Monday stuff.

I came downstairs and pulled up the living room blinds this morning, and who should be looking right at me from one of my hanging baskets?

Can you see Mama (or Papa?) Mourning Dove?

There were two birds in the pot, but by the time I got the camera, only one had its head up.

I had to water my pots, though, and although they sat and watched me water the other two, when I started to tip the pitcher toward their pot, they took off, twittering in a very irritated fashion. I don't know if they had started to lay eggs or not, but they may not come back now that I've interfered.

I feel bad, but bird nests in my hanging pots really skeeve me out. I don't want baby birds anywhere that close to me or my front porch. Baby birds are the creepiest things I can think of. That's why I'll be making Todd check the pot for a nest tonight--if there are baby birds in there, I don't want to see!

Speaking of creepy--yesterday we took a drive out into the country west of Suffolk to search out some antique stores one of Todd's co-workers told him were out there. It was not a fruitful trip! Toward the end of the day, Todd dubbed these places "shacks of crap," which is both succinct and accurate. I never thought of myself as an especially fastidious person, but the shops along the way were some of the filthiest, scariest shacks I've ever seen.

Picture a cheap outbuilding erected in, oh, 1929, with several extra rooms tacked on over the years but otherwise left completely untouched. Now fill that shack wall-to-wall with every sort of old crap you can think of, and let it just moulder in the dirt and damp. Now, attach price tags more fitting with the upscaliest of upscale boutiques. Hire yourself a couple old guys in seed caps to run it, and you, too, can do business in rural Virginia. You can sell boiled peanuts if you need to actually keep a money-making item on hand.

I wish I was exaggerating, but sadly, I'm not. The last place we stopped actually replaced the Jefferson Ave. flea market at the top of my list as the nastiest place I've ever set foot in.

And speaking of the Jeff Ave. flea market, guess where our first stop was on our way out of town? Todd stops by here every Sunday morning in search of old tools and cheap DVDs, but I'd never returned after my first trip last fall.

I actually found something interesting this time, though.

This tole tray is enormous--I'm actually not sure what I'm going to do with it--but it was five bucks! I saw five or six tole trays later in our "shack of crap" tour that were selling for $50-80.

I also got a 1941 Webster's children's dictionary that has some great illustration plates...I'll try to scan and share some later this week.

I'm feeling frustrated because after days of babying my right shoulder, I yanked my left shoulder blade out of whack this morning trying to unzip the side pocket in my yoga pants, of all the dumb things. So my afternoon task of sanding, priming and painting my table is going undone after a couple abortive tries. It's extremely frustrating. So I need to tackle a few things on my to-do list that don't require arm movement. Hmmm...