Notes from A Cottage Industry

We ride at dawn.

At least I do, 'coz I've got an early flight to the Biggest Little City for my Junker's Jubilee vacation.

And I barely slept a wink last night. Mostly because I was more excited than I am for Christmas, but also, because, very last minute, the day before yesterday I realized I really desperately needed wanted a new pair of fun sandals, so I ordered a pair (okay, I went down a decent sized rabbit hole and ordered three different pairs) that were all listed to arrive "the next day by 10:00 PM.

Eeeeeeeee!

This is what I love about Amazon. It has saved the lives of millions, if not billions of procrastinators not unlike myself.

Well.

Amazon, for the first time in my entire spending history of shopping with them, (which is...lets just say, a lot.) sent me an email late yesterday basically saying, "Just kidding, all your sandals will arrive tomorrow, after you leave for your flight."

Feeling mad (mostly at myself for procrastinating, but also kinda ticked at Amazon for failing me.) and irritated, I knew now that I would have to wear my old, in rather-questionable-condition black flops I got at Target last spring. 

Except, when I looked in my little shoe bins that I keep my flippy flops in, there was a lonely looking shoe missing its mate.

That prompted me to spontaneously reorganize my entire closet floor. (Where does one flip flop go in such a small house?) While it was nice to get the dust bunnies out from under the shoe racks in the closet,(Oh! And I reconnected with some fabulous mustard yellow wedges that I had somehow forgotten I had.) I did not have time to be on a shoe search...yet...there I was.

After over ninety minutes of searching, I gave up, and contemplated where I would be hiding if I were a size eight flip flop that was worn just a week ago when we had a teeny tiny sneak peek at what spring weather might look like, before the rain returned.

Ugh.

It's not the end of the world, I know, but a random missing shoe is the kind of thing that keeps me up...all night. It just bugs me. I even dreamt about it. (Do you do that?)

I can't help but feel that thirty minutes after Ralph leaves me at the airport this morning, he will text me with a picture of my missing flip flop, found in some obvious location, and it will be sitting next to a stack of Amazon boxes containing my all too fabulous new black sandals, that he will have spotted on our porch as he drove in the driveway from dropping me off.

Oh well, it's all okay. I'm going on my much anticipated dream junking vacation, and I can't wait! 

Junker's Jubilee 2024 Roadtrip Edition 2.0 Deluxe Attendee Kit For The Other Tracey.

It's a second post!

Okay, so I shared the loose history of our Junker's Jubilee in my last post, and now I will share this year's over-the-top Deluxe Attendee Kit that I sent to the Other Tracey last week in anticipation of our roadtrip, which we are heading out on tomorrow, April 30th!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeek! 

Here is a photo dump of all that went into this year's "Road Less Traveled Junker's Jubilee" Kit, followed by a few details.....

The starting point was the cover...

...followed by the route and stops, which proved to be huge, and the other pages that created this year's flipbook!

Once the flip book was created, I decided we needed shirts, mimicking concert tees....(Okay, note to self for next time, the front artwork needs to be smaller. Much smaller.) 

Once I designed the shirts I wanted to have some flair... and something for us to pin that flair to...fanny packs slash crossbody bags were now a must have. 

Then, we needed Treasure Journals. (Of course.) We learned the hard way last year that our memories are in their senior years now, and no longer can be trusted as to where we bought what and where we need to revisit....

A receipt envelope, and some other must-haves for the trip, tucked inside a cutie-patootie box....

My signature "packing taffy" for the win.

I packed everything up in a box...

The details: We begin the trip tomorrow!!! We are taking a longer route, (The road less travel, so to speak...) going over the sierra mountains to the Sacramento area and heading north from there.

I will fly into The Biggest Little City in the morning. The Other Tracey will pick me up at the airport, and from there we will hit every thrift store in the Reno Sparks area until we hot them all, or they close, whichever comes first. We will then go to her home to unload all of her treasures thus far, and head to Donner Lake to spend the night at her cabin. 

The next morning we will make the trek over the Sierras (stopping at several stops along the way!) and make our way to the Sacramento area. We have no idea how far we may (or may not) make it that day, but we do know it will be fun!!

I'll be posting updates, so stay tuned.....

A historical look at the (now) annual Junker's Jubilee

If you've been a long time reader (is anyone out there still hopping over to my blog? I've been beyond dreadful about posting for longer than I want to check the calendar for...) you should remember The Other Tracey, and you might recall the first "official" Junker's Jubilee we had, back in 2018. (Refresh your memory with my cover photo here, of click here.)

So, anyway.

While we have been getting together for visits ever since I moved up here to the Pacific Northwest, it used to be a three-sh day long, more loosely scheduled list of activities, full of laughs, and creative moments. That visit in 2018 started us down a path of seeing how we could possibly outdo the previous year in terms of what all we wanted to accomplish during our visit together, and our get together became an official event with the name, The Junker's Jubilee."

The more we got together, the longer time span we felt we needed, to fit in everything we wanted to do. We also tried changing up the time of year we got together, whereby we ended up doing a holiday themed Junker's Jubilee in the fall of 2022.

Last year, as we were planning our annual Jubilee, talk of going to Texas to the Round Top Show, or somewhere else for a Junker's Inspiration trip began. At some point in the conversation I shared the idea of me flying down to Reno, and the two of us road-tripping back up to Vancouver Washington, hitting thrift stores along the way, and the first Junker's Jubilee, Roadtrip Edition was born in June of 2023.

I realized a while back that I never shared anything online about last year's Junker's Jubilee, so I am going to today.

Once we came up with the concept of taking our Junker's Jubilee on the road, I began plotting stops all along the usual route we have taken for years between Reno Nevada and Vancouver Washington. 

Oh. My.

There were so many places we could stop and hunt and gather! The next thing I knew, I had our route planned, complete with junk stops in all of the towns along the way, and I created yet another "Attendee Packet" which by this point had become one of the things I look forward to creating for each of our get togethers....

See how fun that little "Attendee Kit" was???? Did you notice the theme of using salt-water-taffy-as-packing-bubbles that I always color coordinate with my kits! I get them by the pound at my local Winco!

Oh, and the Other Tracey came up with her own fabulous addition to our Junker's Jubilee, with a "Snackle Box" for the road....(Brilliant!!!)

Needless to say, we had a fantastic time on our roadtrip, and we have been counting the minutes until we could plan the next one...which starts tomorrow! (I'll share the "Deluxe Attendee Packet" tomorrow!)

Weekly words to live by.

Weekly words to live by.

Weekly words to live by.

Weekly words to live by.