Exploring our Surroundings

Yesterday morning we headed out to visit a couple of Farmer’s Markets and a few thrift stores (hoping to solve some of our kitchen organizational problems on the cheap.)

First, the Northfield Farmer’s Market. It was considerably larger than the Glenview Farmer’s Market and we left with a mini loaf of marble bread and a mini loaf of zucchini bread, some mini plums and some tiny yellow tomatoes. We skipped the other veggies, thinking we’d get some at the next FM.

Next stop, the Northbrook Historical Society Shop – not really a thrift store, but a consignment shop. It was interesting, a tiny little room, but the women working there scared me. They were talking about their “house fires” like this is an everyday thing and no big deal. House fires? Scary! Are they that common that you can chat about losing everything without a blink of an eye?

Then we headed toward Skokie in search of the Skokie Farmer’s Market. Err we found it, or found where it was supposed to be but there were no farmers! I thought maybe this was just the parking area and the market was tucked away in a village park that can’t be seen from the street – so I drove around the block and came up empty. Drove through Skokie, peering down side streets looking for signs of farmers. Nothing. Weird. Turns out it’s on SUNDAY and not SATURDAY. duh. sheesh.

Since I was starving, I was also looking for some place to eat – found something interesting but couldn’t find parking so I kept driving down Oakton, hit a cross street that had no sign and took it to Dempster since our next stop would require hitting Dempster and looking for Crawford.

We drove and drove and drove with no sign of Crawford but that was OK because I knew there was food at Chicago and Dempster and sure enough, we got there – parked on the street and jumped into a bagel shop, Bagel Art. The Green Mt. Veggie Wrap was good, so was the coffee.

We got back in the car and continued down Dempster but at this point, I had pretty much decided we had missed Crawford. Sure enough, we landed on Lake Shore and turned around. TW opened the trust iPhone map and found Crawford – turns out that cross street with no name, the one I took off of Oakton was Crawford. Hah. Whatever.

We made our way through Skokie, back through Evanston and into Chicago and found Unique which really was the most unique thrift store EVER. I cannot describe this place – tons of clothes, all of which seemed in pretty darn good shape but organized oddly so sizes were impossible to find. No furniture that would solve our kitchen needs but I found a book that I thought was a sequel to a book RJ liked – turns out it was the sequel to Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging and I don’t think RJ read that. Oh well, we’ll enjoy it ourselves. (The young man who rang up my book looked at the very pretty pink and green hard cover and said “awe, cute!” and opened the first page to find “On the bright side, I’m now the girl friend of a sex God.” He closed it fast and looked shocked and I laughed so hard. He did not expect THAT in such a pretty little book, being bought by a middle-aged woman.)

From there, we headed back in the direction of Niles. Took a quick detour into a Tuesday Morning which was a lot more dumpy thrift store like than we’re used to in a Thursday Morning. And it smelled funny. Still no kitchen solutions, sheesh.

We found our way to the Wings shop in Niles and we could have bought any number of great things but none of them were things we absolutely NEEDED. I can, however, see us going back there again – and again. (I would also like a word with their webmaster. Those horizontal navs should not blink. It’s unnecessary and troubling. Stop that.)

Then, we stopped at the annual Glenview Art Festival where we were once again reminded that we are not in Florida (or anywhere in the south) any longer. There were no paintings of Miami or the Keys. No alligators. And the people were talking about how much BIGGER the festival was this year. umm bigger? Also, the people were… well that’s a post for another day when I tell you about regional differences. We bought nothing and were only tempted by metal lawn art sculptures. (These folks could also use some web design help. Are there no web designers in this area????)

So – we spent about five hours roaming the “neighborhood”. It was interesting and fun in a strange way. We’re definitely not in Florida anymore.