The Phinney neighborhood sale day has moved around enough that it seems like now many of its residents don’t know when it’s happening. Sure it snowed two years ago, but how many times is it going to snow in April in Seattle? Every 25, maybe every 50 years? It used to be our “spring opener” and I think we are both still bitter about the date change.

Friday night I drove home from work in a huge rainstorm. Heck, if I was having a sale I would think twice. But in the morning it seemed like it would be okay. With Jenny out of town and Karl feeling like he might want to bail, I set out on my own at 8:30.

First issue? Well, lack of sales! The normal traffic issues of getting boxed in on some streets — this year, no problem. I was having a hard time even finding any sales, even at the houses or condos that do a sale every year. When I asked a seller about this, she said that it wasn’t advertised as much and they felt that it was more disorganized this year.

One of my first sales had the usual fodder that folks dig out of their house (Gap clothing, crap from the kitchen, old shoes) … and homemade Worm Tea stored in Coke Zero containers.

I parked and walked around on one street that seemed to have a few sales and followed the “HERE” sign to a small garage sale of a woman who had been a painter. I picked up a wooden ’60s milk crate for $5, and a few small vintage items.

I hit a few more sales, some looked like they could be great, but big doesn’t always mean good stuff.

Ehg, should I just go home?!?

After about two hours I remembered this one sale that an old woman usually has. I thought I would see if she had anything interesting. As soon as I walked up I saw a bag of about 100 patterns for 20 cents each. I took a quick peek and purchased the whole bag, along with a few more items.

I popped by Silvi’s place (she owned a vintage store for many years) and usually she has soooooo much stuff you can’t even look at it all. I think she was kind of half-assing it this time, but she did have this great selection of broken parts.

In the end I did fill up the trunk, but nothing really amazing or interesting happened for most of the morning and by 11:30 I was bored enough to head home …