Jenyfer Matthews

Looking at the world news headlines this morning, maybe my decision about whether or not to go back to Egypt in the fall isn’t as difficult as I thought. Protests were planned again in Egypt today against the military regime for “not being more transparent in their decision making processes” and because they had not prosecuted Mubarak for all of his various transgressions. I’m surprised it took this long frankly – the military regime is the same old beast with a different face (or no face depending on how you look at it). Between Egypt, Syria, Libya, Bahrain, and Yemen it may be better to just give up any thoughts of going back to that region, even for a short time.

Thinking about all of that was fairly depressing so after I dropped my kids at school, my friend and I went to a local diner for a greasy breakfast and then on to an antique mall. I love going to both thrift stores and antique malls – you just never know what you are going to find.

Earlier in the week I found a soft-as-butter black leather jacket with enough metal zipper details to make my inner biker chick very happy. Best part? It was only $5.99 and it fits me perfectly.

Today I was all about kitchenware – particularly mixing bowls and utensils. Since I don’t currently have a kitchen to furnish I resisted all the beautiful retro mixing bowls I saw. I did however find one treasure.

My mother had one of these measuring cups when I was a child. It’s great – filled to the top it is one cup, and the lid has a one tablespoon measure.

I can quite clearly remember my mother using it when she made gravy. She’d put flour and water in it and shake it up before pouring it into the meat drippings. I don’t tend to make gravy myself, but it cost little enough that I couldn’t resist buying it.

After we left the antique mall, we stopped by Jungle Jim’s. How can I describe it? It’s like Trader Joe’s but much, much, much bigger. It’s a spectacular place to just wander. We wandered through the liquor section, looking for sales. I couldn’t resist getting this bottle of wine, based purely on the label alone.

There would definitely be upsides to staying in the US…

One of my favorite things to do is haunt thrift / consignment shops – 1) because I love a good deal, and 2) because you just never know what you’ll find. It’s just lucky that even the tiny little town that my mother lives in has two thrift stores.

I didn’t have as much time to browse as I would have ideally liked and I had to keep my limited remaining packing space in mind, but I still managed to find some fun things. Unpacking was that much more fun for gloating over my goodies.

One of the thrift stores is attached to the local recycling center and it isn’t very particular about what people donate, but since it is conveniently located they are always getting new things. Because of the never ending donations, things are priced to sell. I found:

A “vintage” Corning stainless steel pie spatula with serrated edge – $0.35 (made in the USA so you know it’s old!)
A girls tennis trophy – $0.35
A pair of denim shorts for my son – $0.50
A pair of stone colored chinos for my son – $0.50

Limited Too reversible windbreaker my son chose
St. John’s Bay cotton blouse with 3/4 sleeves in scarlet (me)
a wine purple cotton blouse from The Gap (me)
an Adidas tshirt in lime for my daughter
a pumpkin orange Cherokee golf shirt for my son
ALL OF THE ABOVE FOR $3 on “bag day”

A linen skirt in variegated red / purple tones (me)
A pair of red leather NEW Aerosole sandals (me)
Sponge Bob t-shirt for my son
Underarmor sport shirt in coral for my daughter
A big, floppy stuffed dog for my son
ALL OF THE ABOVE FOR $1 on “bag day”

I love the red sandals because they are comfortable and fun, but even more because they only cost me $0.20! Who could not love a deal like that??

And I can’t wait to use my new pie spatula