I haven't been to many sales lately. There just haven't been many going on. Strange. Guess it's just too hot. But this past weekend, I felt the urge to get out and buy something! I crawled out of the bed at 5 a.m., checked the classifieds my newspaper lists online, called my friend, "Ms. L" and said "Let's go!" (She might not like my calling her Ms. L, but that's what I'm naming her here. We'll talk about that later.) I didn't realized it was raining out.

Now, rainy yard sale days in this little town can be pretty good. There are only a few of us diehards. The rest of the yard sale people don't tend to get out in the rain. I remember one rainy Saturday where I discovered tons of old stuff, even an early 1960s child's stove and refrigerator set, on a crowded porch. And cheap! I was the only one shopping. Pure bliss!

On the other hand, not many people have garages or carports here and cannot set up in the rain. So, we take our chances when we drag ourselves out on rainy weekends. My view of this particular weekend is horrible. I should have stayed in bed. However, Ms L's view is quite different.

She and I are friends and booth partners. We tend to like many of the same things, but we each roll our eyes and shake our heads at things the other buys - often. Since we do like a lot of the same type things and we cherish our friendship, we have a little system. We'll watch to see which direction the other goes in and go the opposite way. When the other gets all the good stuff, we just grit our teeth and try to be happy for her. It seems like lately she's been getting the good stuff.

Saturday morning my mojo was missing. It wasn't rising, or just off. It was plain ol' missing! I was wet and melting. I do that when I get wet. Melt. Yeah. In my dreams. I was wet and miserable, though. We found one sale where they had begun setting up in the yard before it started raining and were now frantically moving it to the garage. I took one side of the already set up table, Ms L took the other. I found nothing and headed back to the garage. Found some pool balls there and got sidetracked by a few books. Ms L came on back with her arms full already and began rummaging through bags of stuff. She found more and more while I poked around the books finding nothing!

She found a neat, pink rolling pin and a wet, wire, floor record rack that she expected to put in my car's trunk! Now that's adding hurt to insult. I didn't get anything worth getting and she gets lots of stuff and has to put wet junk in my trunk. Hmph! Aww. I keep a blanket in there and it fit OK. Sure. She ended up changing her mind on a couple of things and I snapped them up.

That sale netted me an incomplete set of pool balls - to be used in a glass jar for decoration - two "wiener dog" banks, a pretty, Japan pottery candlestick, a bird figurine for my daughter, and a worthless book. Slim pickin's, I tell ya.

Next sale. Everything's in the front yard and covered up. We stopped anyway. Peeking under the tarps. I saw nothing. Walked right past a tole decorated clothes hamper. Didn't even see it. Ms L did. And bought it. She expects that to go in my trunk along with the record rack??!! OK. I lowered the seats and worked it all in. I believe she found a couple of other things there. I got some packing peanuts out of the trash.

Last on the list was an estate sale in a neighboring town. We're drenched. My shoes squeak. I'm getting really grumpy. We pull up very close to the estate sale and very close to the curb. A little too close. I heard my tire and hubcap scrape the curb. Oh, no! I got lucky that time, though. No damage done. So we go inside and naturally, there are so many people you can't stir them with a stick. She lets me go first since I haven't found anything and after all, I was the one doing the driving and hauling all her junk around. I walked in the door and couldn't go forward, so turned to the room on the left and got stuck. People were side by side, fanny to fanny. Bodies everywhere! By the time I was able to turn around and go the other way, to the room with all the goodies, Ms L was ahead of me and......you guessed it. Loading up. I found nothing. Again. Sigh.

Some days are like that. There's always next week. Ever the optimist, I believe the real treasure is right around the corner. I'll just have to dig into my stash to find things to sell. This week I'll be selling cook books and loose recipes on eBay.