This post is about things I did this past Thursday. While it may not seem very exciting, it was a memorable day for me for reasons I'm about to share with you.
This picture of my beautiful granddaughter was posted on Facebook on Wednesday night.
After seeing it I realized that with going back to work, I won't get to see her as often as I have over the last 5 months. So the first item on my agenda for Thursday was clear: I had to go see her.
So the next morning I did just that. She had just finished drinking 6 ounces of formula and was lounging in her swing. Within 30 seconds of turning the corner and seeing her, I got what I came for. The baby girl smiled when she heard my voice.
I took care of her while James went out for a few minutes to run an errand. Other than the times I have picked her up from daycare, it was the first time I'd ever had her by myself.
We had fun playing together. She stood on my lap for a bit and then I put her in her pink car themed walker.
After about 15 minutes she got a bit fussy. Having just eaten, she wasn't hungry. I soon discovered why my usually happy granddaughter was upset. I was about to be inducted into Aria's diaper changing club. Luckily she was only wet.
She really enjoyed being changed and smile the entire time; even through my putting the Pamper on backwards. Don't laugh; it was the first time I'd changed a diaper in about 20 years.
As she lay on the sofa we played her favorite game: Get my toes. We alternated my kissing the bottom of her feet with her chewing on her "little piggys" (yes, I did just write that).
By that time her daddy was back. James was meeting one of his friends for lunch so it was time for me to go. I hugged my "precious little treasure" and kissed her good-bye.
I had a few more things to do while I was out and about so I drove into Bowling Green. While heading home I decided to stop at a local flea market.
The Vette City flea market is in an area near the National Corvette Museum.
I hadn't been there in about 6 months. There was probably a lot of new things there by now.
Just like all those "pickers" on the reality shows on TV, for me, going to a flea market or yard sale is like treasure hunting.
I look certain things. I have three types of searches.
Here's the items that I found and the types of searches they fit into:
Search 1: There are things that have a lot of memories connected to them that I'd like to have again. I have a mental list of them. All the items on the entire list may not be foremost in my mind but I'll know one when I see it.
Until I saw this item on Thursday, it seemed as though it only existed in my memory. I searched all over the Internet to buy this album. I came up empty; didn't even see a mention of it.
But during my flea market excursion, in one of the last of the many bins and boxes of albums I searched through I found it.
When I was a young teenager, the Bill Gaither Trio was the "gold standard" in contemporary gospel music. Their concerts sold out all over the country and the world. My youth leader, Beverly Ernst, let me borrow this double album.
I loved it and played it every chance I got. Eventually I had to give it back; but I recorded it onto a cassette. I listened to it until it wore out. The songs and even some of the dialogue from that album has stayed with me through the decades. I hadn't seen it in nearly 40 years, until today.
I was so excited when I saw the cover. I could hardly believe it. My decision to go to the flea market was validated. Of course, my next concern was the condition of the records. They were just about perfect.
One of the top items on my personal gospel music list is now mine.
The most recent item to be added to my "must haves" was an important part of my personal music collection history. But it's no longer there because I found it.
This is the debut album of Daryl Dragon (The Captain) and his wife, Toni Tennille from 1975. It was one of the tapes I chose as my first "12 for a penny" packages from the Columbia House record and tape club.
However, in this age of digital music only the singles from the album, "Love Will Keep Us Together" and "The Way I Want To Touch You" are available as MP3 files. I liked the whole album. So a couple of weeks ago I decided to look for the vinyl version. I now have it.
Search 2: Looking for something I can buy and possibly sell at a profit. This is more of a pipe dream inspired by all the "flipping junk" shows on TV these days.
As I browsed through the booths I saw several older complete sets of baseball cards. They were from different years between 1989 and 1994.
For some reason I've always been challenged by the idea of buying a full set and selling the individual cards to make some money. So I picked up the 1992 Donruss set.
I will be doing some research to see if I can sell some of the "star" and "rookie" cards to get more than my purchase price back.
Search 3: Looking for something I don't know I want but once I see it I am intrigued. If my interest in it enough to validate the price; I'll buy it. Or I'll buy it if it's something I can't live without it and it's not super expensive.
As I mentioned in my August 18 post I'm a fan of Soupy Sales. I already have several songs and comedy bits by Soupy in my I-Tunes collection. But this album displays an aspects of Sales' career that I am not that familiar with.
Most people think of Soupy singing comedy songs such as: Pachalafaka, You're Brains'll Fall Out and his biggest hit, The Mouse. But believe it or not he was a serious singer as well. He made quite a few albums with pop music and other non-comedy genres.
This album, which was very inexpensive, says it's a combination of comedy and serious songs. This is the first Soupy Sales album of this kind that I've seen and in intrigued me. I couldn't help but say to myself, "I'll try that for a $1." So I put it in my shopping cart.
If you read my post about the Realistic portable cassette tape recorder from earlier this month you'll understand why I picked up this album.
It's the vinyl version of one of the first "pre-recorded" cassette tapes (as my parents used to refer to them) I remember listening to on that tape recorder. I had it because mom and dad bought it for me.
So this album has wonderful memories attached to it. But I wasn't looking for it was a pleasant find.
Now I know that records are like and "old school" technology but a clean unscratched copy still has a unique sound. I have a turntable that converts music from albums to computer files which I can add to my I-Tunes collection.
The final item I want to mention is something that came as a total surprise. It's an item that's a combination of a lot of memories (a direct link to my exposure to ventriloquism in the past) and something I never imagined I'd find.
But because this entry is already so lengthy I'll save all that for my next post. Come back and I'll tell you what I found.
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