"Now that was an amazing find," said Mrs. deWinter. "It made my day!"
We started the day of the amazing find at our County's Hazardous Waste Program "clean sweep," one of several days a year when residents take specific household (and farm and ag business) products that shouldn't go in a landfill to a special dropoff. We got rid of paint thinner, shellac, varnish, some oil-based paints and stains, some antique aerosols, bathroom cleaners, and,
tah-dah, Mrs. deWinter's ancient computer from a former lifetime, one I've been trying to convince her to let go of for eight years (
But I want to recover some stuff from the hard drive....)
Next stop, the outlet mall. Destination: the Kitchen Store. A month ago (just before tax season took me away from the blogosphere, alas), we had bought one piece of
Circulon Cookware. It was a test-drive of sorts: Mrs. deWinter's extensive online research and several in-store fondlings had resulted in inconclusive data about which cookware was right for us. She wanted lightweight and nonstick (I'm not crazy about coated cookware, but cleanup is a breeze), I wanted even heat. Our compromise on the nonstick was to find a good but (relatively) inexpensive brand, buy it cheap, treat it with kid gloves (i.e. use non-scratching runcible spoons, spatulas, ladles and whisks, and keep the cookware out of the dishwasher), and be willing to replace it the minute the coating gets scratched. Her methodology, given the inconclusive findings, was to buy one piece of the most likely candidate and see how we liked it.
After a month's use of Circulon's large saute pan, we had decided to commit to this line of cookware and planned to buy several more pieces. Yesterday, though, we were out of luck. The outlet store had none of our brand in stock!
Oh well.... We drove to the nearby restaurant and lunched with our good friend Sam who then joined us on one of Mrs. deWinter's favorite weekend activities: the garage sale blitz. I don't usually go along on these, but today was an exception. It was the community-wide garage sale weekend for the town with the outlet mall, and watching two smart-shopping femmes enjoy the thrill of the hunt is a treat. Sam's haul consisted of gorgeous fabric for a gown, Mrs. deWinter bought candles, a beautiful hand-made oak box (some day I'll have to write about her box collection), and the Amazing Find: a $60 Circulon Griddle, never-used, marked at $5, which Mrs. deWinter walked away with for $2. What fun. We probably wouldn't have bought the griddle, but for her occasional pancakes and my highly praised bacon, it's perfect.
What I walked away with?
1. Two antique plough/tiller/tractor parts I'm going to spray with Rustoleum and hang somewhere. They're gorgeous and look like Neolithic/New Age sun signs (my crude sketch does not do them justice).
2. The memory of the mother duck leading her 8 or 9 tiny ducklings from their nest to water, a one-time event in the life of ducklings, an event which, in this case, I got to witness first-hand, an event for which I stopped four lanes of traffic to allow them safe passage. Those ducklings were so small and moving so fast, relatively speaking, that it was impossible to get an accurate count of them. Their mother was both staunch and vulnerable, as all mothers are.
Happy Mothers Day to all of us!
Haloscan:
|
Blogger:
Hi Connie. I tried to leave a comment at your blog but I'm not an AOL user....
So, thanks for stopping by here. And I hope your elbow's doing better!
Amazing Find 
