How much did your thrifty outfit cost?: July 2015

This is Sugar.

Ten years ago, she came home with us.

Sugar was adopted from the animal shelter. She had been found running loose in a sketchy part of town. She gave birth to a litter of pups in the shelter. All the puppies were adopted, but no one wanted the mom.

I took the girls to the shelter when we were looking for a dog to adopt. When we walked into the kennels we were deafened by the cacophony of barking dogs - except for Sugar. She wagged her tail at us and smiled.

We went home to think about things. I couldn't get Sugar out of my mind. All weekend I was worried that someone else would adopt her.

We went back to visit her again, and decided to adopt her. The kennel attendant put her in a holding area which had a 2 metre high fence. As we walked away, we heard a funny noise....when we turned to see what had happened, we saw that Sugar had jumped to the top of the fence and was dangling there. The kennel attendant wasn't happy - now she had to get Sugar down.

We proceeded to the front desk to pay for her microchip and license fees. An older attendant moseyed up and took a long look at us. He asked if we knew what we were getting into. That should have been my first inkling that life with Sugar wouldn't be easy, but it was filled with lots of happy moments.

Moments like when we'd go for walks, and Sugar would happily bound along, wagging her tail. Moments like when a bear cub would venture onto our country property - Sugar loved chasing bear cubs!! Don't worry - no bear cubs were hurt, just slightly traumatized.

Sugar struggled with being a good dog. She like to dig inconveniently large holes in our front yard. She was obsessed with our neighbour's pedigree chickens. She couldn't be trusted around human food. And she figured out how to get into the garbage can. Sometimes the kids and I would return home to find gnaw marks on our possessions, dog hair where it shouldn't be and a suspiciously innocent-looking Sugar. That's OK Sugar, those gnaw marks look good on our antique dresser, they remind us of you.

Sugar's health started declining several years ago. When I took her to the vet, Sugar refused to allow the stethoscope anywhere near her. Sugar didn't mind the vet, but if anything resembling a medical appliance came close to her - she squirmed away.

One morning Sugar looked at me - and I saw she wasn't well. I made the difficult decision and we took one last drive together.

You were a good companion Sugar.

Hello friends!! I have been acquiring Vintage Pyrex at an alarming rate. I thought I'd stop and breathe to show you my ever increasing ~~hoard~~ collection.

Da da da DUM!! ThriftyParka presents..

VINTAGE PYREX ITW!!!

(ITW stands for In The Wild - ha, ha, ha look a me using a new blogger acronym!!!)

This was my collection a month ago. All of these items were acquired at thrift stores. There are no complete sets, yet, just a nice mix of newer, older and vintage pieces.

I started with 4 or 5 pieces, purchased years ago from thrift stores. I only buy pieces that have nice glossy sides. I can't abide vintage Pyrex that has dull color from beening run through the dishwasher...ugh, just the feeling of my fingers on that dry, powdery surface makes my fillings rattle, ugh!!!

The top left shows 2 casserole dishes stacked on top of each other.

I found them at Value Village last month, where they were priced at an exorbitant price of $30 each. I had a 30% off coupon, and they were in excellent shape, so they came home with me.

Ummmm, bright daisy goodness!!!

The white lid with the green print is Spring Blossoms. See!! I'm learning the pattern names and everything!!!

Then there was the haul from a small thrift store - it yielded this $22 Horizon Blue set!!!

I find these smaller, casserole dishes very useful. Sometimes I'll cook a smaller entree, or a hot vegetable dish and these casseroles are the perfect size to transport it to my bf's house. He lives a short-distance away, and he has hungry mouths to feed!! So it's important that hot food stays hot and delicious!!

Isn't it great how these dishes stack so nicely??

Back at Value Village, I spotted the small yellow bowl, and a Butterfly Gold casserole dish.

Yeow! $9.99 for the small bowl was pricey, but aside from a few nicks to the paint, it was in great shape (plus I had another coupon), so it came home with me. So did the lidless, casserole for $6.

The best part of finding vintage Pyrex is carefully transporting it home and letting it warm up on the counter (winters here get really cold - you don't want to plunge a cold, glass dish into a sink of hot soapy water). Then I have a little ritual where I wash it a couple of times. The first time is to take off the yuck and dust (you should see some of the secondhand places I shop, bleah!). Then I rinse it carefully and pat it dry. Then I examine the pieces for cooked on crud. Then it's back to a fresh sink of hot soapy water to get rid of the crud. I'll use a steel, wool pad with a very light touch to get rid of that.

Hmmmm, I just re-read what I wrote. It sounds like I have a Pyrex obsession, eh?

Continuing with my ~~obsessive compulsion~~ desire for clean, pretty Pyrex, then I'll plan how to display the Pyrex. But fear not, these pretty dishes are not just for show. They're wonderful as fruit bowls, stove-to-fridge food containers.

Plus if you have toasty buns (hee), a lidded container keeps them nice and warm.

In an effort to distract you from my new obsession, I'm going to show you a random picture.

Scenic, highway picture of my drive out to the cottage - isn't it stunning?

A fuzzy shot of Lake Superior....so beautiful and calming.

...and now back to our regular programming.

I was particularly glad to find this Snowflake Garland. I already had the 2 smaller bowls. Now I just need the smallest bowl and I have the complete set!!! Price was $8.99 at Salv Army.

Check out the glossy colour!!

Some random cups that I didn't buy. But I was very tempted by the Corelle and the Spring Blossom.

These almost came home with me, but I resisted!!

During my thrift haul, I re-visited a "everything under the sun" second hand store. I won't lie, the housewares section was shoved off into a dark, dirty corner, but I found some reasonable priced Pyrex waiting for me to bring them home.

The upside down white casserole with the wheat pattern is a FireKing dish. It also came from this store.

Not shown are the 2 Pyrex, glass carafes I bought. One came with the original plastic lid. But I was too skeeved out by the old dirt on the lid, so I washed it, measured it, and threw it out. I'll find a new cork replacement.