At about this time last year I bought a sewing machine and, unfortunately, a washing machine...on the same day. It was clearly a case of bad appliance kharma. Fair or not, these type of purchases are considered "mine". As in, "but you just bought a brand new washing machine". If bigger purchases come in groups of three, I was primed for a third buying opportunity. It came the next day at our church garage sale; and I had to show remarkable restraint.
I don't have a lot of useful talents but one of them is immediately spotting the good stuff at a sale. I walked into the church basement and saw a jadite place setting. The place setting had a sign that said "We have many more dish sets; $10/set". I looked at the set and it was the real thing...Fire-King...dinner plate + cup and saucer. I asked our head garage-sale-guy. They had well over 50 sets that came from the cafeteria of a church that had merged with ours. Talk about bad timing; there was simply no way I could come home from the church garage sale with $500 worth of jadite saying "I can explain" to my husband (well, really, I could (and have done so many, many times) but you know what I mean). I asked Sister to set aside 5 place settings for me and I'd be back to pay for them when the garage sale opened. I was back bright and early...followed quickly by a dealer that snatched up every remaining place setting.
It's all good. Our church and the St. Vincent DePaul Society did very well with the sale and we've used our 5 place settings on several occasions including breakfast on Christmas morning...a tradition I'm keeping for many more to come. Plus, I get to look at it everyday.
I'm off to help set up for the garage sale this weekend. I have no idea what I might find but I haven't made any big purchases this week just in case.