treasure hunting

Yesterday, Patty and her mother and I drove up into Pennsylvania to visit some antique stores located between Ephrata and Adamstown along route 272. There are a LOT of antique stores on that route! We got there when they opened at 10 AM (which meant we left home at 8) and stayed until they closed at 5 PM. A long day, but what fun! Unlike the malls, the antique stores weren't over-run with customers, so we could browse at our leisure. Most dealers had reduced prices, too. Patty has a car with a large open back area, not quite as big as my van, but since my car is not in service for long trips, she was the designated driver. We filled that back area, but could have put a few more things in the back seat next to Irma. However, the stores were closing, so we had to stop buying! We had eaten a quick picnic lunch in the car, but for dinner, we stopped at a Cracker Barrel Restaurant. Those places are a real experience - half is a store and half the restaurant. The store had all their Christmas stuff reduced by 70 percent! Who could resist? - not us! I guess we weren't quite shopped out, after all. I just got a few Christmas ornaments, which of course I need like a hole in the head! Dinner was really pretty good. Not gourmet, but just good old country cooking. They served green beans made like my mother always cooked them - with bacon and cooked a long time. The berry cobbler that Patty and I shared for dessert was excellent, too.

I have to tell you about my brother Jack's experience in selling his home. He and Kit decided this year to move into a continuing care community. They aren't that old, but their house was huge and they had five acres of partly wooded land to maintain. When I visited them in mid-November, they had signed for the new house, but had not even gotten a realtor to list their house. They were having a yard sale the next weekend, and had moved some boxes into the new house, but that's as far as they had gotten with the selling/moving process. (The new house is lovely and has all new appliances, floors and paint.)

I can hardly believe what happened next. At the yard sale, a neighbor came over and asked what the occasion for the sale was. On hearing that they would be selling their house, he said, "I'll buy it!" So they drew up a contract and voila! - the house is sold. Isn't that the darndest story? In today's housing market, I thought it would take months to sell their place. So, now they are happy living in their new place, where the community takes care of the houses and property. I do wonder, however, just what my brother will find to do, now that he doesn't have to mow grass every day!