Let's Shop!!

My daughter is graduating from college early in May.

This fact brings all the usual prideful feelings to me, those typical of any parent watching their youngest finish with a degree these days.  And while I couldn't be more proud of her, there is something that would put a different sort of mother into a panic.  

No, she's not moving back home.  (She's moving to Thomasville.)  And no, she's not going to be one of the many out looking for a job, any job, after graduating with honors and no employment in sight.  (She's going to be a grad assistant, getting a free master's degree while doing what she loves most, coaching soccer.)  What then, you say, could cause a mother to freak out?

Here it is.  She's lived in a furnished apartment for four years.  And her new apartment?  You guessed it.  It's unfurnished.

Many moms would, at this point, start looking for things around the house that would make perfectly good, first apartment, early I'm-on-my-own kind of furniture.  Or maybe check out the neighborhood yard sales and see if they can pick up somebody else's old stuff.  Me?  I'm shopping alright.  

At antique stores.

Now anyone who knows me knows that I'm not rich.  Remember, I'm a retired teacher and my husband is a retired firefighter.  While we do have pretty good pensions--especially when you consider many have lost all they had saved and now don't have any chance of retiring because of the economy--we still have the same bills to pay as when we worked.  (Actually more, if you count that boat we bought last year...)  So it's not like I can go to some furniture store and buy two bedrooms worth of stuff, along with a dining room, a living room, and maybe an office. Oh, and don't forget the washer and dryer.  But I can (and did) check every antique store in Gwinnett County. (I got a really good price on an antique rocker with a caned back and sides and a newly covered seat cushion for the living room.  And an end table that we're going to refinish.  Oh, and a cute antique square dining room table with spindle legs and two ladderback chairs.  And a thick mantle piece that's gonna make a cool shelf.)  This is what I know:  I love antiques.  (So does my daughter.  Really.) And I love, really love, to shop.

What's next?  Well, there are a lot more antique stores between here and Thomasville, and I just bet I'll find several more things that I, I mean she, just can't live without.

PS.  Okay, I confess.  She is taking an old couch from the basement.  And a coffee table.  And she's taking one of the desks from our house.  But did I tell you I'm looking for random vintage china pieces for the china cabinet she found at an antique store in Milledgeville today??