What the Junk?!

Yes, I got to stay in today. Sorry about yesterday. My friend texted as I was in the midst of my daily writing. He was off early and wanted to go to a favorite to eat. I agreed and got ready. We went to a place that is out of town that we like and since we were out that way, we went to two Goodwills that we don't get to a lot because of the distance. That was fun! I got a few things, but nothing huge. I did find a cute fabric Fossil bag. It's one I would actually carry, so that was even better! :) The trip made us get back late and then we rode to a few places around town that he wanted to go by. I got in and I was tired. I didn't even write anymore. I just picked up today from where I left off on my writing today. I didn't leave the house today and I'm not planning on leaving after I post this!

I'm going to move away from my desk and get comfy and relax a bit, watch a few episodes of Match Game, and then I'll tune in on the Shortwave bands. :)

So, I promised to do a thrift finds update today and here it is! I took a picture of everything I got to share and a few individual things too. Here is the entire haul:

From top left to right on each row: Sherpani purse, Fossil purse, Uniden scanner/weather radio, Eton emergency radio, (will go into detail further down), a Starbucks mug with lid, two Starbucks tumblers, five vintage Whitman brand card games, and finally season two of the Simpsons! They also had season one, but I already have it. Fun finds. Here are some closer shots of three of the items:

This is my second Sherpani bag. I got one exactly like this in green with a different picture on the front in the Spring at another Greensboro Goodwill! I used it as a beach bag on my last beach trip and I loved it. I saw this and saw it was the same brand and the same purse so I got it. The only difference is that this one still has the safety pin tag and my other one was missing it.  The Starbucks things are self-explanatory! :p

The Eton radio was a great find! It has a crank for when you don't have power, it's also able to be charged with solar or by a USB cord and your computer. It's got AM/FM bands and all the weather bands. Very cool. Oh, did I mention it also doubles as a cell phone power bank? Did I mention the flashlight? Such a cool find. These go for $40 online, I paid $10 for mine and it was still new in the box. it had the cord, the manual, and even the registration card. :D  I love it. I noticed it in the case because it is Eton and that is the brand of my Shortwave radio.  I'm very happy with it and it works great! I will probably put it in my bug-out bag that I haven't started yet. I have several things for it and a sturdy bag for it all, I just haven't gotten around to it. Right now I only have Sterno, a multi-tool, and this cool radio. It will also be a handy thing to have if we have power outages this fall or winter. :)

I'm happy with my finds. It was a good trip. We went to eight different Goodwill stores all in Greensboro.  We also went to another thrift store we saw while we were out but it was waaay overpriced! I was disappointed, but because they had four of five Starbucks tumblers I would have liked to have, but they priced them (ad everything else I liked) too high!

My friend and I went on our usual Tuesday thrift, but with a twist. We went to a few other cities too. We went to Reidsville first, as always. We ate there and then went to Salvation Army. I found two mugs, one Starbucks and one vintage mug. I also found a nice black Fossil purse. At Goodwill, I found a cute Paris-themed kitchen set (hot pad and hot glove), a cute little ornament, and a small zipper pouch. I'm going to use it for earbuds.  We went to Eden and I found a pouch that was FULL of pens/pencils and various items. Just look at how much they jammed in this pouch for $4

There are so many pens and pencils. Also some tape, a glue stick, paperclips, binder clips, Post-it flags, Post-it minis, and a nice stapler. All this for $4. Not bad, eh? We also went to the Salvation Army there too and I got a Happy Planner (without the discs). The last thing I got was a 2011 Starbucks tumbler. A It was a good little trip.

My friend and I did our long thrift trip today for the first time in a long time. I didn't find anything in Reidsville at either Salvation Army or Goodwill. I did find some things at the Walkertown Goodwill and the Mayodan one.  Not a huge haul, but I spent $21. The best find was a cool Kate Spade tumbler. Another fun finds was a weird 'wooden' (pressboard made to look like wood probably!) laptop stand. It's so weird! LOL. I will probably use it for something, but not holding my laptop. I don't really trust the thing. :p Another weird find was a pair of reading glasses with the exact frames of my prescription ones! No, really! LOL. They had several of those. I grabbed the most comfortable pair. I figure if I break my frames, I'll have a backup! :)

So, yeah, small haul, but some good finds. Nothing Starbucks, Fossil, or Sak, but I did find the Kate Spade cup, so that is good. :)

My friend and I did our regular Friday thrift. I found a few goodies, too!  The highlight is a Fossil handbag and a Starbucks stainless tumbler.  The Fossil bag is actually listed on their site currently. It retailed for $198.00. I paid $4.99. SCORE! there was also a black leather Coach bag that I bought. I'm not sure if it's legit, but it's nice and it was the same price as the Fossil. There was another Fossil, but i have similar ones to it so I passed on it.  The one I did buy is pretty cool. I love finding things like that.  I wonder if the Coach is legit? It IS real leather and it great shape.  I don't really know how to find out. 

I did my day's Camp NaNo writing before we went.  I'm now not for from 15000 words! Pretty good when I wasn't sure I wanted to slip back into this story.  I hope to get a nice relaxing day in tomorrow and of course, I'll write. I may go get my pizza tomorrow, we'll see. It all depends on how I feel then. For now, I'm going to relax until bedtime. I'm so sleepy, but as soon as I lie down tonight for sleep, I'll be wide awake. Boo!

I never meant to stop posting. I actually meant to try to post more regularly this year. D'oh!  I was going to post this last night, but I was extremely tired, felt like crap, and just wanted to relax. I even went to be early!  I'm feeling a lot better today, so I thought I would try to get a blog post out so maybe I could get back in the habit of it! My city and area is under a winter storm advisory. It's gone from a dusting to up to 12 inches, to 3 inches, to 6 inches, etc. Who knows what we'll actually get? :p  I am prepared in case. I have my power box thing ready and I'm charging another one I have too. I also have candles set aside, Sterno, and my little Sterno stoves. I'm ready in case we do have a power outage. My one power thingee is almost fully charged, but I cannot figure out where in the heck I put its charging cord. ARGH!  I'll look again later. I was getting frustrated looking earlier. I'm going to relax until lunch, eat that and then look again.

Yesterday, my friend and I went on a thrift trip yesterday. It has been a while! We went to Reidsville and then to Walkertown and Mayodan.  We ate at a little restaurant in Reidsville and then went to Goodwill. We'd already visited the Salvation Army store.  I only got a little green dish, a Starbucks mug, and a little hook thing in there. Of these items, only the green dish will be in the picture below!  After eating, we went to Goodwill. I found a nice Fossil wallet for $1.99 so I got it.  We then headed to Walkertown. They usually have a LOT of stuff in certain areas, but they were very limited on items in those areas. My friend and I figured either someone came in and bought a ton of stuff or they tossed a bunch of stuff out.  It was a big difference. Weird.  I only got three pouches there, two identical ones with cute cacti and a glittery one from Seattle. I also got a little case that had Mtn. Dew on it and it had a pair of earbuds in it and a car charger. Neat!! All but one of the Cactus pouches are in the picture below!

We went to Mayodan last and I was finding things left and right. lol I found two brand new lamps still in the box.  I also found a selfie ring light. I had been looking at them on Amazon to use for filming unboxing, and taking pictures of things I buy to make a brighter picture since the lighting in my house sucks. It was $3 and it had the phone holder, tripod, and power cord/usb charger. Nice! It's not pictured in the photo below but it was used to take all the pictures. :p  I also got a set of two cute Penquin Starbucks mugs, 2020 The year of the Introvert mug, a cute SakRoots wallet (brand new with the strap still with it), a cute candle, and a vintage Jeopardy board game. Great haul. It was a fun trip and we ate in Reidsville on our way back through at Pete's Burgers and More one of my favorite places!  I made a cute spread in my DPC journal as a memory page of the finds.  As I said before, not everything is shown, but it is the majority of my items.

Cute, yes? I love my DPC planner and all my thrift goodies!

I'm actually going to do one. Yay! I also hope to put a picture I pick at random from my beach pictures. Let's see, so, like I said, I only found out on Tuesday that we were going down that Thursday.  I spent Wednesday washing clothes and packing.  I didn't sleep worth a damn on Wednesday night so I was extremely tired Thursday when we got there.  We found our room very nice and clean. As I mentioned, it was a bit small, but it was perfectly fine.  10/10 we would both stay again.  That first night, we went to Victoria's to eat and then got a few groceries. We'd brought soda with us so we only had to buy a bit of food for the room.  We did that and then settled in.

That night I had a hard time sleeping again because of the pillows on my bed. They sucked. I always carry my feather pillow with me when I travel, so at least I had that. I had to double over my pillow on top of one of the ones they had to finally get comfortable. Their pillows were weird! I was tired on Friday too but luckily, we didn't leave the room.  I spend a lot of balcony time as I did on the September trip. I had my beach chair out there and just camped out. That was nice. I was out there when I heard about Betty White and was so upset. I went in to tell my friend. It was so sad to hear. She was such a sweetheart and will be sorely missed by so many people.  The rest of the day, I spend either on the balcony or in the room relaxing.  I was able to watch the ball drop on ABC and did that.  People were shooting off fireworks on the beach for a long time after that. The bad thing was, the fog had rolled in THICK that night and if the fireworks were not right next to the hotel or really close by there was no use to look. You couldn't see anything! lol We ordered two meals from DoorDash. One from Hungry Howie's and one from Charlie's Cheeseteaks. 

So, Saturday, we went out to do our thrift and pawn shops.  We found a new Goodwill we'd never been to, so that was nice. Sadly, the pawnshops he likes were closed.  We did make it to four more Goodwills. Two in Myrtle, one in Surfside / Murrell's, and one in North Myrtle beach. I didn't get a lot, but I did get a few things. I found a Fossil bag in one Goodwill that had the key still on it and a bonus! Someone had bought one of the key and lock Fossil keychains and attached it to the bag too. Score! :D  I was very happy to have that and the bag rang up a whole $2.00! Nice!  We at that night at King's Famous Pizza in NMB and I got baklava to carry back to the room. YUM!  I packed up that night and had everything ready for an easier day on Sunday.

Sunday we got up and ate some of the last of our leftover pizza and get our things together and checked out. We drove up to NMB and went back to Goodwill. We were looking for something my friend had seen the day before and told me about that I wanted, but sadly, it was gone. :(  We headed on and went to Long's to the Goodwill there and then on.  We stopped in Tabor City and got some fries and drinks at McDonald's there.  We also stopped at the Sandwich hut in Rockingham NC.

We at in Reidsville, NC, and went to the Goodwill there. I found a black leather Fossil bag! :) Atter that, we headed home. All in all a nice trip. I got several fun thrifting items. My favorites are the Fossil keychain that I found on that one purse, and a nice Speck case for my iPad Mini!  So, I finally did a Myrtle Beach trip recap. Yay!  Now, let's share a random picture and hope it isn't one I've already shared. lol Ah, the fog. I never did show a good picture of that. It was much more ominous in person, btw!

Neat, yes? I like the way the hotel next door is the only light you can see.

Well, first of all, I had no clue we were going to thrift.  My friend texted me at noon and said he was getting off then and we'd go thriving.  I agreed and we headed to Reidsville.  We went to Salvation Army. I only got some vintage buttons there.  We ate and then went to the Goodwill there.  They had two Amazon basics office chairs for $15.00 each! These are $61 at Amazon. These chairs were brand new and assembled.  My friend didn't have room in his car to carry the chair so we bought it and let them know we'd be back to pick it up.  We headed back here and got Goontz and went back.  We picked it up and then headed on to a few more places.  I also got a Fossil handbag in Goodwill with owls on it while there. Very cute!  We got the chair and then went to Walkertown.  I found a few little things and one Fossil thing.  I got a tiny clear zippered backpack with colorful icons on it and a Fossil travel/toiletry bag.  Here is that:

It's really cute!  We went to Mayodan and I found a few assorted goodies. A 3 ring binder, two wallets, a cover for my old video iPod, and I think that is all.  I probably forgot something from one of the places.  By the way, here is the exact chair I got:

Amazing deal, yes? I loved that I didn't have to put it together too! :p  It still had the protective plastic on it and the little instruction booklet was included.  I love great thrift finds! As for my package, still nothing. I submitted a request via USPS as I said before and asked to be notified via email only.  They called. So annoying.  They left a voicemail and it was pretty much useless.  "It's stuck in transit... bla bla bla." No, really? Sheesh!

We went to Reidsville today for a small thrift trip.  I only got a few things at each place. (Salvation Army and Goodwill) My favorite find was a black leather Fossil bag with the key tag and key still on it. Yay! After we got back, I went out myself to get one of those huge storage containers to store some of the bags I keep buying. :p  I should have counted them as I put them in.  I do plan to go back and write down which ones are in there so I'll have a record when I need a certain bag. I'll know if it's in there or somewhere else.  Here is the cute Fossil bag:

I got some great things today! I found a Sak bag, a Fossil bag, two Starbucks mugs, and the cutest Starbucks ceramic tumbler EVER. It's so damn cute! It's from 2015 and you'll see it below.  I got various other things, too! One of the neat finds was a Ziploc bag of vintage iron-on patches still in the original packaging! Very, very cool! Here are some of my finds and a cute tree at one of the Goodwill stores:

You can click on any picture to see the entire thing.  I love my finds!

I remembered today to take a picture of the Fossil bag I got at the Reidsville Goodwill the day we drove back from the beach.  That is the only picture I took, though.  Here it is, It's very comfy to carry and so roomy.

The little colorful dangle on the side is a keychain I got at the beach. It's plastic shells.  I thought it looked cute on there.  I have enjoyed carrying the 'new' bag. ^_^

I got on a writing roll today and wrote 3550 words!  I was type, type, typing! :p I did my usual Sunday stuff, washed my hair, my bed linen, took out the trash, and put away the laundry I washed yesterday.  So, a bit of aftermath from the beach. On the way home on Wednesday, we stopped in Reidsville on our way back to go to the Goodwill.  I had not found a single Fossil handbag on the entire beach trip. Guess what I found at the Goodwill in Reidsville? Yes, a Fossil bag! lol, I love it. It's fabric and I am using it at the moment.  It's more of a summer bag. the yellow Sak bag will be back again later this year, for now, I'm using this.  I will take some pictures soon. I want to do a post-beach picture post.

Friday of this week, we went on our little thrift trip. I didn't get a lot, but I did find Fossil-branded canvas jewelry/pen roll-up.  You know I love Fossil stuff. I am not sure what I'll use it for yet. We also went on a thrift trip last week after the beach trip and I found a very cool item. It's a Brother P-touch label maker that works!  I bought some batteries to test it out and it works. I can get replacement tapes pretty cheaply so I'm very happy. I paid a whole $4.00! YAY! I love bargains like that. OH! At the same Goodwill this weekend that I found the Fossil roll up thing, I found a brand new Anker USB C to USB C cable for $1.00! It works well and it's the braided fabric kind. It's 6ft long and I love it.  I love finding bargains.

Now, for the other thing.  Yesterday I heard from my sister, nothing bad, just every time she calls I get so nervous it's bad news about the house i live in. My stomach is in knots when I hear from her. I certainly miss the days of being glad to hear from her! Anyway, I have been dying to get a newer iPad Mini as my iPad Mini 3 only has iOS 12.  It's getting slower too.  I have tried everything I could think of to get credit to get one.  Well, after talking with her, i thought of something and tried it thinking it wouldn't work. It did! I  was able to get one on the spot. BUT I knew I would have to wait for it to come. It had, 'set up your account online now' thing. So I did and got the card number and info.  I go look at the local Target and of course they have none in stock.  The Best Buy in Lynchburg VA has the one I want.  I go on there and put it in my cart thinking the car won't go through, I'll need to wait until I get the physical card. Nope, it worked and I had purchased it! @_@  I was ecstatic but also a bit concerned as I'll have to pay it each month.  

I had to drive to Lynchburg to get it. I got dressed and jumped in Goontz and left.  I got up there and it was ready so I went to the curbside pickup, got it and then pulled to the side to look to make sure it was the right one. It was and I was very happy but a bit angry at myself for buying it when I couldn't afford it.  I had seen a McDonald's and a Bojangles right outside of the city on the way up so I headed back there and got Bojangles and ate it before heading home.  I got home and backed up the old one and put all the things from it on the new one. I love it and i know I'm going to enjoy using it for years. I'm still sick on my stomach for spending so much, but I made a promise to myself to pay more than the minimum each month and not put anything else on it.

I did put one more thing on there though. After I got back to town, I went to Target's site to see if they had any First-gen Apple Pencils. I have wanted one forever.  They had one so I took the plunge and got it. I LOVE it. It's better than any of the ones I've bought in the past. Works fast and very responsive. I'm in total love.  Now, I plan to try and pay all this back as quickly as possible. I also plan to look into shipping costs and try to sell some of the Fossil bags that I've bought that I won't carry. I bought several because they were Fossil, not because I particularly liked them. I hope to sell some and make some money to put towards this bill!

Speaking of Fossil bags, I found a small yellow leather one in the Salvation Army store Friday. It's so soft and one I actually would use!  I have so many that I am hoping I can sell some and make enough each month to just pay the bill on this and have it paid off soon.  I know I can do it if I put my mind to it! 

Best Buy offered six months of Apple News for free and six months of Apple Music for free for buying it. Apple has a promotion for a year of Apple TV+! Cool beans. That made me feel a bit better about spending so much.  I already signed up for Apple TV+ and watched an episode of the Peanuts show on there! :) I hope to enjoy my free Apple TV for the year.  I will probably use the other two trials too.  I love freebies with purchases. Too bad I couldn't get two years of Apple TV. One for the iPad and one for the pencil! :p Oh well, I'm not greedy. I'm happy with what they gave me.

Wow, I think I made up for not posting in a while!  I hope to do some picture posts soon.  I'd like to share the Fossil bag and some more beach photos. OH! Some time back I picked up a case for my old iPad Mini and it didn't fit, it is for the one I just got. So, I even have a case for it without having to order one. Yay!

Finally, we are heading to Myrtle Beach tomorrow! :D  I just finished packing! LOL, I am usually done way before this. I have my things all ready. I only have to put a few things from the kitchen in a bag (coffee, creamer, etc.) I'm ready to leave now! :p  I wrote a bunch today and yesterday and I plan to write some more before putting my laptop in the bag to carry it. I always put my laptop in my suitcase with the electronics, but this laptop is too big so I'm going to use the laptop backpack that I bought at Office Max.  I think I got everything I need for the trip ready to go. I still can't decide on which bag to carry. I want to carry one of my cute little Fossil bags but I want to make sure it's the right size.  I don't like carrying my regular bag with me to the beach.  I usually pick one big enough for my trip journal to fit, but I am thinking if we are going into a restaurant, I can just carry it in with me.  I wouldn't carry it in a store.  The little Fossil bag I got last summer is so cute and I've not been able to use it because it was smaller than I thought it would be. I think I'll probably use that and just carry the trip journal.  Ah, I wish we could go tonight! I'm ready. I wasn't this morning, but nows that everything is packed, It's a go! I will try to post several times a day from the beach as I usually do.  The room we have is a two-room, room.  In other words, there is a bed, desk, dresser, tv, closet, and SINK! in the first part, then a kitchen and bathroom in the middle, and a two-bed bedroom with all the things in the first room (except the sink) and a table and chairs.  I can set my MacBook up at the desk.  I will try to do at least two posts a day and possibly three.  I will be sharing beach pictures and I'll try to take pictures of some other interesting things as I go. I'll also be posted to Insta. :) I have not used any money on my Starbucks card all month and I have several freebies so I'm set on that too.  I just finished the kitchen stuff, I've laid out my clothes, I just need to load this laptop in it's bag and load my friend's car.  No Goontz this trip. I drove him for a bit tonight so he wouldn't feel left out. :p

My friend and I went for our Friday thrift trip today. We went to Reidsville, Walkertown, Mayodan, and Martinsville.  All those places and I didn't get a lot.  At the Salvation Army in Reidsville, I got a flash drive new in the package for $3. I didn't get anything at the Reidsville Goodwill.  We went to Walkertown and I found a Starbucks tumbler that I wanted. Sadly while we were in there their power went out and they would not ring up anyone. They wouldn't even do cash transactions.  It was very annoying.  We waited a bit hoping it would come back up but no.  That was frustrating.

We left there and went to the Mayodan Goodwill. I found two bags with stuff for $2 each. In between the two bags, there were craft supplies, two packages of pencils, a multi-pen, a ruler, and three loose pencils. The funniest thing is, two of the loose pencils are promo items for my bank! I thought that was pretty cool. There were also three brand new (at least I am pretty sure) Sakura gelly roll white pens! Very neat.  We went on from there to Martinsville and I only found one thing there.  I found a DayTimer planner for $1. Not a huge haul, but some good finds. At the Mayodan Goodwill, I found four Fossil bags! I didn't buy any of them. One I already had the exact same back and the other three were nice but they were not bags I would carry myself.  Yes, I could have gotten them to re-sell, but I'm a bit low on funds this month as I just had to pay taxes on my car. Yikes! I took a picture of a cute little tree at the Goodwill in Reidsville:

I was going to post on Thursday evening but my Bluetooth was acting up.  I finally gave up! Yesterday it was still being wonky. I got it working today, finally.  I was going to post last night but when I looked at the clock, it was three minutes until midnight so I knew I wouldn't have time to post, so I just decided to wait and try again today! So, here we go. Thursday, my friend texted and wanted to go thrifting.  We usually go on Friday after he gets off at noon, but he asked if I wanted to go then.  I figured, why not!  So, we went to Reidsville and ate at Bojangles and then went to the Salvation Army store. I found a Fossil handbag! I actually found two, but I only got one. It's fabric and it's pretty nifty.  Here is the picture of that:

It has a flap pocket on the front and a slide pocket on the back.  I like those to put my phone in. The front pocket is perfect to store my face masks in!   My Sak bag had these features.  I especially like the pocket on the back for my cell phone. I look for that now when I get a 'new' purse.  I'm already using this one.  I thought it was nice for summer. I got a few other little things in the Salvation Army store.  At the Goodwill in Reidsville, I found a Mickey Mouse mug that looks brand new. I can always use another mug and this one is sturdy. I'm not a huge Disney fan, but I do love Mickey! I also found a little radio for $1.00 and a little cactus ring holder.   We went to the Mayodan Goodwill too and I found a HUGE box of Avery address labels.  I got those. There are very few, if any, sheets missing. That will give me labels for a long time!

I also got a little notebook in there.  It was a little graph paper notebook originally from Staples.  Neither my friend nor I got to really look as much as we'd like to as there was some idiot woman with her kids running rampant through the store. They were screaming and slamming things and we were both about to drop kick some brats.  So annoying. I was glad I did find the labels though. I already made a sheet of them and they look great. :) It was a good thrifting trip.

Yesterday, we didn't plan to do anything but he had mentioned a local place after we thrifted but they were closed. He texted me yesterday to see if I wanted to go since we couldn't on Thursday.  I agreed and we did.  That was all I did yesterday. I spent the rest of the day at home relaxing.  Today, I planned to not even leave the house.  Plans changed, though.  I was very low on good stuff to eat! I had a voucher for a free combo meal at McDonald's, so I went to get that. I ate at the park. The park is right across the road from the grocery store, so since I was right there, I decided to go and get that done.  I did!  I now have a lot of goodies in the house to eat so I won't have to worry about running out of anything. So glad to have that done! :p