Well, hello! Did you miss us? We always slow down in the wintertime, but this has definitely been our longest hiatus since starting the blog. So by this weekend, we were delighted to find there were actually some promising sales listed. Off we went!

One sale on my list didn’t seem to be happening, and the next should have been a driveby (though we did make the mistake of getting out and looking). The third one was an indoor moving sale. The listing sounded good, but I wasn’t too encouraged by this box on the porch.

Inside, one room was devoted to women’s clothes.

Everything was pretty tiny and leaned toward the trashy and/or spooky.

Also spooky? Shelves full of Halloween decor.

I think these clowns count as spooky too, or at least creepy.

I grabbed a book, but wasn’t finding much. Although I was sort of enamored by this Christmas tree art made from bits of vintage jewelry.

Meanwhile, Meghan had grabbed a pile of records — after first nearly getting into an altercation with some guy after she grabbed what turned out to be his records, even though he was nowhere near them at the time. She also snagged a blue Le Creuset dutch oven for two dollars (!!) Then she pointed out these portraits hanging up near the ceiling.

I was personally more taken with the Marijuana/Marlboro Man.

When we were almost ready to leave, Meghan showed me a black plastic bangle with white letters reading “Shaken Not Stirred Vodka Martini.” She wasn’t planning to buy it, but ended up throwing it into her pile. It promptly found a home on her gear shift.

We had another sale on our list: an estate sale at a former church, which had been the residence of two artists for many years. Both of us had been in this place a few times–they would rent out the upper area for events and such, and we also went to the open house when the building went up for sale. By the time we got there it was around 11:30 and the sale had opened at 10 … but there was still a line way down the block! It was way too cold to wait in that so we decided to come back later. We took a quick trunk pic showing the purchases from the first sale, and went home.

About an hour later we headed to the sale at the church, which by now had no line.

Can you see that crow window? It’s super cool — here’s a shot from inside.

We walked inside, up a staircase lined with bowling balls.

There were tons of shoppers milling about inside.

Here’s a close-up of that awesome Revival Meeting sign.

There were lots of other vestiges of the building’s former use. Like pews — some of which had globes sitting in them.

But there were some decidedly non-churchy fixtures, too.

One of the former residents had been an artist, working mainly with beads from what I imagine. There were definitely a lot of those around — this is just a small portion.

And there were all kinds of other oddities around.

As I was perusing the goods I heard Meghan call from the back room, “I’m going to buy some of these teeth …”

These were less freaky than the last time we found teeth at a sale, but still pretty strange. She selected a set that appealed to her and we looked around some more. Most of this room was dedicated to various odd objects made of glass.

We each ended up grabbing a small glass piece or two. Then right as we were getting ready to wrap it up we realized the downstairs was also open! We were running out of time but made a quick look. It too was filled with strange items.

One thing that was not present was an interesting glass panel in the shower. Thankfully, Meghan had snapped a picture of it when we were in the building for the open house. I guess whoever purchased the place didn’t want to keep this in the shower. I can’t imagine why.

We followed the sign back upstairs …

… and got in line.

I walked away for a few minutes to look at something and heard Meghan yell, “Oh my god! Jenny, come look at what this lady is holding!” I could not have possibly imagined how awesome it would turn out to be.

The Wonder Douche! (You thought it was going to be some annoying shopper, didn’t you?) Nothing was inside — just the box, which was from 1904. I was tempted to purchase it, but the price was too high. I thought about coming back on Monday when prices would be reduced, and seeing if it was still around — there were also a ton of other cool-but-completely-unnecessary items that I might have considered if the prices were just a tad lower. But as it turned out, I wasn’t able to make it. Which honestly is probably just as well. We each bought a few items and all in all, felt it was a good way to kick off a new year of saling!