grammar girl

When we first opened our doors, we had one book to sell. It was a book from the 40′s about charm and it sold immediately to a lovely twenty-something who said “I love old books…and this one is so cool.” Up until that fateful day, we had never even considered selling vintage books. In fact, it was only a fluke that we had that one to sell. But based on that one book-buying customer’s excitement, we bought another one. Don’t ask us what that second book was – all we know is that it must have sold right away, too, because we bought another one. Then we bought another one, and another, and another. We’ve been buying and selling books ever since and now can’t imagine the shop without them.

This past weekend we made our biggest book-buying purchase EVER. Big as in dollar amount, not quantity. We splurged a little more than we normally would and bought a six volume set entitled Animate Creation Popluar Edition of “Our Living World,” A Natural History by The Rev. J.G. Wood, copyright 1868.

There are two books in each of the following categories: Mammalia, Birds, and Reptiles, Fishes, Etc. These books are filled with A-MAZING pictures, both color and black and white. We won’t lie – there is a tiny part of us that wants to take all the pictures out of the books and sell the pages as prints. But we respect these books much too much to chop them up just to make a few bucks. These books are like revered senior citizens to us and as such, we must treat them just like we would our Grandma and Grandpa. We don’t think we can even split up the volumes, which means these little beauties may be taking up permanent residence in our home. (At least until we can find them a nice assisted living apartment with afternoon crafts and bingo.)

So on very rare and extremely special occasions, we get invited to rare and extremely special sales. These sales are awesome because you only get to go if you’re in “the know” (wink, wink). How we got in “the know” is beyond us, but we are in it and we want to stay there. The thing is, these sales are not awesome because of what they sell, though they do sell awesome things. They are awesome because we’re always like the only ones there. No lines, no “old-timers” who look at us with disdain, no getting pushed and shoved, no anxiety about losing something great just because you couldn’t get to it fast enough. Three words: ESTATE SALE HEAVEN. It was in this heaven where we found it. One of the coolest things we’ve found in a long time. Something to get inspired by. Something to love.

We found a vase filled with old, colorful arrows.

The vase is beige, the arrows are a bit tattered, perhaps nothing special on their own. But together, together we think they are totally rad. In fact, we believe that God put us on “the know” list himself, led us to that estate sale and gave us this vase of arrows as our own personal valentine. Deity to human. Only God would know we would want this way more than long stem roses.

Right now you are either like, “What’s the big deal? That’s dumb.” OR you are like, “GENIUS! I want it, I want it, I want it!” If you are the latter, then we are probably kindred spirits, possibly separated at birth and should meet for a drink sometime to talk about our hopes and dreams and future joint business endeavors. To the others, let’s just have drinks.

So if you don’t live in Portland, you probably haven’t heard that we’ve been graced with some much needed sun in the last week. Sun. In February! Who would’ve thunk it? Anyway, we used our sunny day off to visit our favorite outdoor spots in Portland. So in the next few weeks, we’ve decided to blog about them because, let’s face it, you can’t spend everyday in our shop.

THE LONE FIR CEMETERY

When we were growing up in Ohio we lived in a big white house with a ravine for a backyard. On the other side of this deep and wooded ravine was a cemetery – a big cemetery that had a foreboding gate at its entrance. It was made all the spookier because it was perched atop a hill and you couldn’t see anything up there but sky and graves. We spent many summer days exploring the ravine and a good number climbing up the other side and walking through the cemetery, looking at the crumbling headstones, choosing which names we might consider giving a child when we grew up and imagining the histories of those buried beneath our feet.

People may think we’re weird for liking to hang out in cemeteries, but we think they are super serene places, full of untold stories and human emotion. Given our affection for these unearthly places, you can imagine our joy at having the best cemetery in Portland within walking distance of our home and shop. It’s called Lone Fir Cemetery and was founded in 1885. Here are some pics of some of our favorite headstones and a one of us frolicking around.