Austin City-wide

This weekend, I drove up to Austin to check out the City-wide Garage sale. It's called a garage sale, but it is actually a vintage and antiques show. Since I was driving that far, I decided to go early and get an Early Shopper pass. Thing is, it was VERY difficult to get there. I was within a block of the place and they had it totally blocked off. Apparently, there was a foot race taking place at the same time.

I am so glad that I had my Garmin because I am only vaguely familiar with Austin. I headed east to MoPac and then went down Barton Springs Road from the other direction. I was able to get in just a little past 8:30 so I didn't miss too many good deals. LOL
My plan of attack was to head to the back corner, then work my way back to the front. The crowd was very light so it wasn't a big deal anyway. Many vendors were quite proud of their merchandise which is fine if you are a collector, but I buy for resale. I was to meet up with my friends Herb and Diane, but they didn't arrive as early as I did. I needed to get started.
These guys were a hoot. At least the one guy was safety conscience. The other was a bit stand-offish.
It was nice to see Cindy Messer again. We had met when I went to Canton back in July. She may have saved me from an ambulance ride. I had become over-heated and when I walked into her booth, I kind of scared her with the way I looked. She made me sit down and gave me a cold water. I had been drinking water outside, but it wasn't enough and it wasn't all that cold. She had a cool breeze going through her booth which helped a lot. She has such a dear, sweet spirit. If you are ever up at Canton, look for her in Arbor III. You will love her items.
One of the booths had lots and lots of baby dolls . . .
. . . and this was my favorite. It looked like she was saying, "Oh no, you didn't"!
Oh, but I did. I bought all of these goodies!

bald

While I was having lunch with my friend, Shirley, the downtown shop called me and told me that my booth looked kinda bald. I thought that was a cute description and definitely music to my ears. Linda said that a dealer had come in and cleaned me out. She bought my chandelier and most of my framed pieces. What an awesome birthday present! Thanks for letting me brag a bit. I'm really jazzed about it.
After my delightful birthday lunch, I scrambled to put together some items to replenish the booth. I am going to have to take my drill and masonry bit the next time I visit my shop so that I can hang my pieces better. I can't take a chance on using the Command hangers. Even with the screws, one of my items fell off in the middle of the night, setting off the alarm. Ooops!!

Blogging friends

You meet a lot of nice people while blogging and that is where I met Jan Thomason. We are both Texans, but you know how big Texas is. She lives hours away from me so we hadn't actually met until we made plans for lunch at Warrenton last week.

We have commented on each other's blogs and have kept up with each other that way. We both have sons named Clay and I told her a story about mine. When my clay was in junior high, our neighbor was having a swimming pool dug and Clayton thought that all those truckloads of dirt would make a great dirtbike jump in our backyard. I was busy in the kitchen cooking dinner when I saw this huge truck dumping a massive amount of yucky old clay on our lawn. I told Clayton we didn't need that kind of dirt in our yard. It was clay; worthless dirt. He said, "Mom? You named me after worthless dirt?" After she read that story, she signed her note to me, "Jan, Mother of Worthless Dirt". She has a great sense of humor.

We thoroughly enjoyed our IRL (in real life) meeting. Jan was out shopping with her friends Julie and Annette. It was a pleasure to meet them and share our Warrenton shopping stories with each other.

Theresa Cano hosts a wonderful blog party each season near her booth just outside of Zapp Hall. We get to meet our fellow bloggers in a face-to-face. I didn't get to make it to this last one. I had some orders that I had to rush back home to fill. Such is life.

Chatting with Carolyn and Debbie

It was a very brief chat since I was limited on time this trip. I had to get my shopping done and then zoom back home to get some special requests completed for one of my booths in Corpus Christi. I had furniture to paint and Halloween items to create.
I got to meet Carolyn Westbrook. She has a lovely book called The French Inspired Home. She did a book signing at Theresa's blog party. Her and Debbie were visiting at a cozy little table near Zapp Hall. I got to sit down with them for a brief chat and a couple of pictures.

Debbie is such a hoot. If we lived closer, we would definitely "hang out". You can visit her blog here.