It all started with a slag glass ceiling lamp–not the slag glass lamps made by Tiffany and Steuben. This was the lamp you'd expect to find hanging from the textured spackle ceiling in grandma's dining room. I know what you're thinking--ugly. I’ll give you that, but to each his own. I’ve been in this lifestyle long enough to know that collectors come in ALL shapes and sizes. Slag Glass Ceiling Lamp On that fateful summer day, I asked my mom to join me on a yard sale adventure to find cheap clothes for my one-year-old. We had a late start that morning, something I have since learned...

In case anyone forgot the Merriam-Webster definition of a hobby, allow me to provide a quick refresher... a hobby is defined as an activity done regularly in one's leisure time for pleasure. With that being said, let me be very clear... I dig for me. I write for me. If you'd like to follow my adventures--regardless of how fruitful the discoveries--than I'm just tickled pink, but if you're going to be that heckler on the sidelines... then move along already. I apologize for opening on such a sour note, but I had a moment of weakness yesterday. I hate to admit this, but I actually considered...

Last month, I took you on a journey through a schoolhouse crawlspace. If you read that post, you probably realized that I'm not all that particular in my pursuit for treasure. I'll explore a dusty crawlspace, pick through a bottle dump, wade through a creek for antique china fragments, or pace across a manicured yard with my Makro Racer. I consider myself a metal detecting hobbyist, though I suppose I'm a little bit of everything--thrift-shop picker, bottle digger, crawlspace explorer, and history hunter extraordinaire. I'm woman of many hats... as long as those hats don't flatten my hair...

I've started to think of the digging community as a sandbox. We're all digging in the same little wooden box. You've got the kids who play well together, the kids who occasionally sling sand... and the kids who come along, mistake the sandbox for a catbox, and shit all over everyone else. Lately, there has been an excess of the latter. Rather than take responsibility for scooping the catbox, I've chosen instead to take a break from the sandbox.... but the ammonia stench is getting to be too much to ignore. Initially, I jumped right into the catbox and joined in the sand-slinging....

My mother-in-law loves telling the story of "Jocelyn and the Moth." The story goes a little like this... One crisp autumn morning in 2011, our small family of three combined forces with my husband's family of four. The seven of us piled snugly into the Ford Explorer and set off on a grand leaf-peeping adventure. My brothers-in-law--both Mark and Neal--were crammed into the back. Billy and I sandwiched our little guy's carseat in the center. Julie sat shotgun. Bill drove. (This was before he lost his fight with ALS in 2013.) Given that this was early October, the leaves had yet to reach...

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We live in this ass-backwards society where its perfectly acceptable to blame inanimate objects for the actions of stupid people. For instance: Guns shoot people. Spoons make people fat. Pencils misspell words. Cars drive drunk. And now, this one--this is an instant classic--historic mills throw themselves into the road and impale speeding cars. I mean, seriously? Somebody had better flatten those damned mills before someone else gets hurt. As a matter of fact, I know of a couple trees that are repeat offenders and must be chopped down before they kill again. Just the other night, I was driving...

I am an enigma. The more I interact with experienced diggers and historians, I've begun to realize that strangers have a tendency to underestimate me. I'm underestimate-able. You aren't likely to find underestimate-able in the dictionary--however--I do like the ring of it. (Underestimate-able, adjective: a person, place, or thing that is thought to be smaller or less than it actually is.) For all intensive purposes, consider me underestimate-able. A few years ago, I embraced that perception. When I was picking for profit at yard sales and estate sales, I took full advantage of my clueless...

Summer is gone, but she went out kicking and screaming. These past few weeks were downright brutal. The earth was baked solid--concealing the good signals and testing my patience for digging plugs. Also, I might be taking this one a bit too personal... but I'm pretty sure the sun tried to kill me last week. I've never sweated so much in my life. There was sweat beading on my nose and dripping into my eyes. By the end of the dig, my makeup had nearly melted off my face and all the flammable junk in my hair had almost ignited. In the end, all I had to show for my suffering was a few bobbles,...

We all have that property that we gawk at but can never muster the courage to approach. For the longest time, my unapproachable permission was a brick farmhouse on a hill. I drove by this house every day for years, but something held me back. Instead of asking for permission and facing the possibility of rejection, I'd settled for thinking that I could get permission. I'm almost positive that I'm not the only hobbyist who thinks this way. We all have that unapproachable permission that we silently salivate over... A few weeks ago, I had been poking around the remains of the Fickel House...