Sickies

So once again we are plagued by sickies, which is always a bummer, but especially a bummer when it means missing fun things like my friend's daughter's Bat Mitzvah.

I've wanted to attend a Bat Mitzvah ever since I read Davita's Harp in high school. Even though Davita did not get to have a Bat Mitzvah while David did, because she was a girl and girls did not have a Jewish rite of passage in the 1930s.

By the way you should read Davita's Harp. It's definitely in my top 10 favorite books, and one I'll re-read every few years along with A Tree Grows In Brooklyn, Life of Pi, Jane Eyre, all the Harry Potters. . . you get my point. It is one of the good ones.

And just so you know, you should read everything by Chaim Potok. He is one of the greats.

Anyway. So Mastermind and I woke up with uber-sore throats today. I actually had mine yesterday, while I was STILL on antibiotics for strep throat. So it can't be strep again, right? I mean seriously.

Can it?

Ox has had a cough since November along with Belinda Jensen of channel 11 news (according to my  mom). He had choir practice and a performance today, but a barky choir boy sort of ruins the sound. So we shipped him off to my mom's along with Little Frog, dragged ourselves to Target for lots of salty food and happened upon an awesome estate sale. That's right, an estate sale in January. And it was a good one.  Lots of books, glassware, and a bedroom set nearly identical to ours. Too bad "Sold to Dawn" had already bought up most of the place otherwise we would have gotten a new dresser.

Check out the de-tarnished set below!

Better still everything was 50% off today.

Lots of books like I said, I got the best ones there, a set of apple green Louisa May Alcotts for $6 and this cute silver-plate cream/sugar set for $7.50.

Not sure if they're worth much, but they're cute.

Also snagged - a cute end table for the basement (I needed a place to set my tea) that may or may not be a Duncan Pfyfe. If not, it is cute, and matches our dining room table.

But more importantly is a place for me to put my tea.

The mock-pfyfe tea table

But still, I'd rather have gone to the Bat Mitzvah. We have all summer to hop the sales.

Not to mention missing a night out without the kiddos, to celebrate a friend's birthday. We're almost always sick on this particular friend's birthday. It's a little ridiculous.

People are going to start thinking we're pretending to be sick to get out of doing things, but we're not.

At least there are the Alcotts, apple green.

This Just In: My darling Mastermind has a thing for cleaning tarnished silver (or silver-plate). See the silver at left? SO much shinier than before.

Trick: line a large pan with aluminum foil, fill with water. Add a 5:1 ratio baking soda to salt and let it come to a boil. Add silver and let it simmer for 1-2 minutes. Follow up with a good silver polish. This is a no-fail method, and pretty easy.