UGhuhuhghughghghgh

Sick. It's cold out, I had to buy an extra hat from a street vendor because I left mine at home and it's ugly. I feel gross. Blarg.

Upside: 2 estate sales this weekend, a new flea market about 2 blocks from my office, and I really hope to win this on ebay:
I'd wear it around town and pretend I was part of the New York Cultural Elite.

First Estate Sale Adventure of 09

The holidays and the cold had been preventing me from going on my usual Sunday thrift shopping. NYCers: Housing Works' 50% off sale this week.

Yesterday was a question of either cleaning up my apartment or taking 2 trains and a bus to an estate sale in Rosedale, Queens. Guess which one I picked...lalala.

Turns out the F was running local, so I got to take that to Parsons Blvd (um, I didn't realize quite how far away that was) to catch the Q43. The long-ish rides, for me, are a way to catch up on reading or NPR, or Rachel Maddow podcasts. I listened to her '2008 Awards for Excellence in Areas TBD', which included "News Event Most Suited to be a Musical" (the Spitzer situation won).

I finally reach the stop for the estate sale, and the thrifting adrenaline starts pumping. I walk in and am immediately scared - some glass vases, picture frames and ugly dolls are in the front living room. However! Turns out there is "something in every room, including the basement." SCORE.

The house was really lovely and made me yearn for a house with space (read: not an apartment in Astoria.) There was some beautiful furniture - sewing cabinet, chest of drawers, scrolly desk - and I wish I had the means (car, storage space) to take, restore, and resell that kind of stuff, but not right now. I did a lot of looking, but in the end, not too much buying.

$7.00 for everything in the photo, including unused Japanese salad servers and S&P shakers, some Shiny Brites, an old nut chopper (teehee), and an atlas from 1940 with some great colored maps.

A decent start to my 2009 thrift shopping, and I'm already checking ads on Craigslist for next weekend.

Winter in Qns

Loved that pink car with the snow on top - but I made sure not to walk under it.

No room at the inn

Probably shouldn't off with a Jesus reference, but oh well. There is NO ROOM at the inn for all the junk I've been buying up the past couple of weeks (er, months?) because I've gotten heavily into thrifting. I live in Astoria, Queens, about 35 mins away from the city, where I work. Compared to Manhattan apartments, my rent is nothing and the space I get is definitely manageable. When I started living here, I was in a Zen existence - my bed, my clothes, some books, and this weird bottle of booze I'd been carting from place to place since I graduated college. I think it was a cheaper version of Peach Schnapps, but I finally got around to throwing it out this year. 2008. I graduated 2005, and acquired that bottle the summer before my senior year.

Ahem. Zen existence, plus some old liquor. Anyway, fast forward a year or so to my 2nd apartment in Queens, and I am jam-packed with stuff. Pyrex, old children's books, Christmas ornaments, vintage office supplies, ephemera (learned that junkin word this year thanks to thrifting blogs)...it's scary. This morning I woke up intending to go to 184th St in Inwood/Washington Heights (if you google maps Astoria to Washington Heights, you'll know how bad the thrift bug has gotten me) to get a big white Pyrex bowl I spotted in their Craigslist ad, but it's pretty gross out there with the snow we just got. (City snow is not as cute as country snow, fyi.)

So I'm in my room, sorting through the crap, trying to figure out what goes in the store, what will be turned into a future art-craft project, and where I can put it all without forgetting where it went, or turning my bedroom into a glorified Goodwill. Why did I throw out that bottle?