I can't bear to shop after Christmas (actually, I can't bear to shop DURING Christmas!). But this year was a bit out of the ordinary. On Christmas Eve, less than two hours before I was expecting my entire family to join us and celebrate, our well stopped working. That means NO water! DH and I deliberated what to do--cancel Christmas Eve??? Try to move Christmas Eve to another family's house?? In the end we decided we were a rugged bunch and could handle the lack of water and flushing toilets. My family pulled through like troopers . . . brother-in-law drove 20 miles out of his way to get water dispensers from his office, my 75 year old mother took home a huge trash bag of dirty dishes, etc. etc. We ended up having a wonderful evening. I took lots of pics, including the water jugs conveniently situated next to the toilets!!

So the well guys showed up today. In the meantime, I couldn't do laundry, couldn't take a shower, couldn't wash dishes. I found myself pacing around. DH was spending his time cleaning up my hard drive, and actually suggested (for the first time ever, I think) that I get out of the house and do something, in fact he hinted that I should go to the Goodwill or Salvation Army). Normally he dreads me going there because I find something that he needs to go down to lug home, and then repaint. So, being the nice wife, I followed his suggestions. I had a ball! We have competing thrift stores in my town--a super Salvation Army--and more recently a giant Goodwill. They've become sort of "dueling thrift shops" and are doing lots of advertising for donations. The Goodwill was so full of great stuff today--below are some pics of treasures I found, but I didn't have time to download everything. In addition to this I got several great embroidered vintage sheet sets, 4 vintage designer Vera napkins (vintage lobster/fish motique so I'll give them to my mother for her beach house) along with lucite cobalt blue napkin holders, some really neat vintage candy tins (I collect them), an awesome vintage ephemera Air France cookbook from the 50's complete with biographies of famous chefs and recipes, etc.

My sister is joining me tomorrow and we are going out treasure hunting. Here are a few photos from todays finds:

Shabby crystal lamp. Lamp was $3.00 at SA, shade was #2.00 at Goodwill.

A silverplate bowl. I'll use this for flowers, seasonal arrangements. 99 cents: