Left Over Treasure ...

Maybe it might seem odd to folks that im posting a pic of a giant pine cone but there is a story to it :) 
I had a great weekend with my love Scotty down in Seattle, going to a huge Christmas craft show at the Tacoma dome & hitting all sorts of thrift stores etc .. but one little thing that we did was the most thought provoking by far. We went to an estate sale. 

I don't know how many of you have been to an actual 'Estate Sale'. The real thing... where the reason you are there, in a persons home, is because they have passed away & their family has hired a company to come in and liquidate all of their personal belongings. I have been to a few but this one was different. I wanted to go because frankly, the photos I saw of the furniture on craigslist that were going to be sold reminded me a lot of things I remember my own grandparents having. Fine furniture, gilded items, beautiful things & the like. 
So the craigslist ad said that the sale was over at 4pm due to the apartment complex rules & in typical me style, we drove up at 4:02 :) I wasn't sure if they were going to let us in but I figured, ah, what the heck, it's worth a shot. So we go to the front door of the apartment & some fellows are being let in with a dolly to pick up furniture that was purchased & I say with puppy dog eyes, 'are we too late for the sale? We came all the way from Canada...' She eyes us up & says, 'ok, go quick!'  I hear her say on the intercom "a couple is coming up, they are from Canada" lol.. i guess we have pull?

So up we go in the elevator & enter the apartment which was 3 floors up. The absolutely amazing view of the Seattle skyline hit us right in the face when we walked in.
 I quickly do my "scan for the good stuff"... surprisingly, there was still good stuff left. I nabbed some ornate Borghese trinket boxes which I was super surprised that an antique dealer had not scooped up, a beautiful little hand painted cabinet, a couple of sweet round occasional tables, a cool assortment of hobnail glass & because the sale was over & I was the last one in, it was all 50% off. NICE! 

So I've gathered my goodies & i'm doing the last look around, reflecting on the fact that this was the last of these peoples worldly treasures when I spot this lonely cardboard box in the corner with what looks like a chunk of wood sticking out. As the lady is wrapping up my treasures, I go take a quick peek. Low & behold, there in the box, are thee biggest pine cones I have ever seen! They are giants! My mind starts wandering as to where in world they could be from... the mystical redwood forest maybe? I scoop them up & add them to my pile. They are the real treasures :) 
All weekend they were buried in the back of our truck in the box they had been in for, Im very sure, a reeally long time. I brought them in the house when we got home & laid them all out, big to small. This is a collection. A collection of memories from someones life! There are giant ones & tiny ones. Smooth ones & prickly ones. Shiny ones & iridescent ones. Natural memoirs of good times & trips gone by in a cardboard box in the leftovers of these folks fancy Seattle apartment was the best find of all :)