If an ad for an estate sale uses the word "hoarder," I get annoyed. And then I hurry off to the sale because who wants to go see what a minimalist left behind?
There aren't many sales to choose from at this time of year, so if something is close to home and looks interesting, I'm probably going to check it out. Even if the ad lists nothing but bears. A person can't own nothing but bears, can she?
Apparently she can --
That's one wall of one room. Most of the walls of the other rooms were similar. You can't imagine how many cabinets filled with bear figurines there were. When we walked in, the woman running the sale said that we could fill a can with bears for five bucks. It turned out that the "cans" were those big metal popcorn tins and if we'd been at all interested in little collectible bears, it would've been a heck of a deal.
There were bears in both bathrooms, and the kitchen, and every place else. I'm sure I saw some Boyd's Bears and Cherished Teddies, although I didn't look closely enough to verify that. I don't collect resin bears.
We did buy two. Quinn got a clock with a couple of realistic bear cubs crawling on a log. Leif got a little music box with bears that are apparently supposed to dance...but it doesn't work quite right so no one has seen them move but him. (We're having fun with that.)
And I got this --
It's going to be a dollhouse. The glass front slides off and I haven't measured the shelves, but they should be the right size for 1/12 scale rooms. I'm always looking for stuff that would make a fun dollhouse, even though I haven't made any progress in that direction yet. For a couple of dollars, I can always stick something else in it if I change my mind.
I love my shelf and the boys really like their bears, but that sale was unsettling. The poor ladies running it seemed completely overwhelmed...and we were there in the last couple of hours of the sale. She offered me a bundle deal on the three things I was buying, which actually came to more than they would have been than they added up to, but I felt so sorry for her that I didn't argue.
This makes me feel better about the fabric and yarn and vintage stuff I'll probably leave behind. It's got to be easier to rehome than thousands of little bears. And I've definitely got less invested in my own hoard of treasures. Seriously -- the bears have to have originally cost tens of thousands. I'm very curious about the bear lady.
Did you grow up with the story about all of the teddy bears coming to life at midnight on Christmas Eve? I haven't been able to get that idea out of my head since leaving that house.
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