Recent Goodwill Scores

by | Jul 23, 2009 | Julie | 5 comments

A few weeks ago I went into Goodwill looking for capri pants, since my only capri pants were sad and stained (well, ok, one pair was sad and stained, and the other pair fits fine if I’m standing but if I do something as daring as sitting or, heaven forbid, squatting, I show the entire state my butt crack). I didn’t find any capri pants, but I did get two awesome pairs of corduroys.

The ones on the left are J. Crew Favorite Fit (which I think Emily recommended on the “What Do You Wear?” post). They are, indeed, my favorite fit. Sadly, it’s been such a bust of a summer so far that I’ve worn them a bunch of times already. I’m already getting nervous about them getting worn out, because they cost me $2.50 and I can see that new ones are more like $80. The cords on the right are from Garnet Hill. They’re light blue; I don’t know why they look white in the photo. Believe me, I wouldn’t wear white cords. You might as well stick a skewer in me and roast me over the campfire. Anyway. They’re great and have a fun little buckle thing going on at the cuff. Also $2.50.

And then! Two days after that Goodwill trip, Sutswana appeared at my house with a perfect pair of capris that she’d found at Goodwill for $2.50. THANK YOU.

They look kind of elephantine in the photo here, but believe me, they’re super cute. They’re from Moonstone and are some kind of quick dry nylon fabric that makes me look like maybe I’m about to go hike a huge mountain, or maybe I’m just some super fashionable chick.

And then we got this other totally great score. Someone with our same taste in children’s books recently unloaded a bunch of books on tape. First we found a four-tape set of Winnie-the-Pooh (unabridged) and When We Were Very Young read by Peter Dennis. A great find at 99 cents, though I will say he is my least favorite narrator. We’ve gotten the Lionel Jeffries version out of the library, and that was ok, but he kind of gets all the voices wrong. We are deeply loyal to the Jim Broadbent versions. We have both Winnie-the-Pooh and House at Pooh Corner on CD, and Broadbent gets everything exactly exactly right. The Peter Dennis is ok, except he makes Pooh sound a little too fey, and, more distressing, he snorts like a pig every time he delivers a Piglet line, and it’s distracting and kind of wrong. But the boys have still been listening to them, for some variety, and the poems are great, and now we have some A.A. Milne we can listen to in the car. (Plus it was 99 cents for all four tapes! How could we go wrong?)

I also found Best Friends for Frances, narrated by the late, great Arnold Lobel and someone named Alice Playten who thankfully channels Emily the whole time. The songs are totally different than the way I do them, very Broadway musical, but that’s ok. I make all the songs in kid books sound way too much like commercial jingles anyway (“Buy it today! Strega Nona’s Magic Pot! Now! With More Pasta!”). (And now I’m thinking this was really a huge find, since the only one I can find on Amazon.com is a record of it for $45.)

And finally, we got Arnold Lobel reading all the Frog and Toad books. This is so amazingly great that I recommend that you all go immediately and buy the CD of it. We’re obsessed. We were already huge Frog and Toad fans, but Arnold Lobel reading them (plus the catchiest little intro song ever) just makes us swoon. I have such a posthumous crush on Arnold Lobel.

And then one last thing! While I was waiting in line with the Frog and Toad tape, I spied the best. handbag. ever. Genuine Angela Adams, in a style I’ve coveted on numerous shoulders all over Portland. You know how I’m all about the retro 70s thing. Plus it’s brown and turquoise. And it has an orange lining with circle print. Plus it’s enormous. And has a million pockets. Seriously — when I transferred all my stuff into this bag, it all fit so neatly into the pockets that when you looked into the bag it was empty. I had to rearrange a bit so that some of my stuff lived in the bag itself.

I have no idea how much this bag cost originally, but considering an Angela Adams canvas tote about the same size costs $85, we’ll guess my new bag was $3,000. Or, at least, that’s what I’m telling myself so that the $25 I paid for it seems even sweeter.

5 Comments

  1. teresa

    It is so fun to read your post. Remember to check out the goodwill in Falmouth as well as Millcreek. I noticed your
    bag yesterday and thought that it was a sign of you treating
    yourself, full price. Scoring it at Goodwill – PRICELESS.
    GREAT to see you yesterday. You look incredible.

    Reply
  2. Anne

    This is such a tease, since I came here directly from a fruitless search on the web for The Elusive Perfect Bag (and yes, I absolutely do have real work to do; heh), and there you’ve found one in perfect condition at Goodwill!

    I must get those Frog and Toad recordings. Maybe that will be my retail therapy for never finding the perfect bag.

    Reply
  3. LoriO

    Super awsome thrift score! Woooooo!

    Reply
  4. Julie

    Anne, it’s totally your perfect bag. I’m sorry they don’t seem to sell it anymore (maybe they’ll reissue something similar in the Fall?) because it would be worth buying new (assuming it’s not actually $3,000).

    You really need the Frog and Toad recordings. (By the way, I saw a photo of Arnold Lobel for the first time, and he totally lived long enough to grow into “Arnold.” It’s pretty clear he was an “Arnold” his whole life.)

    Reply
  5. Mo

    LOVE LOVE LOVE the bag.

    Reply

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