Last week I was so traumatized by Katy getting out, I never got a chance to really appreciate the kickoff of curbshopping season.
Now, I know there are people who throw away things year ‘round….but really, around here if you toss something to the curb in the winter it’s likely to be buried in snow until spring comes around anyways!
I spent the day at my Mom’s house last Saturday. While on the way home I spotted a couple things of interest.
It was enough to get me started again.
First was this plastic piece, probably off the top of a mirror.
You can see by looking at the back, it was broken, or even possibly cut.
(it looks really even to me, so I’m leaning towards it being cut)
I set it on a snow pile to take this picture. See how dirty the snow is?
On a side note;
This is what my yard looked like one week ago. Most of the snow had melted away, all that was left was this dirty thin layer.
I’m happy to report that today ALL but a small pile of the snow is gone!
Yay!!!!
Took a lot of rain and a week of sunshine.
OK, next on the curbshopping list…. a stepladder.
Yeah, I know it’s a sorry sight, but I just love my ladders, what can I say?
Then I found this chair….
It’s upholstered in a vinyl coated fabric.
I was able to wash it off easily.
I like the nail head trim. The nail heads are a tad bit rusty.
Seems like this chair weathered outdoors for a bit.
The finish is peeling off the wood.
I like how sturdy this chair is…maybe some paint and a slipcover will revive it.
Or maybe not.
Next up;
Found a door.
You know I love doors just as much as ladders, right?
This is also in rough shape.
But I love the panel pattern on it. I’ve never seen one quite like it.
It’s busted up pretty badly on one side.
The other side had a piece of plywood attached to it.
Other than a couple cracks, this side looks ok once I took off the plywood.
And I love the oval plate for the doorknob. Very unique!
Now I have to show you the wicker end table.
The famous one I backed up over in my haste to go find Katy.
It doesn’t look so bad from this angle.
But when you turn it this way….well….let’s just say it’s just a bit bent out of shape.
I’m not sure yet if I can do anything with it.
I do love me some wicker though.
Maybe I can shore up the frame……
And fix the unwrapped leg.
Then maybe straighten her out?
What do you think?
Is it hopeless?
I’m so excited that I finally have something to link up to Linda’s Nifty Thrifty Tuesday party at Coastal Charm!
Be sure to go check out all the other thrifty finds over there.
The chorus to this song goes especially well with the rest of this post.
Oh my gosh folks, I had quite the day yesterday Sunday.
Katy, the Greyhound we are fostering, got OUT and ran away while I was in the driveway emptying some curb finds from my car.
And when I say RAN, I’m not kidding!
She took off at full speed up the road as I foolishly tried to run after her…flat out screaming her name in an effort to get her back.
Have you ever seen a greyhound run? If you haven’t you need to check out this video from YouTube showing a greyhound running at 75km (45 mph) alongside a car. This is what Katy was running like as I was trying to chase her.
(this is NOT my video, just one I found on YouTube)
The speed limit on my street is 45, and she was outrunning the cars.
It was awful.
Let me backtrack just a minute.
Mike had taken the other two dogs to Petsmart to get their nails clipped, so I figured I would take the opportunity to hide
put away some pieces I had curbshopped on Saturday on my way home from Mom’s house.
Katy was whiney because the other dogs were gone, so I let her out into our fenced yard and closed the sliding door to the breezeway so she couldn’t come back in.
The other door to the breezeway takes you out to the driveway. I had been going back and forth thru it to bring stuff inside.
Well, somehow Katy managed to open the sliding door; all I can think of is that it wasn’t shut all the way and she was able to squeeze her nose into the crack and push it open.
(Photo below is an old picture showing the breezeway sliding door to the back yard.)
then she pushed the screen door to the driveway open too, I figure it probably didn’t latch all the way when I went back out.
(photo below is an old pic that shows the driveway side screen door just so you can get an idea of what I’m talking about)
So here I am taking a wicker end table out of the car and Katy appears in the driveway. I was in shock, I called her to me, she starts toward me and then changes her mind.
As she turns I LUNGE for her; frantically trying to get hold of her, coming up just short.
She breaks into full stride and starts running up the road along the shoulder.
I’m SCREAMING her name at the top of my lungs and running after her before I realize there is no way I’m going to catch up to her. I see her turn out of sight down a side street about 2 blocks up and I ran back to get my car.
First I had to run in the house and grab my keys, phone, and a leash. I’m a shaking mess of fear at this point, barely able to think.
I hop in the car and back up……right over the wicker table I had just unloaded!
Crunch.
I stop, pull forward, and run back to pull out the now mangled table from under the car.
Oops!
I toss it aside and head out.
I’m driving up the street slowly, so very slow, trying to scan the yards on either side for signs of Katy.
As you know, she’s white, and the ground around here is still mostly snow covered.
How on earth am I going to spot Katy amongst all this white?
Every person I saw I stopped and asked them if they had seen a white greyhound come by.
Nobody had.
I get through to Mike on the cell phone, he tries to calm me down and heads home.
There’s no calming me.
My voice was hoarse, I was coughing uncontrollably from all the yelling.
I call Wendy, our rescue group contact person, to start the lost dog chain…a system where other greyhound owners are called to help in the search when a dog gets lost. I get her voicemail and leave a very LOUD frantic message. I have no clue what I said.
The car windows are open so I can see better on both sides and can yell to people I see out in their yards.
‘Please God, keep her safe. Please keep her off the main roads.” I’m praying at this point.
I see something at the side of the road and my heart stops.
It’s a dead deer that had been hit by a car.
“Oh God, don’t let Katy get hit.” I revise my prayer.
Mike pulls up alongside me and I give him an update. He turns right, I keep going straight.
A minute later he calls me.
“I got her!”
Huh?
Apparently she had stopped in somebody’s yard and walked right up to the man who was outside his house. He petted her and took her by the collar, seeing there was a phone number on her tag. He took her inside his house and called.
It was the number to our Greyhound Rescue group.
He got voicemail and left a message, then decided she might belong to the lady down the street, as he had seen her with greyhounds before.
So he put a leash on Katy and walked her down to check. Obviously he found that Katy didn’t belong to her, so he turned and started walking back.
That’s when Mike spotted them.
Walking along the road, like they were taking a Sunday stroll.
Oh ,Thank-you Dear God!
I quickly turn around and head back towards Mike. He is gone, but I see a man walking with a leash in hand.
I stop beside him.
Are you the man who found our dog?
Yes Ma’am, he says.. I spend several minutes thanking him profusely, tears of relief and joy running down my face.
As I’m talking to this man, Wendy calls to tell me Katy was found. I assure her we already got Katy back and she is safe.
Back home, Mike is still getting all the dogs inside, especially our little runaway.
He sees furniture scattered around the driveway and asks “Where’d that come from?”
“Um, Never mind.” I say, feeling oh so guilty for letting my curb finds distract me from keeping this precious dog safe.
My enthusiasm for my new finds has dissipated. I don’t even feel like taking pictures of it for the blog anymore.
That was just too scary.
I felt like I aged 10 years from that.
Maybe someday I’ll get around to showing you those curb finds.
But first I need to recover.
If nothing else, I want to remind all you dog owners; always, always, always keep an ID tag with your phone number and address on your dog’s collar.
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of walking in the door of your own house after having been away, is there?
As much as we enjoyed our vacation in Florida it just wasn’t home.
When we got in the door we were greeted by the pups as they ecstatically wagged their tails and wriggled forward for more petting and hugs.
I missed them so!
Katy was right in the middle of this excitement, every bit as happy as Sandy and Yoshi.
At some point during this love fest I ended up sitting on the floor with 3 dogs in my lap, petting them nonstop, getting my face washed with doggie kisses and looking around me with appreciative eyes.
Ah yes, I love being home!
I can’t imagine ever giving it up and moving away.
Who am I kidding? Even in the dead of winter I love where I live.
Thoughts of retirement and moving to the sunshine state fade quickly in the face of this realization.
I’m home; sweet home.
It can’t possibly get any better than this!
And since you can’t have a post without a picture (after all, this is a blog, right?) I’m including this photo from a post on my Gardenjunk from last year.
Seems Amanda from Craft Gossip.com liked it enough to include in a round up of planter ideas she posted yesterday.
(click here to go see her post, there are lots of great ideas!)
Thanks for including my tool box planter Amanda! I’m so pleased that you liked it.
I plan on getting caught up on my blog reading; can’t wait to see what you’ve all been up to.
(The box above is supposed to be a video of the 16 Tons theme for Joe vs The Volcano, if it shows as a black box, click on it to get it started. It really goes well with this post! ;)
I mentioned the other day I was going on vacation-- well here we are in SUNNY Florida pretending to be retirees for the week.
We're in a community known as The Villages, so big that it is designated as an actual CITY on the map.
Mike and I have been making this annual trek together to visit his Mom and stepdad at their home in a retirement community for years now. When I first came along with him 11 years ago I was immediately enthralled with the whole concept of a retirement community.
Good grief, they have the life down here....play golf all day, spend some time sunning at the pool, maybe even join a water aerobics class, go out to happy hour at the village square where they have live music, dancing, vendor booths with all sorts of stuff for sale, and most amazingly; 2 for 1 cocktails!
Are you kidding me?
Every night!
No need to even start the car up- if you have a golf cart you can get anywhere you want in the community.
I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
This is living!
People rarely eat at home, lunch and dinner is always eaten out. We soon discovered that if you wait until 7:30 or 8 pm to go to dinner we never had to wait for a table. Apparently any self respecting retiree eats dinner between 4 and 5 so there are long waits for the early seatings.
We play golf nearly every day. I usually take a day off to visit Mt. Dora, maybe Renningers, and some random antique shops, but not this year. I've even been known to drag my mother in law into the goodwill stores, as we don't have these back home.
Every year Mike and I start looking at houses around here, dreaming of living this wonderful life year round.
"Someday soon" we say to each other," this is the life we are working towards".
Most of the residents still have homes back in their hometown, spending summers there near the grandchildren and winters in Florida.
Talk about having the best of both worlds!
At the end of the week we will go back home, back to our real life; back to working long hours every day, shoveling snow, shivering in the frigid temps, looking forward to the weekend so some projects can be done, waiting for spring to come; and dreaming about the day we can live the life of a retiree.
The good life.
Soon will come the spring, and all thoughts of retiring to Florida will start to fade away as we eagerly watch the snow melt. Delicate snowdrop flowers will peek up between the snowbanks, crocus's will start to emerge, primroses, then daffodils and tulips... warm weather will finally arrive and life will be beautiful and exciting once again.
Every day will be nicer than the last.
The days will get longer, and we can have it all every day right here at home, going to work; yes..... but we'll get our playtime too.
