Travel and Weather

I drove to the UP to visit my Mother for a couple of days. She turned 84 on Friday. Driving up was an adventure - pouring rain, hail, sunshine. In Michigan (probably this saying is popular in other places as well) we have a saying, "If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute."

For an 84 year old, my Mom sure is a lively one. For my one full day there, she and my sister who lives with her had the day planned out and we filled it. We began with breakfast at home at 8:30. We then drove into town and filled up the tank and began our adventure. First stop Hope House in St. Ignace. This is a second hand store that is huge and very well organized. Their pricing is "donation". I worry that they don't always get what they are worth. At any rate, I filled up two bags - I bought lovely lace, both a border and lots of applique pieces; a few scratched LPs that I am planning to gesso and paint over; a handball racquet that I am planning to sand, gesso and paint; several plastic metric tape measures; a Scrabble junior game with lovely cardboard letters that I will use to "write" on my mixed media pieces; a couple of old calendars with beautiful pictures; a latch hook rug design book with lovely patterns; an old cupcake pan that I will use for a palette, and a few books. I will definitely go back there next time I am "home". I gave them $20, which seemed to be a big surprise to them. I definitely got my money's worth.

Next stop, the library, where we picked out a few large print books for Mom. We then drove to Hessel and picked up another sister who took us to a second hand store in Cedarville. This is a very small store/food pantry that is mostly clothes. I did find a deviled egg plate that looked like a paint palette to me and another cupcake pan. We took that sister back to Hessel (she has a sick cat and didn't want to leave her too long) and drove to the Soo (Sault Ste. Marie) to a huge Goodwill store. What a disappointment!! All of us are familiar with the Goodwill stores down near my house and over in the southwest corner of Michigan, where they are very clean and organized and very reasonably priced. The store in the Soo was way overpriced - their used books were $3 and $4 dollars. I found some cute little stamps in there, but they were as expensive as they are at Michael's. My sister found a used jacket that was priced at $19.99, about three times as much as it would be at any other Goodwill store I have ever visited. And maybe the worst thing about the store, was that the clothes were soiled - they hadn't even bothered to clean them before putting price tags on them.

I appreciate the Goodwill store in Lansing even more than I did before.