Doing the post really made me want to get out and do some good old junking. I used to get up early every Saturday morning in graduate school (and that was in the days when I regularly slept until noon!), pull out my trusty laminated city map, grab the classified section of the paper and go yard sale-ing for hours. I also made regular trips to the architectural salvage store and various antique and junk shops around town, trolling for treasures. I made some fantastic finds in those days. In fact, I pretty much furnished my entire graduate school apartment on yard sale stuff. Most of it was junk when I picked it up, and I managed to turn it into something fun. Everything was mismatched, but it worked.

Nowadays I still love a good yard sale (they call them “rummage sales” here). I still enjoy a good stroll through the architectural salvage store we have here and the antique stores. Unfortunately, my adventures in junking are few and far between these days. In fact they’re mostly limited to driving slowly by a yard sale to see if it looks like it’s worth getting both my girls out of the car (yes, I’m that person, and no, I usually don’t bother to get out) or cruising through the architectural salvage store when I’m already walking downtown for the farmer’s market and looking for a good spot to get out of the heat for a few minutes.

I have been really feeling the junking itch lately though. One day recently I actually went to a website listing all sorts of local yard sales for the following day, printed a list of those I wanted to check out, consulted my map and planned my route, only to find that the website was pretty much bogus and two of the three “big sales” I tried to go to were not where they were supposed to be. The third one was not big, and consisted mostly of crocheted barrettes, old baskets, and a rack of clothes for an elderly woman. I was discouraged after that and gave up on that trip. However, I am not to be deterred. The next two weekends will be taken up with travel, but maybe I’ll get back out there when we get home. I’d love to score some good junk for my house or for my girls. Heck, I’ll even get out of the car this time.