Okay, I admit there's much more to (my) life than gardening

Yes, I'm actually an extremely busy person even when I'm not playing in the dirt. I did previously mention that my husband and I have a small antiques business. We not only buy them but we fix them (no broken or off-track drawers in our shops). If the finishes are less than satisfactory, we'll refinish them or sometimes paint them. Expect to see repurposed items as well as new handmade items made to look old. You'll oftentimes find us combing yard sales and estate auctions. Okay, yes, and doing some curbside shopping on trash days. We'll be either in a white GMC pickup truck or a maroon colored van. Chances are, my husband will be shamelessly looking through the treasures that someone else didn't know how to fix. He would never just pick up junk. (That's his story and believe me, he's sticking to it.) Oh, and I'll be the one slumped in the passenger seat, barely peeking over the door acting as his "lookout" and hoping that nobody recognizes our vehicle. (This chair to the left was really old and broken down before I refinished it. You can see the "before" pix here: http://adobe.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=pctuuze.1u9qqv2u&Uy=-7osibs&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=0&UV=79668751782_579204863110 Saturday night we went to what I can only refer to as the Auction from Hell. We were trying to help out his sister (long story that is reserved for another time) by taking yet another truckload of her stuff (as I said, long story...) to sell. Let me try to give you a visual here. Picture a large old wood building in the middle of a muddy parking lot with occasional small remnants of gravelled areas. The sign was old, the word "Auction" was first misspelled and then corrected with a coat of brighter white paint and darker letters. We were told that the auction would begin at 7:30 PM and that each dealer (each person with items to sell) would pull a number that would indicate the sequence of our lots. Twenty minutes would be given for each dealer's items and, if time allowed, the sequence would start over after the last dealer's twenty minutes were up. Okay, sounded fair to us. That is, until the auctioneer called for the dealers to come forward and pull a number. And half the crowd went forward. We were number 13, two from the bottom. Little kids panned through the crowd selling "grab bags" for $1.00 each. People kept coming in, curiously looking at my hubby, stepson and myself sitting protectively in our front row seats. I wondered why so many the dirty denim-clad people had put Coca-Cola in the Mountain Dew bottles they were carrying. Then I realized that wasn't Coke, that they were using the bottles to spit their tobacco into. And the men were even worse. I leaned toward my husband and asked him if he felt the same as myself, as though we were trapped in never before scene of the movie, Deliverance. But I digress. Long story short, certain "dealers" stretched their twenty minutes into thirty and holding. Number 13 was called shortly after midnight. A collector Mitchell fishing rod and reel went for just under $10. That was the big sale of the night. An antique National cash register sold for $2. The bulk of the other items went into boxes that sold for $1.00 each. I snatched a box of olde McCoy cannisters before the auction personnel grabbed it for the auction block declaring to my husband, "There's no way I'm letting this sell for $1.00!!!" (It's now repacked and ready to go into one of our shops) And here's my sales pitch: If you're in East Tennessee and are looking for a great value in McCoy cannisters, go to Elizabethton and check out ROBIN'S NEST and the SHOP AROUND THE CORNER. Here's a peek at some of the things in the Shop Around the Corner: http://www.shoparound-thecorner.com/