Sunday Junking

I am such a procrastinator on getting comfortable with this camera! Tonight I came home and decided to just do it. I snapped a few outdoors and a few indoors for practice.
Last Sunday I made my weekly pilgrimage to the Volunteers of America Store. I love that place but not like I used to. They remodeled and cleaned up to make it more like the Goodwill, the Portland gold standard for second hand stores. I liked it better the old way! They eliminated the "as-is" annex. Man, that place was some good treasure hunting! Their final resting place for the things that didn't sell and the stuff they didn't consider worthy of a spot in the "real" store. In short, the crap. Oh Yeah! The dust mites made me cough and reaching your hand into the textile bins was a little sketchy but the lure of the NEXT GREAT THING drew me like a magpie to a sparkly thing!
This was where I found the old photograph that I used in my Somerset Studio Melange article. Twenty nine cents. I remember one time I was shopping there with my daughter-in-law (she didn't care to touch too much in there and I warned her not be alarmed when I started to cough)when I spotted this little old suitcase, the size a child would carry. Brown "leatherette" exterior, rotted interior and neato Lucite handle. I fairly hugged it to my chest and asked the clerk, "How much for this?". She scrutinized it up and down, looked inside, turned it over and furrowed her brow. She looked up and said, "How about 35 cents?". She probably got a good dinner table story out of it, I'm pretty sure my daughter-in-law was mortified and I got this fabulous little suitcase for storing my collection of millinery flowers. The inside is covered in sunflower fabric now and there are sunflowers and butterflies on the outside. I don't actually do anything with the millinery flowers but it makes me happy when I open up my little suitcase and fondle them.
Man, I am getting WAY off topic. I get a little passionate about rescuing old crap.
So Sunday I went over to the new, improved and not quite as fun store and spotted this white metal shelf for just $4.95. Who could resist! This is perfect for my little bonsai trees. The big metal shelf is made from a metal pallet that was used to ship outboard motors. Our friend Bob gave it to me. I dismantled it and cut apart the metal strips and my husband welded it into it's new purpose. It works great but the smaller trees were getting too shaded by the larger ones. There is some funky wooden ball on the top of the new shelf for a finial. I'm not too in love with that look so will have to find something different, but that's another trip to the Volunteers of America!

This is my feet at the entrance to the pergola. Why not. Everybody else is taking pictures of their feet. I think it's supposed to be artsy. I think it's just proof that I really do paint my toenails and wear flip flops like a hip, happenin' chick!

Did I mention I built this pergola from scratch. It was to replace the one I built out of sticks from pruning our apple tree. That's a whole other story. Just so hard to waste something when you can make something out of it....

And one last picture of the foxglove. They are fully open now and won't be lasting much longer. Thank you God and Mother Nature for gifting me with these year after year. They are second only to iris in their tenacity and ability to hold up to anything thrown at them. I didn't even take any pictures of the iris this year.

Damn, I need to make friends with this camera!