So I went out looking for a dress for a scarecrow...

and I found...

I'll get to that.

My husband, who makes friends with EVERYBODY, is now buddies

with this couple who run a farm growing native species, i.e. New Jersey native species.  The farm's called Goshen Gardens.  It's in the Goshen section of Cape May Court House.  You should stop by some weekend.

The female half of the couple wanted a new sundress for her scarecrow (wish I had a pic of the scarecrow - it's REALLY cool), because scarecrow's current sundress had seen better days.  She asked if I could find her one.

I'm all about helping people find stuff.

Last Wednesday, I was at the Golden Nugget Antique Market aka Golden Nugget Flea Market (it really is an antique market, though) in Lambertville, NJ

Didn't find a sundress there, but I didn't expect to.  There was lots of vintage clothing there, but I think the scarecrow would prefer to wear something contemporary.

From the Golden Nugget, I went into Trenton.  The Trenton area has LOTS of thrift stores.

I went to the dumpy-est one first.

Which is also the best.  Usually.

The Trenton Rescue Mission Thrift Store

Even though it's dumpy, I've found AMAZING things there over the years.  The dumpy factor: almost zero of the clothing is on hangers.  Rather it's piled high on tables.

And Wednesday, at the very top of one of the piles was this:

Emilio Pucci robe/house coat.

Digging deeper, I also found...

A vintage Hawaiian shirt.

Vintage meaning old and not a recent repro.

Cost for both?

Clothing is sold by the pound there, and so the weight of my Emilio Pucci and the Hawaiian shirt was fairly light, and thus and therefore I was charged only $1.50.  Note also that thrifts in NJ are sales tax exempt  (clothing is also sales tax exempt), so that $1.50 was a flat $1.50.

What I didn't find, however, was a sundress.

Finally, I got one at the Salvation Army store on Mulberry street.  Wish I had a pic of the store, but I don't.  It was half price, so I paid $1.99 for it.  A plain-ish dress, not worth taking a picture of.  Use your imagination.

From there I went to the Red White & Blue store in Hamilton (I think it's Hamilton, although their site claims it's in Trenton/Mercerville), where it's always the week before Christmas, judging by how impossible it is to find a space in the parking lot.  

That I don't get, because the prices are rather high for a thrift store, and many items seemed to be priced higher than they would be at Walmart.  Note that the pic is not showing the parking lot.

From there I went to the other Salvation Army in the area, on Route 33, which also has serious parking issues.  There are a grand total of about 8 spots, but the way they're configured, you're almost guaranteed to hit somebody else's car when you pull in or pull out. Didn't find a spot there.  Which, in the big picture, was probably for the best.

My trip wrapped up to a visit where the WORLD'S MOST DELICIOUS ICE CREAM can be found, i.e. Halo Farm in Ewing.

They have a three pints for $6.99 (I think it's 6.99) deal, which I always take advantage of.  For that reason, I always keep a clean spoon in the car, and demolish at least one pint on the way home.

You can also get milk (chemical free and priced wayyy lower than the supermarkets), lemonade and some other -ade, plus cheese and other dairy, bread, cookies and chips, and doughnuts.  The non-milk, non-ice cream items are from other manufacturers.  Like the cookies are Pepperidge Farm and Entenmanns, and the chips are Fritos and like that, and the bread is from some local-ish bakery I'm not familiar with, and the cheese is --- let me get up and go to the refrigerator -- oops, sorry.  Couldn't find it.  Just know that it's from another company.  

In any case, you should DEFINITELY go.  My recommendations: their Tahitian Vanilla.  It's life-changingly delicious.