I bought a basket at Goodwill the other day. I thought I took a pic of the outside, but it seems that I did not. Oh well. You'll just have to imagine it. It should not be too hard: small, rectangular, varnished wicker, faux leather straps, hinged lid with one of those clasp thingies. You know the type.
The real surprise came when I opened it up.
Oooooooooo!
MOOMINS!
What's a Moomin? Well, one of these little critters.
Awwwwww!
Cute, huh?
While not that well known in the United States, The Moomin Family has been a favorite for decades in Europe, especially Finland, their country of origin. Their adventures have been translated into many different languages, including English.
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The main characters are the Moominmamma, Moominpappa, and the Moomintroll, their son. There are many other characters as well, including the Snork Maiden, my favorite.
By Source, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39393132
Moominmamma is on the far right. You can see her wearing the same striped apron as on the basket.
Created by artist/author Tove Jansson in 1945, the Moomins began first as a series of kid's books, then a newspaper comic strip, and finally animation.
Personally, I adore the Moomin family. The art style is simple and uncomplicated, yet rich and detailed. It reminds me in places of the work of famed New Yorker artist James Thurber, especially in the design of the Moomins themselves. The stories are wonderful fantasy tales where just about anything can happen. The characters are just delightful!
By Comic book cover, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1724575
There are English editions of the books, a couple of which I have. They're fairly easy to find, and I recommend them as an introduction to the Moominworld. A few years ago, one of my favorite comic publishers released several volumes of the comic in English. I have one of them and would dearly love to get my hands on the others. There was also an English dub of the animation. I have never seen it and would really love to. Maybe a set will turn up at a flea market somewhere. You never know. I think I know what my next YouTube search will be.
One of the true joys of junking is the total unpredictability of the finds that you stumble across. I would have given that basket a total pass, if I hadn't opened it up. The unexpected surprises make the ups and downs of the re-selling field all worth while.
As far as I know, there really hasn't been that much Moomin merchandising in this country, so where did the basket come from? Who bought it originally? Was it a gift? Had they been traveling? I wonder if it held any Moomin-related contents? What is the story here?
It could even be as simple as someone ordering the basket online. You never really do get the whole story behind the things you find, but I do love it when I find something that taps into the odd store of knowledge that lives in my head.
If you checked out any of my blog posts over the weekend and found that the embedded vids didn't match the descriptions in the text, check them out again. I've fixed them. I have no clue what happened, other than some kind of Google hiccup.
I keep a private play list in YouTube with vids that I might want to use in the blog some day. When I decide to use one of them, I go to the list and play the vid again to double-check that I want to use it and copy the embed code for the blog. Somehow, other vids from my blog list were appearing instead of the ones I had copied! Since I got them straight out of the videos themselves, I have no idea how it could have happened, but I have fixed it, so enjoy.
The fair is over! Back to school is over! Maybe now I can sell some junk! Last week I barely broke ten dollars in sales some days (and some days I didn't even do that). I didn't even take any new stuff to the Peddlers Mall because the sales were so low. When I got there to straighten up, there was hardly anything to do! Nothing was out of place. That's how slow last week was.
The weekend massively bounced back at both sites though. And there's still a full week left in the month, although the last couple of days of the month traditionally are very low. Barring a couple of unforeseen hundred-dollar days, I'm going to have a low month, but it won't be a total disaster.
Keith keeps calling the telephone bench in my booth at YesterNook a "parson's chair." Silly non-junker!
The ceiling fan in our bedroom either has a short or it's possessed. The light keeps turning on and off at odd times for no reason. The fan speed dips suddenly, too. We really don't need this with warm weather coming back. We're trying to figure out if it would be easier/cheaper to try and fix it or replace it. I hate just throwing something out like that.
Yard sales this weekend were really bad. I went to a warehouse sale in a defunct store that was pretty good. Lots of vintage "new old stock" and newer items. I'll have a post about one of the things I bought later in the week. There were a couple of good benefit sales and a good church sale, but that's it. I had 14 sales on my list and barely had anything in the backseat of the car. It only took two trips to unload everything. That just ain't right.
Well, that's about all from these parts. I have something in the works with one of my booths, but I have to keep that under wraps for the moment. More when I can talk about it. Hope your week goes well!
Spoke too soon, I did. No sooner had I posted about my sales streak at YesterNook last week, than it came to an end that very day. Ah, well! Them's the breaks, I guess. And it was the longest sales run I've had there, so I'll take it and be grateful.
Monday actually ended up being the first (and hopefully last) time I had no sales at either venue! Discovered I don't really like that felling. Not one little bit. No siree!
I entered the triple digits in my post totals for 2012 last week. That record will be mine! This I swear!
THOUGHT/REQUEST: Can we pleasemaybe try to have Summer without melting any more than we already have???? We're in the midst of 100+ degree heat (like lots of you are right now) and it's flat out killing us! Poor, little, covered-in-black-fur Kosh is miserable!
The heat impacts the booths, too, in some obvious and not-so-obvious ways. Obviously, in this heat fewer people want to get out and shop and fewer sellers want to get out and hunt junk, but that's kind of obvious. I got hit with some things I didn't expect the other day though, when some candles I had in tubs of merchandise melted in the car! And I'm not talking about "getting a little soft" melting, either. I'm talking about "turned into a pool of wax" melting!
On booth stock days, I load the car in the morning and then Keith takes it to work. I go do my own things and then bus to the mall. I spend the afternoon tidying and rearranging the spaces and Keith runs the tubs of stuff by when he gets off work. I can then put things out pretty quickly, since I've spent the day making space for them.
So, anyway, I was loading the car the other day, when I saw a candle in the top of the box. Thinking the the heat would not be good for it, I placed it inside a large bowl, in case it melted. Which it did, filling the bowl with a pool of wax.
Now, you're probably asking why I just didn't take the candle out and take it to the booth another time? Well, because I'm an idiot, that's why!!! I can't explain the dumb things I do. I just do them!
Like most of the rest of the country, I was surprised by the Supreme Court decision on the Health Care law last week. Unlike many, though, I was pleasantly surprised. There is so much in that law that is very, very good that it would have been a tragedy had it been overturned. I will admit that I don't think it goes far enough, but it's a step in the right direction.
Naive fool that I am, I honestly entertained for the briefest of moments the thought that, because Roberts was in effect the swing vote on this decision, maybe (just maybe) we might start to see a lessening of this poisonous political polarization that is tearing the country apart. And then, I got smacked back to reality. Sigh. For all the fuss these damn Tea Partiers make about the constitution, they sure don't seem to know what it says.
However, perhaps the biggest surprise for Keith and I personally was finding this on the front page of the CNN web page the day before:
That sweet little lady is Keith's aunt! And, yes, she really is as sweet as she appears to be. We've not yet been able to fond out how CNN got the pic. Even more awesome than seeing her on CNN was seeing her share the front page with the Queen:
Screencaps from CNN.com.
Finally, a sad note. Susanna Clark passed away last week. For those who don't know, she was the wife of legendary singer/songwriter Guy Clark and a fine songwriter in her own right. She co-wrote one of Emmylou Harris' most lovely songs:
That song comes from one of my favorite Emmylou albums, Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town. The album title comes from the line in the song. So many good lines in that song. Susanna Clark also painted the image on the cover of the album:
Her death has got me to thinking about one of her husband's most beautiful songs, "Magnolia Wind," in which a man sings about living without his sweetheart. This version features John Prine and Emmylou and comes from a recent tribute album to Clark. That's Guy and Susanna on the cover.
Sadly, he's living that song now.
It's gonna be a busy, weird, hot week. I'm going camping for part of it, plus there's the holiday. Not sure what posting will be like, but I'll try. Take care and stay cool!
