As Meghan reports below, we had a pretty good time hitting the West Seattle yard sales. I didn’t come away with any really amazing scores, but I did get a handful of interesting books and records and other small odd things. I saw some blue tiki head bookends which were kind of cool, but not $10 cool. This was at the same sale where Meghan picked up the barkcloth you can see in the trunk. There were different people selling stuff and the barkcloth woman had stepped out to get coffee. We waited for a few minutes and she still wasn’t back so Meghan eventually was able to get them to come up with a price, $2 a piece ($4 for the biggest one). When we got home she realized she had accidentally ended up with some not-so-great newer piece of fabric too – she wasn’t sure if she actually paid for that one or not, or how it even got into her pile.

I also had a few disappointing discoveries about some of my purchases: an exercise kit with stretchy cords you do stuff with – hey, it looked like it might be kinda fun – without the accompanying video telling you what to actually do (I did look in the box, and the case was there, but it turned out to be empty); a copy of Corduroy that had the last page torn out (discovery made while reading it to my daughter, who was totally digging it – whoops); and a pair of 80s plastic earrings that are apparently in the process of disintegrating. All of these things together cost $3.75, so it’s not like I’m out a lot of cash, but it did make me think I need to start inspecting my potential purchases just a little more closely.

It was fun to hit a part of town we don’t usually go to, even though our lack of familiarity with the streets made us waste a little more time figuring out where we were going. And we did have some memorable moments, like the guy who told us we were making him feel like he was in a porn movie because we asked him to “go down” on his prices. Plus the place we stopped to get coffee and treats was having a sale right in front of the cafe – we didn’t buy anything from their sale, but I appreciated the concept of the one-stop shopping!