.

Friday June 5th, 2009

Girl wakes up at 4 am with intention of getting a good and early start into the big city of Chicago.  She doesn't feel that great and has a bit of an allergy headache.  She feels pretty exhausted and for once in her life makes the prudent decision to stay home and sleep.  There will always be another fun sale.

I wish this was the end of the story.  Girl makes normal decision....the end.  But no.  Girl wakes up again at 7 am feeling groggy and sluggish.  She decides to take advantage of the fact that she is home for the day and starts doing some online work that needs attending to.  She can't keep her mind off the fact that there was a sale that sounded really great.  It was only an hour away and its mere existence was tormenting her.  This would be a good time to mention that she is easily tormented.  One time she was so tormented by a bag of mini snicker bars designated for trick or treaters that she squelched the torment by eating 3/4 of the bag and literally put herself into some kind of bad bad sugar coma.  To this day she can't look a snickers in the face without feeling sick to her stomach. 

I digressed.  Flash forward 4 hours.  Girl decides at 11 am to give in to her mental torment and drive an hour east to a couple of estate sales.  Her handy GPS guides her there easily and she finds a spot to park her cumbersome van.  She hops down and starts the block long walk to the sale.  She was noticing how cute and old the house looked when disaster struck.  

One minute blissful thoughts of the approaching sale and the next pure terror because girl realized mid-fall that this accident was going to be a doozie.  You know how sometimes when you fall you know it's not going to be too bad?  Like....no problem I'm going to fall and then somersault right out of it.  Kind of all Mary Katherine Gallagher from SNL like.  Well this was not that time.

This time girl hit a six inch break in the sidewalk conveniently located right in front of the sale and she went flying into the air.  When she realized that her face was going to hit first she stuck her left hand out quickly to try to save the teeth.  

OUCH, HOLY BANANAS, JIMINEY JONES, FUDD RUCKERS, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WILL SOMEONE HELP ME !!!!!!  

As the poor klutzy girl with good intentions but a pre-disposition to disaster lay on the ground in agony  moaning and whimpering out loud  she managed to lift her head off the ground.  She was half looking out for help and half checking for witnesses to this completely humiliating experience.  She looked over about 20 feet away and saw two ladies looking at her on the ground.  She saw one of them hesitate briefly and then they both got in the car and drove away. Girl lost faith in humanity.  

After about two minutes on the ground the girl manages to get herself upright but was in severe pain and very shaky.  She could not put any weight on the left arm without verbally expressing pain.

She was an hour from home.  She was in agonizing pain.  She was depressed because no one came to her aid.  What do you do in those circumstances???   You go shopping!

This might be where girl differentiates herself from most of the rest of the world.  She isn't prone to doing the most obvious things.  Or the safest things.  Some in her circle get so mad at her that they hang up the phone on her in disgust when she tells them what happened while inside the estate sale (hi bob)

In defense of the girl....she had driven an hour to go to this sale and she really didn't know the full extent of her injury.  She figured the pain would go away and heck she still had one good arm and you can shop with one arm...right?  So shop she did.  Picture this.  42 yr old girl half hunched over with pebbles stuck to her shirt walking around visibly wincing every couple of seconds with her arm nestled up to her belly to try to create a human sling.  She literally could not move the left arm so that made carrying things around interesting.  She found a laundry basket which she filled and then dragged with the good arm.  What other people thought of her she had no idea.  And I kind of think she really didn't care either.  She's like that.

About a half hour into the sale girl ran into super kind lady acquaintance named Sue and her lovely teen daughter.  She told them what happened and they insisted on helping her carry her goods to the car.  Her faith in humanity was restored.  

After angering husband by not having driven immediately to a hospital girl decides that now that she is done shopping she will drive the hour back to DeKalb for some xrays.  Girl knows that something is wrong because everytime she moves her arm an inch cuss words (not of the Disney type) come flying out of her mouth involuntarily.  

Oh if you could have seen girl trying to hoist herself into her really big van with her really short legs and her one good arm I guarantee you might have laughed yourself silly.  If it didn't hurt so bad trying to get in the girl would have gotten the biggest laugh herself.  

Drive home was painful for girl.  One handed driving in a tin can of a bumpy as heck piece of junk van.....not fun.  Get's all checked in for some medical assistance and they tell her she has a fever and her blood pressure is high.  She finds out both can be caused by pain.  Then really nice nurse tells her that her fingers are about to explode like over boiled sausages and we need to get those wedding rings off immediately.  Ut oh.

The next part truly was the most painful part of the whole day.  Nice and funny nurse had to take the bad finger attached to the can't move it an inch without screaming arm and put it over the sink to try to get the rings off.  Girl told her it wouldn't happen....but she wanted to give it a try.  She began by pouring baby oil over the rings and then started to pull and twist and yank and tug and twist and pull and holy mother of all things good and kind what the heck was she trying to do to the girl?  She had her head laying on the counter and she wasn't exactly crying but whimpering like an injured puppy might not be too far off.  Girl finally called uncle and said lets just cut them off.  Nurse agreed that they would not come off without doing so.  

She was way more upset than girl about cutting off rings.  Girl comforted nurse and told her that husband was way more important than rings.  Rings could be replaced.  Husband or finger.....not so much.  Nurse tried to make girl feel better by suggesting girl work this into an upgrade in diamonds.  Girl liked her spunk.  

By now girl's husband (who was still on her poop list for hanging up on her earlier) had arrived.  Just in time to witness the sawing off of the rings he had picked out for her almost twenty years earlier.  I don't think he liked it too well but girl was cracking jokes to keep everyone else at ease.  That is what girl does in her family.  Not only do the rings get sawed off but then they get wrenched and mangled with pliers to remove them.  Good times.

Two sets of xrays  plus one tetanus shot later  girl was informed that she had a fractured elbow.  Girl wants you all to know that a fractured elbow hurts like a son of a gun.  She also wants you to know that typing this "short" story with one hand took forever but what else would she do with herself while she is supposed to be doing nothing other than relaxing.

Girl is now reflecting on the fact that if you wake up feeling kind of crummy and exhausted maybe it is the universe trying to tell you ....hey stay in bed today.  You'll be happy you did.

We all make mistakes and don't always listen to our inner voice of reason.  Girl is no exception.  She has a broken elbow and mangled wedding rings to prove it.  

But hey it could have been worse.  Imagine girl without her two front teeth.  Yikes.

Adventures of a Silly Lady...The Hippo Made Me Do It.

Have you ever seen a hippo wearing an apron while smelling a daisy?

Or a bear stealing the honey while wearing a cute purple shirt.

How about two bunnies doing a happy dance.

Or a turquoise giraffe hanging out with his overalls loving friend Mr. Red Hippo.

Have you ever seen a shy fox with a purple tongue?

Or a majestic lion lounging on a treetop.

How about a trio of chatty birds sharing stories with their friend the butterfly?

Well....I hadn't either and that's why the following traumatic event took place Friday June 27, 2008 at approximately 9:01 am central time.

It started out like any other usual estate sale Friday.  Leave the house at 4:30 am to make the hour and a half drive into Chicago to arrive at 6 am to get on the list to receive your entrance number at 8 thirty to then finally be allowed into the sale at 9 am.  I'd already been to the neighboring Dominicks 3 times that morning to use their restroom and purchase more diet coke.  I was feeling particularly jittery and anxious because the ad for the sale sounded so fabulous.(oh and the 3 diet cokes might have helped as well ).  " 3 floors filled with retro delights."  " A sale not to miss." "Bring a truck"....you get the point. 

Some of the usual suspects were also waiting in line for the sale.  In this business whatever genre you specialize in there are always others who like the exact same things as you do.  And while they might be super nice people...you cringe on the inside just a little when you see them mosey on up the driveway to the same sale.  It just means you've got to get your game face on. 

 The inner mantras start going thru my head...."you will be speedy, agile and  clever, you will pick the right room on the right floor to go into first, you will not stoop to the levels of your competitors and shove people out of your way to get material possessions,  you will have the mental capabilities of making hundred dollar decisions in the blink of an eye, you will find the cutest stuff possible and bring it back to DeKalb for your devoted and well deserving customers.

So after 3 hours of mantras, and pent up energy mixed with caffeine....it's finally 9 am and time for the sale to begin.  I'm number 7 and they announce that they are only letting in the first 10 people.   Sweet!  I'll have a few less competitors to deal with for about 5 minutes.  There is a gal in the first group who I know loves the same things as I do so I'm ready for the estate sale sprint. 

I'm in the door and make the decision to go upstairs first.  I'm taking the stairs two at a time and competiton lady is right on my tush.  I make it to the top and there is a landing and a bedroom to the left and one to the right.  I go right hoping she'll go left.  She went right...gah!  I enter the room ....I'm scanning it faster than the speed of light...I see over in the corner next to the bed a bunch of rolls of fabric and amongst those rolls was a bolt of the most magical vintage fabric I had ever seen.  A hippo wearing an apron and smelling a daisy was staring right at me saying "take me home!"   I had to have it. 

I can think of nothing other than moving my body forward and reaching over the bed to grab the bolt of fabric.  I begin to do just that and am not aware that there is a vintage suitcase sitting on the floor next to the bed.  I step  forward and trip on the suitcase and go flying forward on top of the bed (at least I was moving in the right direction)  I do some sort of Jackie Chan somersault roll off the bed and right into the bolts of fabric in the corner of the room.  One of the estate sale attendants asks if she can "help me" (if only she had any idea of how much "help" I might really need) and I look up from my position on the floor and say while clutching my magical hippo fabric....."no thanks I got what I needed."  I then picked myself up and pretended that my shoulder wasn't killing me from banging into the wall and that I really meant to somersault over the bed to get to the corner.  I mean why walk around when you can take a shortcut. 

Of course I checked out the rest of the house and it truly wasn't all they cracked it up to be.  But the magic hippo fabric was more than plenty for me.  I drove around for the rest of the day with my bolt of fabric in the passenger seat.  Had to look at it.  Actually probably talked to it too. 

I don't know what I will do with it yet.  I think it is worthy of creating things with it so that more people can enjoy a little piece of it.  I want to share the hippo love.  The end.

Adventures Of A Silly Lady...Back Off Dude

One time....about 4 weeks ago I was at an estate sale on the south side of Chicago and I was pretty calmly and slowly looking thru a stack of old linens in a  small bedroom when much to my surprise a man who looked to be about 55 came right up to me and grabbed my hand firmly in his and said (while looking deep into my scared squinty eyes) ......" They told me outside that a pretty lady would hold my hand while I'm shopping."

So in rapid fire succession the following thoughts ran thru my head

....who the heck is "they" ???

....aaawwww he thinks I'm pretty.

....eeeeewwww!!!

and..........Oh MY Gaaaawwd this dude won't let go of my hand....I'm gonna have to take him down.

I finally jerk my hand out of his and say...."Nice try, but you're barking up the wrong tree."  Figuring everyone is entitled to one grievous error in judgment I leave it at that and walk out of the room.  Now of course being the die-hard hunter and gatherer that I am....I can't let this fluster me from my mission of finding cool stuff.  So I figure I'll head on down to the basement and be left alone.

Wrong-O.  I can't rule out coincidence for sure, but Mr. Friendly shows up in the basement one minute after me.  I look at him like...listen buddy if you know what's good for you you will keep your distance.  He looks back at me unphased.  He smiles and winks.  Then he says..."We meet again."  And now he is walking towards me and I am pretty much in the corner of the basement.

At this part of the story I must point out that I tend to be a rather spontaneous person and I don't always think things thru as much as I probably should.

Now as the words were coming out of my mouth I think I really intended for them to be gently but firmly spoken words but that isn't how it played out.  So right before he is standing directly in front of me I scream out "BACK OFF DUDE!!!!!!!"  It was like something out of a movie.  I scared a lady so badly that she dropped a pyrex dish onto the floor and it broke.  Everyone in the house went completely dead silent and "the dude" is now looking at me like I'm the villain. 

So I'm stuck there thinking...great what do I say to all of these people who are wondering who the psycho girl is and what's her problem.  I should have just quietly walked back upstairs..paid and left.  BUT Noooo....I said "This guy tried to make me hold his hand and go shopping with him."  As I was muttering the words I knew I had just confirmed in all their minds that I was truly the crazy one.  I mean I souned crazy to myself.  Sometimes the truth is so unbelievable that it might just be better left unsaid.  I hung my head in embarrassment and scurried upstairs to pay.  The end. 

Lesson learned....add pepper spray to list of essential estate sale tools.

Adventures of a Silly Lady...."Hi my name is Megan and I buy Crap"

One time in the not so distant past I went to an estate sale in Chicago.  It was about one in the afternoon and I had struck out at the other two estate sales I had already been to on this gloomy Friday.  Ever the optimist, I kept on going.  I mean with the cost of gas and all you have to hit as many places in a day as you can to even come out even.  It now takes $85.00 to fill my van. 

So here I am in Chicago...big old two story brick house.  I know that tons of people have already shopped it and the odds of me finding anything "good" are slim.  But hey  you never know.  I enter the house and I have to say that it is stinky to say the least.  And as I walk into the first room I know why it stinks....it hasn't been cleaned in the last decade for sure.  No problem, I'm used to it.  (this from the girl who literally gags when she has to clean a toilet) 

I head upstairs to the bedrooms to start my search.  There are piles of clothes just strewn on the floors.  I start digging and digging for like a half  hour and manage to find miraculously a vintage pink cashmere sweater and a bowling shirt.  Ok...moving on to the other rooms upstairs I find a vintage Enid Collins purse that is missing half of it's embellishments which I rationalized buying by telling myself that an artsy NIU girl would re-embellish it in some fab way. 

I head downstairs and on my way I pass the estate sale lady and she sees my pink cashmere sweater which was the reward at the end of half an hours worth of digging thru dirty stinky stuff that people have thrown on the floor and she says to me....oh my goodness...we've been looking for that sweater.  We knew it was up there somewhere.  Sorry honey but I'm gonna have to take that back from you because I told my friend she could have it.  (of course you did you mean mean lady....I wanted to hiss at her like a cat but instead I smiled demurely and said glad I could be of assistance)

So I figure I will head down to the basement where I belong.  Yes the I'm not finding anything and I just wasted 50 dollars on gas blues were starting to take over.  I'm fighting it hard.  I tell myself to quit whining and get digging.  Basements can be a treasure trove of dirty old things that get overlooked by all of the "fancy dealers." 

After about two minutes I was wheezing.  I am highly allergic to mold and this place was so bad but I did see some things I liked so I trudged forward.  At one point the basement helper asked me if I was ok because I had tears running down my face from the exertion of trying to breathe.  Not good I know...I'm going to start bringing a mask with me. 

I had some luck in the basement.  I found a 70's mushroom cookie jar, a yellow gingham top from the 70's, some moldy vintage fabric, a ton of dirty hankies, a red brooch in the shape of a bow, 6 drinking glasses with bull fighters on them, a suitcase full of old wrapping paper that had already been used, and a few other goodies. Needing some lung resusitation I head back up with a big armful of stuff.

I spend  another ten minutes or so on the first floor looking around.  Over yonder I see a piece of vintage fabric that is actually on the floor with a chair sitting on top of it.  I go to retrieve and the previously mentioned estate sale lady says " Oh I was going to keep that for myself."  I might have had that "Are you ready for a throwdown" look on my face because she quickly then said " I don't really need it....you can have it."  Now I'm not as mad about her stealing my pink cashmere sweater.

So I tell the estate sale lady that I am ready to check out.  I have a pretty big pile....I was in there for an hour and a half.  Everything was priced so I knew my bill would be about $125.00.  She starts to go thru the pile one thing at a time and as she does she is saying out loud the cost of the items.  One dollar....fifty cents.... three dollars....etc.  But I notice that the price she is saying doesn't correspond to the price on the items.  It is actually much less than what it is marked.  This never happens.  So being the big believer in Karma that I am.....I think that she must be having some sort of brain problem and I say....excuse me but you aren't charging me enough.   She looked right at me and without even flinching said....."I am giving you a good deal because there is no one else who would buy this crap."   

I said thanks I really appreciate it!  Then I paid my sixty dollars and packed up my "crap" as fast as I could before she could change her mind.  On my drive home I had time to reflect on the backhanded complement/insult I had just received and I had a really great time with myself (yea it gets lonely sometimes driving around in my big old van with no one but me to talk to) chuckling over how I have often been tagged as a junk buyer...a bottom feeder...that girl who buys the weird stuff...and a host of other fun names that to me really are a complement. 

You see...I have never wanted to be just like everyone else.  I see beauty and possibility where others see crap.  It's a gift of sorts.  A gift I've always been grateful for.  Some people can cook, or sew, or build things....I can smell a diamond in the rough buried under a pile of moldy old junk.

The moral of this story....don't hiss like a cat when you don't get your way and the estate sale lady might give you everything for half off because she thinks you don't know what the heck your doing!   

The  end.

Adventures of a Silly Lady...."The Pickle Bucket"

ok so I'll admit it....I've been a little bit afraid to write about the real me.  Not that what I've been writing about in the past hasn't been the real me, but it might be a slightly less colorful version of the real me.  Because the real me is kind of a silly lady.  A lady who sometimes  often does really odd things just because that's who she is. 

I guess when you are a business owner (or whatever you do in your "grown up" life) you think you have to put forth a certain "professional" image to the world.  Can't show the public how goofy or silly you really are.  But then I ask myself...what is the point of this blog really.  Is it to just be all proper and formal or is it to let those that have an interest in reading this get a little glimpse into the real person (warts and all) behind the "professional business." 

I have been battling this question in my mind for a few months now and after talking it over with a few friends who know the real me, I've decided to slowly reveal a bit more about myself and my little adventures.  Over the years friends and family have often told me that they love to hear about the weird little situations I've found myself in while out and about on my searches for vintage treasures.  I have spent a great deal of the last twenty years travelling around the Midwest looking for cool stuff that inspires me and others.  With all that time on the road, at estate sales, trolling flea markets, basements, and attics...you know there have been some intersting, funny, sad, exhilarating, weird, unbelievable, and completely random things that have happened.

So....I am going to try my hand at writing about some of these little anecdotes under the category of ----Adventures of a Silly Lady.  I'll post them whenever the mood strikes me.  They might be about something that happened twenty years ago or yesterday.  I will provide details where I think it helps to clarify the story. 

Just because I can.....I will begin each story with the words "one time" and I will end each story with the words "the end"

Here we go......

One time two springs ago I was at an estate sale in Iowa when I overheard the man who owned the estate sale company telling another shopper that the sale he was conducting next week was the best one that he ever had the honor of having. He said that the family had kept everything they ever owned for the last hundred years. He waxed poetic about beaded sweaters, majolica pottery, oil paintings, vintage textiles and on and on.  I was positively giddy with the thought of all these fabulous vintage items that might need a new home with me or one of my vintage loving customers. 

I couldn't stop thinking about this sale....of course I was going to go.  Heck Dekalb was only a three hour drive away.  The sale would start at 8 am.  I could leave at 2 am to get in line early because the way he was talking up this sale I knew there would be big crowds waiting to get in.  If you aren't in the first group to go in it is so frustrating to stand outside while others march by you with the "good stuff"  I had to get there early that's for sure.  As the week went on I came to the "obvious" conclusion that I needed to get there the night before the sale and sleep in my van.

So I casually mentioned this to my husband thinking it would slide through easily.  "You've got to be kidding me he said"  "There is no way you are sleeping in Iowa in an unfamiliar neighborhood."  "No way, No how"

So I left about 7pm from Dekalb and arrived at the sale at 10 pm.  Cool I'm the first one in line(duh!) Now it's time to get settled in for a good nights sleep.  Well this was prior to the removal of my two grapefruit sized fibroid tumors that were crushing my bladder at all times causing me to have to visit the ladies room every 20 minutes (and yes I lived like this for almost 3 years not knowing what exactly was wrong with me)

No problem....I was prepared.  Prepared and determined to make it through the night without losing my spot in line.  I had my bucket.  A giant 5 gallon pickle bucket complements of my husband's work.  Well between visits to my bucket, my bad back, the 40 degree temperature and thinking that every twig crackle was the boogie man, I didn't get a wink of sleep. 

Finally 4 am arrives and the others begin to arrive.  We all spent the next 4 hours doing what all antiquers do during this time.  Telling stories about treasures found and treasures lost and treasures dreamed of. 

Sale begins....yes I am number one.  I enter the house...my heart is beating fast...so fast I can't even think straight.  Am I spinning in circles? I go left then dodge right and finally commit to a small bedroom....the vultures are fast on my heels.  Did I go into the right room first....oooh the agony.  Shoot wrong room.  Go to the garage, go to the garage, go to the garage....decide to listen to my inner annoying voice and almost run out of the house to the garage.

The garage is crammed full of fun stuff.  Why don't I have 4 arms and 10 hands?  I frantically start flipping thru racks of clothes and then out of the corner of my eye I see some cool paintings propped up against the wall.  I keep one hand on the clothes rack while at the same time stretching myself over four feet to grab the paintings.  I'm experiencing vintage nirvana and that always makes me dizzy.  I see a young boy who is helping out at the sale and beg him to watch my pile of stuff.  He agrees. 

Back into the house to finish up. Flash forward two hours and I am now done. And when I say done I mean tired, hot, dirty, hungry, dizzy and happy.   I was able to rid myself of 800 dollars and I had a great time. 

Headline of this story.....Girl and Pickle Bucket Hit the Road!  The end.