The Sweetie and I went on a quest for garage sales yesterday. There weren’t many considering it is the Labour Day weekend and everyone is out of town, but I was determined. There may only be a couple of weekends left before the cold settles in and garage sales disappear for another year reducing me to hiding indoors – gloomy, bitter and bargain hunting deprived.

The sun was shining and the air was warm. We found a fantastic cache of cd’s, 10 for $5!! Robert Johnson, the blues man of all blues men according to The Sweetie, old Tom Waits and Devendra Banhart.

I spent the evening sipping wine with two of my favourite girlfriends, the night air cool but not uncomfortable, watching my friend’s dog chasing shadows.

It was a lovely last gasp of summer. As I sipped my wine and imagined The Sweetie at home doing his best Mississippi blues impersonation to his new cd, I remembered one of the  garage sale ladies I’d met that morning. She was a tiny woman under an enormous sun hat that made her look like a wizened smiling mushroom. She had an inordinate amount of muffin tins and backpacks for sale. We chatted about the gorgeous warm weather, commiserating over the irony of summer finally arriving on the Labour Day weekend.

She sighed and said, “Yes, it is so beautiful. I want to gather the summer in my arms, hold it close and keep it with me forever.”

I know how she feels.

I love love l-uh-ove garage sales. I love the thrill of the hunt and finding treasures in other people’s discards and, of course, I love a good bargain. Unfortunately I work on Saturdays and usually miss out on the best garage sale fun. Occasionally I find some good Sunday garage sales and drag the ever patient Sweetie along, provided I bribe him with a cheese scone and a coffee.

I found an armload of books priced at a dollar or less, cd’s going for a song (tee hee!), including the Flaming Lips (squee!), and, find of all glorious finds, a collection of Christmas elf heads for a mere loonie. The Sweetie was appalled at the hideous elf heads, but I was instantly smitten. I may put them in a festive bowl or mount them on branches or use them on mini lights. Christmas will have an extra touch of creepiness this year.

It was a wonderful morning and I hereby declare that all Sundays should be teeming with funky street sales until the end of summer.

The Sweetie’s lovely and talented sister is visiting from Victoria which gave me the perfect excuse to yet again drag The Long Suffering Sweetie to Aberfoyle Antique market. Knowing that his sister is a fellow treasure hunter, I could pretend that I was suggesting a Sunday excursion for her benefit. It isn’t that The Sweetie is adverse to antique markets, he is a patient and curious Sweetie after all, but each trip has filled him with a mounting fear that our house will be overrun with clutter. He dreams of one day having a stark, minimalist home, and every ridiculous bird creamer and Santa snow globe I discover takes him further and further away from his zen fantasies. I can see him visibly cringing when I am fondling salt and pepper shakers shaped like corn cobs or cooing over rusty bird cages.

Luckily for me, The Sweetie is an indulgent brother, and his sister and I had a wonderful time exploring the stalls and finding beads and baubles for future jewellery making projects.

After many hours of hunting, our hands dusty from rummaging through piles of trinkets, we had a lovely picnic to replenish ourselves.

Sunshine, treasures and loved ones make a perfect summer Sunday.

Despite my somewhat cynical feelings towards Valentine’s Day, I  am still  being sucked into a Valentine love bubble.

My heart started pounding and my breath quickened when I saw this sweet little number, created by the lovely Amy at Smitten Kitten.

I felt the love, and knew we had to be together.

Happy Valentine’s Day to me.

My perfectly adorned yoga buddy did it to me again dammit. First she tempted me with her gorgeous boots and I succumbed. This week she sashayed in wearing a gorgeous Soia and Kyo coat over her yoga gear. Bitch.

I love Soia and Kyo coats from Montreal. Montreal women know how to look chic in the cold. I spent two winters in Montreal but never mastered the artful je ne sais quoi art of tying a scarf just so. I wore most of the contents of my closet and looked like a very un-sexy un-French Stay Puft Marshmallow man from October until April.

I want a new winter coat. In order to endure hellish Canadian winters it seems only fair that everyone should be entitled to a new winter coat (and boots) on a yearly basis, considering it is our uniform for a good six months of the year.

I have a functional puffy coat that resembles a sleeping bag with arms that isn’t winning any style awards but keeps me semi-warm in frigid temperatures. I also have a boring coat that may be nearing its tenth birthday. It makes me feel kind of mannish, but it’s classic enough in a boring mannish coat way. It is, however, starting to self destruct and I have been reduced to a single button. I suspect it was a desperate attempt on my old coat’s part to encourage me to liven things up a little, add some spice to our stale relationship and open my eyes to some new possibilities.

With that and my fiscally challenged bank account in mind, I decided to replace my pinged off buttons with new ones. A new coat can wait. I have pennies to save for a beach vacation, which is much more crucial than being fashion-forward. For now, some shiny new buttons on my old coat will do.

I was lucky enough to attend a gleeful girlie swap this weekend. It was definitely worth leaving the house and violating my self-imposed hibernation policy. These days, with dreams of a beach vacation and debt that doesn’t seem to be disappearing on its own, shopping in other friends’ closets makes frugal sense.

Over wine, cheese and strawberries with some delicious creamy dipping sauce I forgot to ask about, we grabbed clothes and magazines and gabbed about blind date set ups, work woes, and the status of Mickey Rourke’s busted up face.

It is always exciting to see old clothes get a new life. With a dash of vision and ambition, boring, wrinkled discards can be resurrected. A skirt from a previous swap reappeared as a Doctor-Zhivago-goes-to-chef-school hat, a millinery project by one of our more ambitious swappers.  Old lumpy sweaters reappear as pillows or get felted into tea cozies. Too tight blouses always look sexy on the skinny bitch we keep meaning to ban from future swaps.

We were snarky, supportive and noisy, and came away with new stashes of goodies and baggies of leftover cookies. With the warm glow of  female bonding and wine guzzling, I felt a little less assaulted by the cold trudge to the subway.