We have arrived in Georgia, but since our house isn’t ready for us to move in to, we’re staying with family in Atlanta.  My sis-in-law and her husband are very gracious hosts and took us to several antique stores here.

I love antique stores.  I love the smell of dust-covered old stuff.  It’s exhilarating – that is until, I look closer and find that the dust-covered object I’m holding was made ten years ago.  That’s when I get irritated.  However, Saturday wasn’t one of those days.  Saturday was a day filled with treasures.

I guess I should start by mentioning that my favorite things to find in antique stores are cameras and telephones.

If I had money to piss away I would spend it on antique cameras and telephones……and modern day Mac Book Pro’s, digital cameras and nook books.  Out with the new, back to the old:  I’m always on the look out for accordion style cameras.  I think they’d make great conversation pieces and I have two end tables that would just love to display them.  Of course, the end tables don’t know that…yet.

With telephones, I like the old candlestick style phones as well as the old-fashioned rotary phones – the phones from the 1930’s.  I love those rotary phones.  They’re heavy and made from metal.  My greatest technological disappointment is that phones today aren’t heavy enough to kill someone.  Not that I go around looking for ways to kill people – I have a life and would rather not spend it in jail – but think about it; you’re at home, alone, and a serial killer tries to break in.  The Ghostbusters won’t come because it isn’t paranormal and it takes the police about 6-8 minutes to respond once you’ve placed the call.  Since the phone is the object that you’re closest too when the killer gets inside, wouldn’t it be comforting to know you could bash his or her brains in with the phone?  With today’s technology, I’d be forced to through my cell phone at him.  I think we all know how that would end.  If I was really smart, I’d throw my cat at him.  That actually might work.  She’s pretty feisty.  Don’t believe me, just read her posts.

I also really like the wooden wall phones with the hand cranks.  I’d love to hang one of those up in my kitchen.

Back to Saturday –

We went to four different antique shops but the first one was my favorite.  It was also the store where I found three cameras and a wall phone I can’t live with out.  I know what you’re thinking; you’re being a tad dramatic don’t you think?  No.  I’m not.  I can’t live with out these four items.  They all screamed at me as I walked away and I know if I go back and they’re not there, my life will be over.  Okay – now I am being dramatic – but only a tad.

The cameras were the first to grab my attention:  two accordion style cameras and a 1950’s 35mm camera with a beaten-up leather case.  The accordions were really pretty and had a reddish tinge to them.  The 1950’s 35 mm was, well, really, really pretty.  Sorry, I know there are better adjectives to use but the beauty of this camera took my breath away.  I would have purchased all three of them right then but two things stopped me.  First, this was the first store we went too and I wanted to see what the other stores had.  Second, I wasn’t entirely sure how I would explain to my five month old that we couldn’t feed him because I spent his formula money on toys for myself.  Sadly, I said my goodbyes to Elmer, Clarence and Kevin (Elmer and Clarence were the accordion cameras and Kevin is the 35 mm.)  Yes I named the cameras. 

Moving along –

I made my way through the store finding a lot of neat things, but the only other object in the store that grabbed my attention, besides Elmer, Clarence and Kevin, was Harold.  Harold is a beautiful wooden wall phone.  My kitchen walls would wear Harold with pride……if they ever meet.

In the end, no cameras or phones were purchased however, we did find something for baby – that still allows us to feed him – and something for my kitchen walls.

Our son’s room, in Maryland, was decorated in a nautical theme.  I found out from a friend of mine that the nautical theme was the “in” theme this year.  My husband and I really don’t care about what’s “in”.  We buy what we like and we decorate the same.  We went with the nautical theme because we picked our crib set based on the giant whale that came on the quilt which was included in the set.

Anyway, the decorations in his room include a life ring that says “Welcome Aboard”, a set of four star fish, each in its own shadow box, a painting of a light house, a multi-colored crab (courtesy of my sister-in-law) and now, to complete the room:

This sign.  It was only $3 and we couldn’t resist.  There was a slight problem with the purchase.  We didn’t have any cash and the store required a minimum $5 purchase in order to use a debit card.  That set us on a mission to buy something else so we could have this sign.

That’s when we found this:

A lovely wall shelf.  My husband suggested we add this to the wall decorations for the baby’s room but I had something else in mind.  We have an astronomical amount of spices between the two of us.  We have two spice racks filled with spices and then a whole bunch more taking up precious cabinet space.  I suggested we use this as a third spice rack.  My husband agreed.  This lovely little piece cost $8.  Added bonus:  we both like the color.

And this, my lovely and faithful readers, concludes my weekend antiquing in Atlanta.  I hope you have enjoyed this post.  Please note that no serial killers were harmed by telephones during the writing of this post.