I have a three-inch-thick manuscript on my desk screaming for revisions that are due back to my editor at the end of October. My house is so full of stuff for the under-construction beach house that it looks like a furniture warehouse. There is no room in my antique booth at Seaside Sisters on Tybee Island. Did that stop me from junking this weekend? NOOOOOO. On Friday I flew solo. Went to an estate sale at a '50s brick ranch house a few miles from my own house. The sale was my favorite kind--a true estate sale of a hoarder. Even the dealers running the sale seemed overwhelmed by the volume. They told me people had started lining up outside the house at 6a.m. I myself made it over there around 11a.m. I've written before about my love of old linens, and this house had some goodies. I bought exquisite monogrammed banquet-sized damask napkins with entre-doux hemstitching, a dozen of 'em, for fifty cents apiece, along with six matching luncheon napkins, same price. A sweet blue cross-stitched bridge cloth for a buck. A darling organza apron, also a buck. A straw coolie hat (halloween costume for a neighbor) a buck. Also a nifty German silver bar set, with two monogrammed tumblers, matching tray and six thimble-sized shot glasses. I was going to sell these in my booth, but when I got them home and examined the monogram, it turns out to be KA--my daughter's initials. So she got herself an early Christmas gift. Yesterday was another neighborhood-wide yard sale in Ansley Park. Ansley is another beautiful in-town Atlanta neighborhood very near the High Museum of Art. Posse members Ellen and Susie joined Katie and me. At first it looked like dreaded yard sale fare: lots of strollers, plastic kid's toys, low-mileage exercise equipment. We resigned ourselves to just enjoying seeing how the other half lived. And then we hit a goodie: a 1920s house with an adorable carriage house in back. The home-owner was wearing yellow rubber gloves--always an interesting wardrobe accessory. She'd been hauling stuff out of an attic or basement that hadn't seen the light of day in thirty or forty years. I scored a huge old glass jug. I think those are called carboys. It'll look dandy with palm fronds at the beach house. She had three beautiful hand-done candlewick bedspreads, but she wanted $50 apiece for them, so we passed. A few houses later, Susie found two folding luggage racks, one for a buck, the other for two bucks. She's been hunting them for months now, wanting to needlepoint straps for them as Christmas gifts, but they're usually $20-$30 when we see them. One of these already even had needlepoint straps. Score! At that same sale, I found four gorgeous old oak hoop-back windsor kitchen chairs--for $40. They need re-glueing and clamping, but Mr. Mary Kay is good at that. At first I was going to put them in the booth, but now I've decided to keep them for the beach house. If you're counting, I now have probably 14 kitchen chairs for the house. Something will have to go. Later, I found a charming and unusal painted watering can. That will go to Seaside Sisters. Also a matte white USA pottery vase. Favorite find of the day: Ellen found a case of cobalt blue water goblets. They were alongside other cardboard boxes full of Ritz-Carlton logo wineglasses and Delta Crown Room wineglasses. The seller told us they'd been collected by a now-deceased friend, who liked to drink, and who liked to take the old five-finger discount. He especially liked to go to the Buckhead Ritz for drinks, and every time he dined there, he'd steal his drink glass. Same thing with the Crown Room. The friend was a skinflint, so he'd take the MARTA train out to the Atlanta Airport, (this was before 9-11 security measures) and he'd happily while away the afternoon drinking for free at the Crown Room. And before he left, he'd steal himself a wine glass. The thief's friends had kept his stuff in storage after his death, and were selling it all off. Ellen got herself great-looking glasses, and a great story, for the price of a ten-dollar bill.

It started innocently enough. I was reading the Washington Post Thursday Style section online. Back in the day, when I was a features writer for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Style was my Bible. Even today, the Post always has great articles about interior design. They pick a blog of the week, and that week, it was Katiedid, written by a young designer in Sacramento, Cal. I checked it out, loved it, and subscribed to her blogfeed. Next, I checked out the "favorites" on her blogroll. It was like discovering a new kind of chocolate/cocaine/crack. I found Cote de Texas, written by a designer in Houston. Mrs. Blandings, who writes about her Kansas City dream home, and Vintage Rescue Squad, where a Washington DC graphic designer documents her weekly junking jaunts. VRS, by the way, is snarky and truly hilarious. Truly. And then came Eddie Ross. Oh my. He had me at helloooo. Eddie is a man with a portfolio. He's a senior style editor at the high church: Martha Stewart Living. Currently he's a contestant on Bravo's Top Design. We all knew an Eddie Ross in grade school. He's that campy cut-up in the back row of the class picture, the one whose mother dressed him a little too twee--bowties and hair gel. He's the first kid you ever realized was gay--and you didn't care because he was so much fun. Little Eddie grew up and eventually traded in his Easy-Bake oven for a career as a caterer before he came to Martha's attention and became the it-boy of design blogland---and Bravo TV. I was doing all right before Eddie. Sneaking a peek at those design blogs occasionally. I was maintaining, you know? And then, I think it was Mrs. Blandings who wrote about Eddie. I checked him out. Beeg mistake. Every day I check my email to see what Eddie's up to. And he's up to a lot. This man has the golden touch. He takes a ratty mahogany secretary, paints it french vanilla and replaces the glass doors with mirrors. Buys deli flowers and turns them into floral masterpieces. He runs into a thrift store and comes out with 19th century French sterling cranberry servers. He finds a whole set of German Bakelite at the Knights of Columbus flea market for fifty friggin' cents apiece. He finds silverplated trophies from 1928 at the Goodwill for crying out loud. Me? I drop into my Salvation Army and find dogeared Danielle Steele novels and Pflaltzgraf coffee mugs. The Washington Post ran a piece about Eddie and his fabulous NYC apartment last week---I practically took a magnifying glass to the photos just to take in all the details. The picture above is from that article. Now I'm hooked. I've watched Top Design two weeks in a row, just to see what Eddie would do. This week he mugged for the camera and declared "I never get enough of me." Me neither, Eddie. In my sad little fantasy world, Eddie calls me up, and I fly up to New York for the weekend, and we stroll off, arm in arm, into the sunset of the Hell's Kitchen Flea Market. And there's homemade popovers served on vintage transferware plates. And Bakelite. And sterling silver bowling trophies.

My friend Jacky, who's known me for over 30 years, sent me a link to the Duke's Mayonnaise website because they are having a jingle-writing contest in honor of their 90th anniversary. "You love Duke's, and you're a writer," she reasoned. "I bet you could write a prize-winning jingle."