San Diego - Pride, Hobbies, Movies and Swap Meets

This weekend, Scout and I tried to lay low.  We live in an area of San Diego called Hillcrest, which is a wonderfully diverse and cultural neighborhood with fantastic shops, farmers markets, and restaurants.  The best thing about the area, however, really is the people.  Seldom do you meet someone who isn't friendly.  We love living here.  This was San Diego Pride weekend, and Hillcrest is where all the fun happens.  Scout read somewhere that over 500,000 people come into San Diego each year to celebrate Pride.  The streets certainly were packed with people, whether they were watching the parade, or standing in lines to get into bars and clubs.  Everyone was in a great mood and having lots of fun. 

Scout and I avoided Pride this year, instead opting to stay home and work on some of our projects.  We recently bought an antique, hand-carved wooden bench that we want to re-stain and reupholster.  It took one can of stain remover and the 2 of us to remove the stain on half the bench.  (This project is going to take longer than we thought it would.)  We also bought new material for the cushion, but once we got it home decided we don't really like it.  Anyway, here is a picture of the bench when we bought it.  There is a terrible water stain on the cushion, so that part will be replaced. 

We also went to a really cool Swap Meet  to look for a mid-century modern end table for the living room.  Scout is basically the luckiest person I have ever met, and not only did she find what she was looking for, but the table was only $70.  There are a few furniture stores that specialize in mid-century modern in the area, and it would have been a lot more expensive to buy it from one of them.  She recently did a lot of research on a mid-century wall unit, and we were able to find one of those at an estate sale for $500.  Again, this was so much cheaper than what they wanted in the stores.

One thing we have been talking a lot about lately is not buying anything new anymore, and instead buying used items from places like swap meets, flea markets, and second-hand stores.  Scout has a theory that the world would still function and be just as thriving for quite a while if there was no new production of anything - if we just learned to live with and use what already existed.  It's an interesting theory.  Certainly, the swap meet we went to today had everything from socks to furniture to soap to jewelry.  And if you just absolutely can't find what you want, you can either reevaluate if you really need it, or you can go ahead and buy it new.  But imagine how much you could reduce your carbon footprint and your waste production by buying "old" rather than buying new.  I think we are coming close to actually trying to do this.  We do have a bathroom re-model project coming up where I doubt we will be able to buy "old" for all of it, but we will probably give it a shot.  It's really worth the effort.

It's also important to give what you aren't using to people who need it.  Here is a picture of Bella helping me decide what clothes I should donate.  She's so helpful.

To round out the weekend, we also saw the final film of Harry Potter.  It was wonderful.  Scout and I are both big Harry Potter fans, and it was just fantastic to see the end of that story.  I remember when the first Harry Potter movie came out - I asked God to please let me live through November of that year so I could see the movie...I was that excited about it.  And I have loved all of them.  It's nice to have seen the full series, but I'm also keeping my fingers crossed that one day, there may be another!

That's all for now.  We have more adventures coming up this week when Scout's parents come to visit from the east coast.  It's always fun to play tour guide in your own town - you never know what you might discover!