You Never Know What You'll Find at a Yard Sale

So the other day, my fiance and I were out and about doing a little yard sailing. We weren't looking for anything in particular, but I did have one small thing in mind should I come across one I liked. We have an old tree stump out in our front yard, and my fiance likes to leave seeds and nuts and such out for the squirrels and the blue-jays to eat, so I was hoping to come across a fun looking large jar to store the seed in. I have some old canning jars on a shelf in our living room, they are the ones with the old metal lids and have a greenish beachy hue to the glass, so while looking for a new jar for our bird seed, I was hoping to find one that matched the others I already have.

Lowe and behold, I found some jars at a yard sale, and although they weren't quite what I was looking for, I had to re-consider. I found two jars, exactly the same and 50 cents each. They were newer than what I wanted, and had a red wire flip top style lid. But my biggest reason for not wanting them was that my decor is more or less earthy beachy type things, and I didn't think the red wire design was going to fit in very well, but while making small talk with the gal who was putting on the yard sale, I changed my mind and decided to get one of the jars. Here's why...

After telling the gal my reason for wanting a big jar to hold seed in, she mentioned to me that those two jars were her sisters, and she had recently passed away, but she would be very happy to know that that was how I had planned to use them, to feed the birds and squirrels. So, because of that, and heck, for only 50 cents, I decide to get one. We round up a few other things, mostly gardening tools, pay for our items, and go about our merry way.

Once we got back to our truck, I tell my fiance the story about the gals sister, that those were her jars, and that she was very happy to know how I would be using the one we bought. My fiance, a bit of a softy as he is, turns the truck around and heads back to the sale. Why, I ask? He says, both of those jars are perfectly usable and why would we bother splitting up such a pair? Once we get back, we grab the other jar, go back to the gal to pay and tell her that we just couldn't let a perfectly good pair be split apart, and that we'll use one jar for seeds, and another jar for nuts. She was so happy that I could see she was fighting back tears of joy, and just continued to say thank you several times over as we headed back to our truck.

So now, every time I look at those jars, I think of the glow from that ladies face, and the spirit of her sister that now lives on as we feed the happy little critters in our yard.