Housecraft Brakhage

Remember when I got on a high horse last time I posted and said what self-control I have?  Well, it was a load of shite.  I'm better than I was, and I am improving, but I sometimes think it's not so much that I have fewer things than my tastes are changing and I am just replacing them with other items.

Whenever I go to the Bay Area, which is about once every month or two, I make a point of visiting the thrift stores, and I head straight for the tchotchkes.  My personal favorite places to shop are the Alameda Museum's store and the Salvation Army, also in Alameda.  Their prices are so freaking good, I feel like that woman who blamed the casinos for enabling her gambling habit.  Fortunately I'm prone to frugality even when I'm going overboard.

I'm posting a few pieces from my last couple hauls:

This is a vase.  Or a candle holder.  I guess it's my call, but it doesn't really matter what it's supposed to be anyway because it combines just about everything I like in one figurine.  It's a 3" mouse in Laura Ingalls Wilder-wear, leaning against a tree trunk reading a book!  My kitchen is woodsy-camping themed and I almost never get to go camping.  Also, it's blazing lemon yellow, which I also adore.  The Timelords brought this from the 70s and put this in the  Salvation Army just for me.

Speaking of "just for me", this beautiful little pitcher was in the museum store the last time I visited Alameda back in June or so, and I was lucky enough to grab it on my August visit.

Frosty the Snowman was a green and grassy soul...

Most thrift store visits have a "WTF" moment, where you can't help but wonder how someone thought making and packaging a product was a good idea.  But then you're glad they did, because you find these types of things.  At first glance I thought it was a votive holder, which makes perfect sense.  On closer inspection I perceived it was a mini planter for grass.  Grass in the head of a snowman?  Wha?! 

You meet such lovely people in thrift stores too, like the woman who loudly accused my brother-in-law of following her from her car (we were all already inside the store when she showed up). She was later heard muttering something about the CIA as my sister and I looked at shoes.  Or the guy I heard in Better Bargains offering a staffer a check to hold while he "borrowed" a bunch of clothing so a friend could try it on at home. 

Moving On Up

I stopped into the new location of Village Merchants, which I first mentioned in this post a while back.  They are my favorite thrift store in town, which I thought might change after they moved, but they are even better now if that can be believed.  They are now on SE Division & 41st, about 7 blocks from their old building, which I heard I going to be torn down to make way for a new building.  Village Merchants is now bigger and better!  I mean, wayyy bigger!  They even have an upstairs!  There's more parking too, not that that was a huge problem before.  Now it'll be easier to lug bags of stuff I want to sell inside though.  Whoooppeee!!

Today was half great and half "Huh?"  I had dim sum with my friend Ann at a great place called Ocean City on SE 82nd.  We both had a feast with hot tea for under $20!!  After I ran a couple errands I took a long nap without meaning to.  When I woke up I thought it was only 6pm but it was 7:30!  I watched Twin Peaks with some friends and came back home.  I hope I get more done tomorrow, when I went to bed last night I couldn't sleep until about 4am so I think I just need a fresh start.

I've been thinking a lot about where I was last year with mental health and such, and how far I've come with managing grief, anxiety and depression.  Whoever tells you that there are these stages you go through to get to a healing place are full of crap.  The phases come and go.  I really am in a much better place but I've accepted that I'll be dealing with many of these issues for years to come.  This time last year I was having anxiety and panic attacks everyday, so bad that I went to see a doctor to make sure my heart was working properly.  I still have problems but I'm learning how to manage them instead of hoping they fade away someday.

That said, I couldn't help but notice that the blog post with the most hits was the one tagged with "mental illness".  Ha ha ha!!  Sorry, no big revelations there folks.  

Sleep in heavenly peace

Today was an anniversary of sorts and I didn't even realize it until it was almost over.  I spent part of today with my dad at the Clark County Fairgrounds walking around an antique show.  A year ago I was at this same antique show and I began thinking how fun it would be to do a blog about thrifting and the old stuff I use to decorate my apartment.  A few months later Fitzrovians was born.  As I think I've said before, this was going to be a different type of blog at the start.  I'm glad it's come as far as it did!

For now, the basement is just a basement and I'm using it to store stuff while I work on the rooms upstairs.  It's been so cold, I don't even like going downstairs for long.  The time I've put into my bedroom and office have paid off and here is a look at my new sleeping space, before and after:

The perspective makes it look cramped, but it's very comfortable.  You can't really see it but the walls are a very pale yellow now.

A peek at another corner:

I proudly showed a small group of friends around, partly to explain to them why the living room and kitchen are such horrors.  They were very appreciative, but after they went home I noticed I had left a box of feminine products on full display. ¡Estupida!

You'll be very interested to see what I got at the antique fair: this fabulous cuckoo clock made of solid ceramic.  It doesn't tell time and frankly, the cuckoo doesn't even look much like a bird.  I got it partly because I thought it looked like a moray eel shooting out of the door.  If you have ever seen Robert Altman's movie Three Women, you will understand why it's perfectly appropriate to have these items together on my bathroom wall.

Limits of Control

I took a picture of some storage shelves downstairs because they need work, obviously, but it brought to mind some comments I wanted to make about my and other people's cleanup habits.  I noticed that some people buy a lot of containers so they can just stack everything they have.  I'm trying to get to the point where I need fewer containers.  I already have a lot of my buying under control.  There used to be a time when my favorite place to look in a thrift store was the shelves where all the little ceramic figurines sit.  I wanted to have loads for my curio shelves on the wall, and pretty soon I had to put them in those storage containers you see above.  I still have a lot but I try to get a couple a year instead of a handful every few days!

Not much progress has been made since my last entry.  I forgot that when you move the big things, like furniture, you have to find new places to stack the little things.  So now I have that little problem.  Not a terrible thing, but I think I know a way to take care of it for the time being.  I'm going to have to make use of some of those cardboard boxes I showed you before. 

I feel like I shouldn't even be writing here today.  My thoughts have been with my friends on the east coast all day.  I just wanted to make myself do something just a little bit constructive that I have some control over.