Oh, God. Where should I start?!

I will start with tonight...

Like ships passing in the night, my husband and I have been parenting all week long at the expense of our delightful marriage. So tonight we had a date. We went into downtown Belleville to The Wine Tap, a narrow storefront with lovely ambience, both indoors and out, a small yet delicious menu, and an EXTENSIVE collection of beers and wines.

I owe props to BILL, the only server in America who understands my desire for bottle caps. While he admits that I am the only customer he has ever met who selects her beer based on the design of its cap, he caters to my whims and feeds my hunger for unique caps from delicious beers. Here is my collection to date. Bill is responsible for the center pieces (the orange disc, the owl, the hand) which are indeed my pride and joy:

Alright. I need to make this snappy because I looked so smokin' hot tonight on my date that my husband is calling me to bed...

So here is the highlight of the weekend:

This is the banner for Blessed Sacrament's annual rummage sale. I had planned to camp out from 7AM on and interview all the other early birds, but, as it turns out, Queen of Peace is also having a rummage sale tomorrow! And they are offering 7AM early birds a chance to shop for only 2 dollars! Did they read my blog about the Gypsy Caravan and the $20 early bird fee?? I don't know. But for only $2, I AM THERE! I'll aim for 645 and do a few interviews. Tune in tomorrow.

I give today's yardsale adventures a C+. I had to drive into ST. Louis to get JoJo's cast off in the early morning so I didn't actually hit the sales until 9:30. That is L-A-T-E in yardsale time! I had a hard time finding some of the sales. I forgot my excellent yellow map book and didn't want to stoop so low as to use the GPS device. Despite my troubles, I found a few notable sales.

First, you must meet Shirley:

Shirley has lived an exciting life. She was selling wonderful, weird things including a gorgeous collection of vintage hats. I bought this white one for 5 bucks. Shirley modeled it for me. It was originally purchased in Florida at Ava Gabor's shop by Shirley's brother for 79 dollars!! The tag was still on it! I knew Shirley's name was Shirley before she told it to me because I did some sneaky detective work and found this name badge in the jewelry section of her yardsale:

She used to work at JCPenney!

This is Shirley's grand-daughter and her boyfriend. I think it is her boyfriend. They appear to be rather chummy and I don't think they were married. Could be her brother... I don't know.

Anyway, Shirley's grand-daughter was enthusiastic about the blog and I expect she will be our 15th follower very soon.

After that, we found a sale in downtown Belleville with excellent ambience. I didn't buy anything, but we enjoyed this koi pond:

Then we found this adorable house with a sale in back:

The proprietess of this sale had many beautiful antiques.

She had suspiciously many antiques.

I accused her of having a store.

She did indeed have a store...

She was, until recently, the proprietess of Ben's Antiques in downtown Belleville!

But that's not all!

She said her house used to be haunted! There was a female spirit who lurked about and made herself known on many occasions. Neighbors said that the original owner of the house, while she was in her kitchen preparing for her 50th anniversary party, had a heart attack and died. This woman continued to haunt the house in small but obvious ways: things would disappear, the owner saw visions, contractors heard voices... until, finally, the new owner (the lady who held today's sale and used to own Ben's Antiques) shouted, "Cut it out! I'm trying to take care of this house! If you don't stop it I will sell it to someone who wants to knock it down!" And she was never haunted again. Neighbors say she has moved on to other houses in the neighborhood.

Best of all, I found another piece for my costume jewelry alphabet. The letter F encrusted with sparkly fake diamonds was only a dollar at the haunted house sale! Yay!

Of course, we stopped at QT today.

I had taquitos (for which I paid FULL PRICE, dammit) while JoJo and Oscar had Wheat Thins and a banana. We shared 52 ounces of Diet Pepsi. Please note JoJo's two arms, cast-free.

I am hoping that this girl will join our happy blog family:

She allowed me to buy this red and orange purse if I promised to give it a happy home.

Readers! DO NOT MISS TOMORROW'S BLOG!

Do not underestimate the quality of the QP/BlSac combo!

It is a fierce one-two punch of rummaging excellence!

Until then...