Another chat with the thrift store owner...

Sorry to skip yesterday's entry - I was in a lousy mood, and when I get that way, I tend to isolate m'self, so I don't contaminate anyone else's outlook !

So anyway. Got to hit my fave thrift store yesterday. I'm lucky, we have the big two (GoodWill and Salvation Army) and a local thrift, but I prefer the local. Frankly, for the last six months, GW and SA haven't had squat, and the stuff I'm not even interested in seemed quite expensive. It's like an old Stephen Wright joke - he said he donates to Bad Will - they buy nice stuff for poor people and then break it.

Found a pretty Christmas ornament - I'm an absolute sucker for star or celestial things - a stuffed angel doll, and a hardback Barbie story book that trumpets being 7 books in one !!! Yeah, ok, whatever. I just like to see how they've set up dioramas for the stories - and how little they depend on Mattel products to get the scene they want. In its own way, it's an inspiration, and cheap at 99c. And when Dearest Son was younger, he didn't care what I read to him, so Barbie stories were OK. He still likes Beloved Hubby and I to read to him - so we do, every night - but he wants Wall-E, not Barbie.  

The angel doll was from their stuffed animal bin. It used to be 25c for anything in there, but it's now 50c. Still cheap, but it's not the first time I've seen prices go up slightly. They also sell grab-bags of small toys - like Happy Meal pieces - that were 25c a bag, but now they're 50c each, too. Minor stuff, but it illustrates the way things are going.

OK, I had a point going into this... oh, yeah. The angel doll is one of those seriously cheap ones, where the dress is also the body. That is, the sleeves are the arms, and the dress is non-removeable. And even the dress is cheap nylon for the most part. But it reminded me a lot of the latest Disney Princess incarnation, 'Enchanted Tales'. The characters all have white and gold versions of their signature gowns, and the crowns and jewelry are heavily administered. I wanted to see if I could take a dress-as-body doll and make it into a doll dress for a Little Disney Princess doll, like the 'Princess Dorrie' doll wearing the green shirt on your right.

So, $2.02 later, I left, and I hope to work on the doll this weekend. If it goes as I think it will, I'll have a new way to recycle inexpensive dolls !

Chatted a bit more with the owner, who again encouraged me to donate anything I could. Especially dolls. She knew of at least one family who'd be doing most of their holiday shopping at her store, and she'd love to have some more choices for them. Well, Thanksgiving's a good time to see all of what you have to be thankful for, and make some choices about giving, so there's most of my holiday weekend !

Honestly, though, sometimes I think that if I owned a thrift store, and I was seriously running low on donations, I'd be hitting the yard sales, especially as the sellers were closing up shop. I know when I've had sales, I'd have been happy to just give the stuff away, so I wouldn't have to drag it back into the garage and then drag to GWill on Monday. Amazingly, we still have several yard sales here in town this weekend, which is unusual. 'Round here, garage sale season dries up just before Halloween most years.

But the owner probably doesn't have time. I do have to say, though, that yard sales are usually much cheaper for clothes than thrifts !

Came home and got some housework done. During Monday's trip to Sam's, I bought some of the 'restaurant grade' silverware. Thirty-six forks for $6.88. They seem pretty sturdy, if rather plain. Cut up some old t-shirts for rags, and used two to line the bottom of our trash cans, in case spills leaked out of the bags. This is my shameful frugal secret - I often reuse trash bags if they don't have a lot of food in them. And I prefer to use Mal-wart grocery sacks, but for some reason, that drives Beloved Hubby nuts !

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Love the Stephen Wright joke - made me laugh out loud! I know it does feel that way sometimes when you are in a place filled with cheap junk that's overpriced even tho it's used!

The trick is to go into the "better" neighborhoods for your thrift fix. (Not to mention lots of other services! The local suburban library has "Friends" and the selection of new books is a lot nicer than in some other branches, for example.) My husband has been appalled at what's available in the poorer neighborhoods where he is supervising Special Ed Services... Crummy stuff and not inexpensive, either! I once read that one should always try to live on the edge of a good address, and this is one of the reasons why...

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