Thrift Share Monday - April 16

Eek! My thrifting has been sparse, the last two weeks.  Soooo sad.

(Scroll down if you want to jump right into my thrifted finds)

Easter weekend me and my whole family (10 of us) rented a beach house in Galveston, which took away from potential good garage/estate sale/thrift finds at home.  I had hopes that I could make some scores while out of town, visions of vintage sheet scores from racks I hadn't striped clean yet, but came home empty handed.  *sigh*  However, vacationing on the beach was sooooo nice.

Our rental was maybe a minute walk to the water.  The kids love it, well we all do.  Early morning, 7 am, strolls on the beach looking for shells (better shell hunting happens in the winter).  Kids have late morning frolics in the water, then out to town for lunch.

The first morning we were there the shore was covered in live bean clams.  It was strange watching them frantically sink bury themselves once the waves washed them to shore.  Their little muscle-y foot pops out, like a little tongue, to pull itself into the sand.

Bean Clams

The next morning there were new finds/interest.  Not as many bean clams on the shore this day, but while combing the shore (visually) you start to notice little bouncing or pops of water, initially thinking maybe a bubble popped or some sort of splash, but as you look closely you see the little splash is a tiny shrimp washed to shore.  So the kids start gathering these little critters in their buckets.

As eyes start to focus on these small finds you start to see itty bitty crabs (about the size of a dime and smaller,and they have attitude.  (All I hear in my head is their voices from Finding Nemo "Hey! Hey!" with there claws raised, as the sea gulls above are saying "Mine! Mine!".)  The kids are even more excited, and start gathering those as well.  So I'm on the search with them, and start to see these creatures seem to be close to washed up seaweed.  With this realization I start looking at seaweed not yet washed ashore, still floating in the water, and the seaweed is literally crawling with mini crabs and shrimp.  It's then an all out hunt for floating seaweed.

Itty bitty crab by my ring.  It's hard to tell, but the U shaped thing is a shrimp right below it. 

I shriek when the first large/mini crab (the body about the size of a quarter) grotesquely crawls out of some seaweed.   What startled me was it's speed and of course size compared to the dime sized ones, plus the immediate vision of it being a cockroach (EW! I know roaches are not in the ocean, but I do somewhat associate shrimp as being sea roaches, and it moved just as fast as a roach.  Gross!).  Focus changes again, and we are on a mission to find the larger crabs.

Basically, the harvesting went like this, grab some sea weed, dangle it over a bucket and just let the critters crawl off.  Really strange to see.

Bucket of crab and shrimp.

 Next find, I think I have another large crab, so I hold the seaweed together since they are fast and do pinch.  I plop it in a bucket, but it's not a crab it's a fish. The kids are squealing in delight.  The two 8 year old boys (son and nephew) immediately start claiming its a Lion fish.  Not realizing, or knowing my fish, I stick my hand in the bucket wanting to bring it to the surface of the water to get a closer look.  Aw! It's so cute and pretty.  As the boys are telling me to be careful, I'm thinking to myself I'm not gonna hurt or squash the small fish, but later realizing what they meant, they didn't want me to get hurt.  They thought they knew what it was, a Lion fish, and if it was what they thought then the fish would have been poisonous. Yikes! *Note to self listen to 8 year olds they might know what they are talking about.*  (These are boys, most of what they read are bug, snake, shark, critter/creature books.  They are educated in their critters).

Fish moved to a cup for better viewing.

*These critters were released in the water, shortly after they were caught.

I haven't been able to find the name of this fish, but I'll call it a seaweed fish since it looks like seaweed.  It's very cute in the way it maneuvers itself with it's four front fins, almost like legs.  Later in the afternoon when we went back to the beach I found one trapped on shore in a pool of water surrounded by seaweed.  At times you could almost see it walking when the water was low enough.  It was very interesting to watch.  After watching it we did take it into the water and released it.  No need for the "Mine! Mine!" birds to eat it...at least not on our watch.

Where's Waldo the seaweed fish?

That evening just before sun set, my sister went to the beach and had notice the water receded quite a bit. When she said this the first thought that came to mind was "Run!! Tsunami!"  I always thought the tide came in at night, not recede.  This really intrigued my mom, so after some thought since it was soooo dark outside we decided to go see for ourselves.  I'll admit I was creeped out walking on the beach at night, the moon not yet out. (Thoughts of Jason, from Friday the 13th in my head.  Yup movies flood my brain.)  We had flash lights, and that's pretty much all you could see of each other, the flash light beam on the sand.

Then you see something quickly move on the beach.  All the kids are squealing looking for what just moved, and it's fast.  A very large crab. 

Look by what I mean is all you see is the beam of light to locate each other on the black beach.  The three spots of light are the three kids chasing the crab once it was released.  (Short, very shaky video)

Eventually the moon did make it's appearance, and started out almost red.  Once again, movie scripts in my head "Blood has been shed on this night." Then Halloween/Jason takes it's place with "kill, kill, kill, kill...".  Demented I know.  (Do I need help?)

Then as it got higher, it's known white.  Wish I had a good camera with me, and not only my cell, which  dubbed as a flash light, and video camera.  (When are these things gonna come equipped with powder foundation?) 

Thank you for getting this far down (or scrolling), I know this is a Thrift Share post, but since I had no luck last weekend I'm sharing what took it's place.  We had a garage sale this Saturday, and I was sick to later look at my garage sale app that day to see garage sales saturated my area that I could not attend to.  :-(  Hopefully, next weekend will be just as saturated.  So now on to my few finds from this week. 

This lovely, large, teal E.O. Brody vase.

A large Homestead Pyrex casserole dish with lid, that will be added to the set I acquired two weeks ago.  Soon to be listed on Etsy or Ebay.  What venue would be your suggestion for a set price listing, a 30 day Ebay listing or 3 month Etsy?

Scored this red(rust?), white rimmed Pyrex bowl.

And got some good vintage sheet finds.

White and gold gingham. 

 Groovy flowers.

 Delicate butterflies

 Blue bouquet

 Spring time

Don't forget you can pick fat quarter bundles from my Etsy shop, and this week through Sunday April 22, I'm having a 20% off sale, use coupon code EarthDay2012 at check out.