yard sales.

One of the things that I love about Utah Valley is that on any given good-weather weekend there are hundreds of yard sales on every corner. In San Antonio, you had to have a permit to hold a yard sale--and, each neighborhood would hold a neighborhood-wide yard sale once a year, or so. Except that in Texas they are more referred to as "garage sales" because you would die of heat exhaustion if you sat on the lawn all day. When I was little, garage sale weekend was a much anticipated holiday. We would drag everything out to the garage, and my dad would sell everything for 50 cents while my mom cringed and looked the other way. My sisters and I would set up our plastic table on the lawn, and sell cups of Kool-Aid and handmade bracelets. And, at the end of the day, my dad would give us any of the profit from the sale of our old toys or half-naked Barbies.

But, here in Utah Valley, it's like a holiday every weekend. Sam's mom is the queen of yard sales. I learned how to thrift from my mom, and I learned to navigate yard sales from Sam's mom. She maps out the sales in the area the night before, and gets up at the crack of dawn to beat the crowd. Last weekend, Sam and I hit up yard sales in Orem with his parents-- and we struck gold. One of my favorite parts of the morning was watching Sam and some other guys circling a table of climbing equipment like vultures. The guy was selling most of his equipment for $5 or under. Sam got a couple of barely-used harnesses, a Petzl helmet that looks brand new, and some other odds and ends.

Later in the day I ran across all of these little beauties. I have been looking all over for a domed cake stand, and I finally found one! Now I just need to bake a cake. Any ideas? I also love that blue patterned pan, and the watermelon and lemon vintage Pyrex. Some of those may end up in the shop. But, I don't know, they do look pretty great in my kitchen right now.