Humor, Freedom, Play

How does one wild and crazy Sacramento couple celebrate the start of the weekend? They go out to the thrift store, of course!

Driving home from work tonight, I found the roads populated by crazy drivers--and non-drivers! I knew I was in trouble when about two blocks from the office, the woman in front of me, on a green left turn light, pulled into the intersection and stopped. Just stopped, in the middle of her left turn, for no apparent reason. Then there was the homeless guy, standing in the median strip on a busy street, four lanes of traffic in either direction, apparently preaching to the passing drivers from the looks of it. Finally, after several minor annoyances, I was nearing the home stretch when traffic suddenly stopped for a train. This train was dropping off a couple of rail cars at a lumber yard and was using the side spur that crosses the road. I see this happen maybe once or twice a year, and of course it happened tonight. Friday the 13th. As I was stopped at an idle, waiting for the train and watching my temperature gauge climb, I contemplated turning off the air conditioning (after noting that the outside temperature was 103 degrees!) and/or pounding my head against the steering wheel. As an alternative, I wondered whether the next turn off was before or after the railroad track. I thought about the fact that the next turn off led to a Goodwill store. Just about then, traffic finally began to move, but by that time, the idea of going thrifting was deeply impressed upon my tired brain, and I had convinced myself that this magical thought came to me because there were treasures out there calling my name. It's been a long week, okay? Quit snickering!

When I got home and walked in the door, Hubby was doing dishes. Needless to say, he was reasonably enthusiastic about dropping (not literally!) what he was doing and heading out for something a little more exciting.

Sadly, my treasure radar must have been a little off tonight, because we didn't find much in the way of true treasures, although we didn't leave empty handed. I thought a couple cherry-rimmed plates I came across (49 cents each) would make a nice place setting for a summer meal. What do you think?

I found a bag of Hearthstones, those heart-shaped tiles up at the top. The idea of the Hearthstones, apparently, is that you go into a happy, meditative state in your mind, reach deep into the Hearthstone bag, and pull out a tile. You then carry it around with you all day long and think about whatever the word is on the tile. Yeah, right! No, my Hearthstones will likely decorate some arty collage thingy someday. Or I'll pass them out to homeless guys standing in the median strips of busy roads. Either way, 99 cents will buy me a lot of fun! But I thought I'd pull these three tiles out now, since they represent my hopes and plans for the weekend.

So, anyway, we spent about $13 at the thrift store, brought home a few goodies, and had a couple hours of fun. After that, we went to Chili's for dinner and picked up iced lattes from Starbucks on the way home. Probably not everyone's idea of a wild Friday night out on the town, but we had a good time!

Oh, and we have BIG plans for the 4th of July too. Check it out!

And let me leave you with this image:

That's the boy child. It has nothing to do with anything else in this post, except possibly the title. I have no idea what he's doing or when this was taken, but I found it downloaded on my computer with the photos I downloaded yesterday, so I figure it's fair game, right? Whatever he's doing, though, I'm sure he'll be hungry, 'cause I know my boy! I gotta go hide that ice cream I bought last night!