Iron, Wood, Candy

Though we've been together for 12 years, yesterday Chris and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. Seems a trifling number - 6 - doesn't it? Especially in the grand scheme of things. We've been together a long time, we have. I was a 23-year-old young gal when we met, he a mere 21.

Three days prior to our anniversary I desperately googled "6th anniversary traditional gifts" - I got iron, wood, and candy. I was at a loss for iron, knew I would immediately eat any candy I purchased for him, and toyed with the idea of buying him a block of wood he could carve into an old fashioned fishing lure - except that he already has half a dozen little wooden fishies lying around the house already. No. I had nothing. No time, no inspiration, no creativity.

And then, on a visit to my Grandma's, we stopped by our very first auction: the estate sale of a recently-deceased but long-time-collector local man. On the block, so to speak? Light bulbs, old tools, rifles, antique books, tractors, tires, shelving, display cases, safes, and all manner of craziness. We were unprepared, naive, out of place. I admitted to the woman handing out buyers' numbers that I had never done this. She told me the basics, said she knew my dad, graduated high school with my aunt, wished me luck, and sent me on my way.

The auction starts at 9:30am

The man collected all manner of stuff: farm tools, old invoices, glass bottles of all shape and size...

Bela and Mae find a spot to sit on a cleared-out auction table.

And it was incredibly fun. We stayed 5 hours, taking turns checking on the girls, entertaining them, feeding them. I turned out to be a fairly conservative but still very assertive bidder. For under $135 we walked away with a full size bow and a complete set of antique arrows; moose antlers; an antique pulley; a drill and a scroll saw; an antique tool box; an old department of transportation map of Illinois; two children's desks; an antique dresser/secretary; an old toy bin; an antique brownie camera, and a few other odds and ends.

When all was said and done, we walked the girls across the street to the only ATM in town - it happened to be located at the Sweet Shop (remember the candy shop we visited on the fourth of July?). As I withdrew money to cover our fun but ridiculous purchases, the girls picked out candy for themselves, for me, and for their dad.

And as we loaded up our little car and opened our packs of sour patch kids and lollipops, I realized that we had done it. We had celebrated our anniversary in a style perfectly fitting us: a small town estate sale auction where we managed to get our hands on some iron, some wood, and some candy.

one of the desks - destined for some refinishing; old tool box

Camera, pulley, tools, apple corer/peeler

Bow, arrows, toy chest, an owl picture we actually picked up at my grandma's church

Happy Anniversary Chris. I love you.