Colorful weekend.

Colorful locals on the boardwalk in Asbury Park.

Here it is, the wee hours of Wednesday morning and I'm just getting around to chatting about my weekend I was making such a big deal about in my last post. I've been busy trying to figure out the whole work/life balance thing. And failing. Miserably.

But I digress.

The weekend started off on Friday night with fireworks at the beach. I took these photos from our roof four blocks away, with my little point and shoot digital (freshly back from Sony...who repaired and returned to me in under a week. Nice job, Sony! Though I'm a bit bummed a nine month old camera even needed repair....). I can't imagine what the fireworks would have been like up close...our walls were shaking (and so was poor Maggie).

Saturday morning our guests arrived and we headed out to the Harvest Festival in town, which I somehow forgot to take many (re: more than one) pictures at. I did catch the pumpkins drying at the kiddies' table. I think it looks like this little Misha person channeled his inner Edvard Munch:

I did manage to snag a hat and scarf from a table run by the lovely June:

How cute, right? And does that price tag say $5.00? You betcha. All three of the ladies in my group grabbed hats at that price. We don't knit or crochet, and even if I took it up it would take me at least until Christmas to make myself a hat. Christmas 2010.

The scarf was $10 and, unlike myself, is super long and skinny (black and grey - hard to tell from the photos). Love it!

It was quite warm (close to 80 degrees!) so we headed to the beach with the kiddies, and even got to "stick our piggies in the water," to quote my wee friend Sarah.

I poked my head in the little antique show in Ocean Grove, which was closing in five minutes so it was a literal run through. Nice stuff -- not a lot of furniture, though -- but I'm learning as I embrace the thrift that I can get a lot of what I like at a mere fraction of the cost that vendors sell for.

The next day I took a walk through the bigger antique and art show in Asbury Park, held in the old convention center. Take a look at the ceiling:

I can't wait until they finish restoring (some day!).

I was more than a bit tempted by this old arcade sign, but it was sort of the size of a Honda which made it a bit impractical.

But at $125, if you had a big lofty space I think it would be a perfect art piece. Art = justified purchase.

This hat box was a peach, but also $125 (guess that was my magic number) so definitely out of my range. Travel hat box when I don't travel and don't have hats (I do have one good one, actually) = unjustified purchase.

There was a vendor I've been meaning to take a road trip to visit -- Recycle the Past in Barnegat, NJ -- so I was happy to see them there. Their booth was well staged, and I loved this table:

Lots of sold stickers on their stuff (including those chairs) so I think they had a good weekend.

I had a good weekend, too, as did our Maggie who made a new toddler friend.