Drowning And Wallowing

Wouldn't you know it? I can't have my car two days in a row. I'll have to use the old car to pick up Little R after school today. She stays late every Tuesday for extra help with math. I tend to forget about the old car. It's always here if I really need to go somewhere. I offered to take her for a hair cut yesterday, but she didn't want to go. I did take her over to the farm to walk her new calf, Lia. However, Markus, her trainer, was busy and said to come back later in the week. It's the end of May and she hasn't even walked her new calf yet.

It was another boring, depressed day. I slept most of the afternoon away. Got some of the backyard mowed before I ran out of gas. I didn't know we had gas in the garage. I'll finish it today. The grass was wet which clogs up the lawnmower and just makes it a bitch of a job. Hopefully it will dry out some today.

Here is a picture of my $.50 owl...




You can also see the gigantic planters I got for a buck.

Here is another thing I got that I forgot to mention previously. I'm not sure what it is exactly. The hands are like a little dish you can put birdseed in or something. I'm going to put it on the wall on the back of the house. It was $2.



The weather forecast looks promising, calling for a nice day. I actually made a fire in the fireplace last night. We watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. I had no real notion of what to expect. About all I can say is, it was different. A little too musical for my taste. I started to nod off near the end.

I bought that punch bowl ($5 at the cat shelter sale), just because that's something I didn't have. I thought it would be cool to start making punch when we have parties. I haven't had punch in decades. I did a search for recipes online and came up with a few ideas. The last time I made punch was about the same time as the last time I cut Lilacs to put in a vase in the house. I figured we could use it for egg nog at Christmas too. Mr. Man likes egg nog. But dam it all, now I have to find a box to store it in and somewhere to put it, sigh.

Once again I've done nothing in preperation of my own yard sale. I'm starting to think, why bother? I may as well just pack everything into the car and drop it off at the thrift store. Just to get it out of here and out of the way. I'm sure we could come up with enough stuff to have a sale if we could only get at everything. Some of the stuff left over from the community sale, I know I won't be able to sell. Like stuffed animals and candle holders. Those things are a dime a dozen. I have boxes full of this stuff. That should just go directly to the thrift store. All that left over stuff is piled in the garage. Thereby preventing us from digging deeper and getting at other stuff in the garage. I am coming to the conclusion that I am terrible. I am the worst packrat I know. I have a really hard time throwing anything away. I am terrible for buying more crap too. For every one thing I get rid of, I go and buy three more. No wonder I'm feeling so overwhelmed by it all! I keep saying, and actually believing it, that I'm going to be ruthless. That hasn't happened yet. I feel ruthless today. My mind is reeling, thinking of all the things I can get rid of. And that I really wouldn't mind parting with any of it. The hardest part is locating, cleaning and gathering. The garage is packed to the rafters. Mr. Man has a space in the center cleared out for the bike. There's just enough room for him to walk around it. Then a path to get it out. The basement doesn't even have clear paths any more. You have to climb over stuff to get anywhere. The roughed-in washroom/walk-in closet is like something out of a comedy where you open the door and everything tumbles out in an explosion of junk. The spare bedroom is a junk room. Half of what was removed from there now sits in the garage. That's not progress. I should listen to Mr. Man. Some things he suggests getting rid of and I automatically say NO. But he's right and I should listen more. Did I really just say that out loud? This morning I was terrified to realize I have turned Mr. Man into another me. I mean, he bought a telescope for crying out loud! Lately he's been enjoying the senseless browsing and shopping at yard sales, etc. just as much as I do. Scarey.

Well here I go. I've got to do something. I can't spend another day sleeping or drowning and wallowing in my clutter.

Have a great day.

The Best Yard Sale!

We did go out for breakfast. We went somewhere different this time. A little place in a little nearby town. It turns out this was the day for their annual duck race. The Grand River runs right through this town. Apparently what they do is dump thousands of rubber ducks into the river from a bridge. (Well ok, maybe not thousands. But a crateful.) People pay five dollars for a duck. Then there are cash prizes, first place is $1000!, for the first ducks to reach the finish line. There's like a town party at the finish line as well. We had things to do so we didn't stick around to see it or join in, but next year we're going to make a point of going to it. And I'm pretty sure it will be mentioned in the next local newspaper. I've never seen that town so alive. This duck race is the most excitement this town sees. There were people all over the place. There were yard sales all over the place too. We went to several. We bought something at just about every one we stopped at. At one place I got 6 V.C Andrews books for Little R. She has started reading those recently.

The best sale was in our own little town. We drove by it and I thought it was strange that there were no signs out. But there were lots of people stopping for it. Well, there were no signs because the sale wasn't on until today, they were just setting up. But they were gracious and let us shop, along with other people who had stopped in to look around. It was being held at the local cat shelter. I had no idea this place was a cat shelter. There is a small building, seperate from the house, full of cats. I see it all the time when we drive by, and thought it was odd for anyone to have so many cats. Now it makes sense, they rescue strays and whatnot. Apparently they have this sale every year, people donate stuff for them to sell, to support the shelter. We got a ton of good stuff from this one. We got a new mail box, for a buck! We had bought a new one when we moved here, because the one that was here was all rusted and ugly. Within a week, kids had gone through town hitting all the mailboxes, and broke our flag off. We needed a new one again, badly.

Among our fabulous finds were...

• A new mail box. It's huge, it's yellow plastic, it looks like a giant cob of corn. A buck.
• A box of tools and brand new drill bits, etc. $10. Mr. Man was tickled with this score.
• Books, $.25.
• VHS Movies, $.50.
• 2 snow shovels and an edger, a buck each.
• 2 gigantic flower pots/planters, a buck.
• A gorgeous, ceramic bunny, to put in my garden, a buck.
• A plastic owl, $.50! I've been looking at these, have wanted one for years, but could never bring myself to pay the $20.

While I cut the grass in the front and got started on the back, Mr. Man drove Little R and a friend to town to go to the movies. I took some pictures around the front yard. The first one is the bunny I scored, isn't it sweet?

This is the angel I got a couple of weeks ago at the antique/flea market...

This is the wheelbarrow I got a few weeks ago, which was way over priced at $60, but I couldn't resist. I'm going to plant some Wave Petunias in it.

Today is rainy, ugh. The cat shelter sale is on today, so we were planning to go back. We were thinking of even taking a couple of boxes of our crap over to donate to the sale. It looks like I may not get to finish cutting the grass today either.

Enjoy your day.

Chaos Is Coming

Today was spent running around. We didn't end up getting the new car until about 6 p.m. I was over at the town hall around 9:30 a.m setting up tables. Then I took a load of stuff over. Then Hubby and I were off, running errands, paying bills and shopping. We went to the new taco place for lunch. It wasn't the best. They have all new staff who aren't sure of what they're doing just yet. I had a taco with no sour cream, that just wasn't right. We went back again for dinner and I had a bean burrito and it was a bit better than the taco had been. But the good news is there is now a Taco Bell opening up in town too! Yay, my favourite! Their tacos are good, well I like them. Nothing is as good as homemade, but on the fly, Taco Bell is good stuff.

We ended up all the way down in Brampton. There was a furniture store having a store closing sale. Everything must go, up to 90% off. So we decided to pop in on a whim and check it out. We found a gorgeous black leather sofa set and the price was fantastic. The only thing was, we had no way of getting it home. We may go back another day. They had everything, and it was all very nice stuff. The prices were so good, hard to resist.

The sun did pop out briefly in the afternoon and it got really muggy, but by the time we got back home it was pouring rain again.

Hubby surprised me by taking me into a store and buying me an early Mothers Day present. A new diamond ring. Not just any diamond ring, a large diamond ring. I had a large one which I lost and wasn't insured. So this was a replacement. It's a little bigger than the one I lost I think. I love it. The other one was a Marquis cut, this one is a round cut. It has a little gold heart on either side of the diamond. It's just gorgeous. This time we will get it insured though. We even got the appraisal papers with it. It was a wonderful surprise!

We finally got to pick up the car, but alas, they hadn't fixed the things they were supposed to because they received the wrong parts, sigh. Because we need it this weekend, they are going to fix it up on Monday. The folks we are buying it from seem to be quite upstanding as far as used car dealers go. We will likely continue to deal with them in the future.

Guys plug your ears again.....
While we were out touring all over the place, my flow started. It was odd because it is a month late and I didn't know it was coming. I had all the usual symptoms tonight instead of last night. I usually get weepy the night before. Strange. So after taking another load of stuff over to the town hall, I came home and got all weepy and upset over nothing. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I doubt I'll get involved in anything like this again. I'll just do it on my own terms, my own way, in my own frontyard. As much as I tried to be prepared I still wasn't. Hubby was no help. I don't feel like I cleared out nearly as much as I wanted to and I'm afraid what I did take over isn't going to sell, so after all the trouble, I'll still be stuck with it. I know that remains to be seen. But I have a feeling.

It was a mixed day, good and bad. I can only hope tomorrow goes well. The next few days are going to be chaotic. By next Wednesday I'll be able to relax. By then all the chaos will be over with and it will be recovery time. Wish us luck.

The Dead Scooter

Now I'm wondering if all that womans hullabaloo was because she knew the scooter wasn't working. Feeling a little guilty perhaps.
Hubby had the batteries charging and they never did fully charge, even though he had it on for a good 24 hours. It isn't working. He has a few ideas, just hasn't had the time to fool around with it.
Isn't that the way? After all the hassle we went through to get the damn thing only to find it doesn't work. And now it sits in my diningroom, dead. What a pain in the ass.
The funny thing is, we had one before that we bought at an auction. That was before Hubby was injured, we really had no use for it. We just got it for such a good price, it was hard to resist. The plan was to hang onto it until someone needed it, someone like my father. Well then someone made an offer to buy it. Again, it was too good to resist. A tidy little profit was made. But dammit, that one worked.

I think I may go tanning this afternoon. I need sunshine. This weather is pathetic. I am so sick of it, I'm starting to feel sick. Dreary, rainy/snowy, cold and windy. Mother Nature must be PMSing or something. It was two summers ago we hardly had a summer at all. It was cold and rainy more often than not. I will be most disappointed if this is going to be one of those summers. In recent years I've noticed the seasons seem to change overnight. It'll be like this until the end of May and then BAM it's summer. Or it'll just be like this all summer, with the odd nice day. I didn't used to pay so much attention to the weather. It seems nowadays there isn't much else for me to pay attention to. A rainy day never stopped me back then. Cold didn't hurt like it does now. I did notice a lot of people out doing yard work on the weekend. I guess if you dress for it, it's not too bad. But where the hell is the sun??

The first 4-H meeting was held Sunday evening. Things are looking better already, they have all their meetings lined up, that's new. We'll be hosting a meeting here at our house in September. That gives me plenty of time to have the house cleaned up. Hubby went to the meeting, as he plans on being a lot more involved this year. It sounds like they're off to a good start to having a better year. Last year, even though it was our first year, we could tell, it was just lame. There are a couple of new members also.

The time is nearing for me to finish the denture project, ugh. I'm dreading it, but psyching myself up for it. The money is coming, there is no excuse. I survived the first round, I'll survive again. I've been getting by with only 11 teeth in my head, but it will be nice to be able to chew properly again. The oral surgeon is a pro. That's why he gets the big bucks. Part of my fear is, once it's done, it's done, it can't be undone. I've been getting by. But I would so love to be able to openly smile again. A genuine smile. And to be able to eat anything, not have to worry about being able to chew it. Millions of people have dentures. I don't even know why I'm so afraid. I'm afraid of being knocked out for it, that's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid I won't wake up. But that's a somewhat irrational fear. Anyhow, soon, probably within the next week or two, it'll be done.

I keep finding more stuff to put in my sale, but haven't done any more organizing. This is turning into quite the chore. I don't know how much to ask for stuff. One thing I read said to price things high to leave room for haggling. But to me it seems that might just scare people off, not everyone haggles. A lot of stuff, for example candle holders, I think, who would buy them? Who would want this stuff? But then I remember the sale I had before, and people will buy just about anything you put out. I've seen such wacky stuff in yard sales, you just never know. That spare bedroom is calling my name. I have to pull myself out of this chair and get to it. We're down to less than 2 weeks. So much for having the big head start. I won't be touching the toys again until Little R is here to help me with it. She knows what goes with what a lot better than I do. Toys were an easy seller at my other sale. I can take some over to the town hall and leave some for my private yard sale. I'm putting too much pressure on myself about it. Really, it's a fun thing to do, there shouldn't be any pressure. Whatever is ready to go for the town hall is what I'll take. No pressure. We get to go in the night before to set things up, so that's good. The lady in charge has managed to recruit several more people too. Ah, it'll be a blast. I'm looking forward to it.

K, I'm outta here, time to get off my butt and get it done. Have a great day.

Cleaning Up

Well, thankfully, no one in this house realized it was April first, until it was too late. No pranks were pulled. Not much humour around here the last few days.
The day was spent working on the de-cluttering effort. We all have way too many coats, jackets, vests, sweaters and footwear. We have a coat closet right by the front door and yet there are coats on the backs of chairs in every room. Even so, the closet is overflowing. From the pile of shoes and boots blocking the front door, you would think we have 8 people living here, not 3. Why must we have helmets in the house? We each have motorcycle helmets, and then Little R has various helmets, for skiing (worn once, she'll never ski again), and bicycling (she never wears it anyways, and has several of them). Hubby put hooks on the wall in the garage to hang our helmets on. There is not a single helmet hanging on said hooks. I'm not even sure where my helmet is at this point. However I know where Hubby's is because I have to keep moving it out of my way. I believe it's on the diningroom table now. WHY?? Ugh. Ok, the ski helmet can go in the yard sale. The motorcycle helmets can be hung up in the garage. The bicycle helmets can live in the garage also. But what do I do with the excessive coats and footwear? We wear them all. I've thrown out some of my own footwear, I've put one pair of my sandals in the yard sale pile, so far. But you know as soon as I try to get rid of any of THEIRS, they'll put up a stink. We don't have any walk-in closets, but our closet space is sufficient, at least it should be. Oh, I forgot to mention, let's not forget, the ice skates and roller blades, and dog leashes, harnesses, collars and muzzles. Where am I supposed to keep all this stuff?
My whole life now revolves around de-cluttering, organizing and weeding out. It's basically all I can think about. I'm obsessed. But hey, it could be worse right, there are much worse things I could be obsessed about.
You may be thinking, whats the big deal, whats the problem? How hard can it be to sort all your crap into keep, toss or sell piles? Well, I just have nowhere to put anything. Not much is getting thrown out. It's mostly going into the keep and sell piles. The sell pile is growing at an alarming rate and I'm running out of room in the spare bedroom. Much of the stuff has to be cleaned first. So I'm running stuff through the dishwasher or the laundry or scrubbing it by hand. Then what? If I haul it out to the garage it'll just get dirty again. It's becoming a lot of work. I've come to realize I'll need to do two sales, so now I have to decide which crap to take to the Town Hall sale and what to save for my home yard sale.

I think I'll take some pictures of it all. Just to show you what I'm talking about. Meanwhile I have a couple of photos of what I've been raking out back. This is the culprit, notice how the main branches on top are broken? That happened 2 winters ago. This thing just loses branches every time the wind blows.

Here are the first piles of spring 2007.

Here's a new mess to clean up. The left overs from the firewood cutting pile...

And then there's the trench that needs to be backfilled from when we had to fix the septic line running from the house (no photos available), what a mucky mess.
Stay tuned for pictures of the indoor messes.
I beat the garbage man by 5 minutes again, whew. Cutting it awfully close lately. But thats so much better than missing him.

Easter And Too Many Dishes

I just realized, Easter is only three weeks away. It's too bad Little R is too old for the Easter Bunny fun. I'm sure we'll decorate the house and decorate eggs and shower Little R in gifts anyways. I'd like to have another nice Easter dinner with Big R in attendance. Then we can shower her with gifts too. We had a lovely dinner last year. I'd like to do it again. I just haven't received a reply from Big R yet.
I think we went to church at Easter when I was a kid. I remember frilly dresses, big hats and white gloves. I don't remember big dinners or much Easter Bunny fun. As far as decorating eggs, we make a bunch of hard boiled eggs, decorate them and then eat them with our Easter dinner. Decorating the house? I have an Easter wreath that I made and will put on the front door and I have a couple of Easter trees. I may hang plastic Easter eggs on a tree outside, that usually depends on the weather.
Today was very windy but mild. Hubby has been out all day again. I'm waiting for a truly nice day to go out and remove all the Christmas lights. And the garland from the back fence. It's just hanging on by a thread at this point. Those couple of nasty storms we had really did it in. All the LED (invisible) lights are going in the yard sale. We got them on sale so we won't mind parting with them cheap.
I think it rained some today too. Its very wet outside. The dogs are making a mucky mess of the floors every time they come in from a romp out back. But hey, the snow is disappearing, yay! We should be getting the bike back any time now. Cool, now that we have room in the garage for it again with that monstrous contraption gone.
I'm hoping to get rid of some dishes at my yard sale too. I've mentioned before that I just have far too many dishes. Most sets I have placings for 12 or more. I have at least one set I can get rid of and then a bunch of odd plates and cups. The set I'm selling was bought at an auction for $20 and we used them as our everyday dishes for years. I then bought new dishes for a Thanksgiving dinner one year and they have become our everyday dishes. Last summer I bought a set at a yard sale for $30, which I still think was too much, but I liked the pattern and it included a teapot, creamer, sugar bowl and a cannister. I haven't used them yet, but they are nice to have and I'm sure I will use them at some point. Then of course I have my mothers "good china", I've used it twice so far, once I remembered I had it. It mostly decorates my large china cabinet and will be used on special ocassions. I have two different sets of Christmas dishes, one has placings for 12 the other for 4. Then I have these odd dishes that were collected at different auctions, a couple at a time, they are very pretty, I have 4 plates, a couple of little plates and then several platters of various sizes. They also just adorn my china cabinet. I have many more platters than anyone needs.
I also collect tea cups and tea pots. That's just because my mother did too. I started out with a couple of her things and it grew from there. I don't even drink tea. Some of the tea cups I have are worth $100, just for a cup and saucer. I haven't bought any in a long time. My smaller china cabinet is overflowing with this stuff. One year for my birthday, S.P gave me a bunch of stands for my tea cup collection. I don't think I'll be parting with any of that stuff.
I have a ridiculous number of vases, I will be putting some of them in my yard sale. Same with candle holders, I have millions, they're going.
I know how it happened. This auction we used to go to, they sold things by the boxful. So if you saw something you liked in a box, you ended up with the whole boxful of stuff whether you wanted it or not. They also did tray lots with nicer stuff, so you'd end up getting six items in order to get the one thing you really wanted. I'm thinking of doing that with my yard sale, a box of vases, a box of candle holders, a box of dishes, rather than selling them individually. Or even mix them up, a box of vases and candle holders, a box of plates and cups. You get the idea.
I got another email from the lady organizing the community garage sale. It was kind of strange. No new information, no real reason for the email. It kind of seemed like she was asking me to try to recruit more people to join in on the sale. But she didn't say that exactly. Quite strange.
I've invited Big R up to help out with my yard sale, thinking it's a good excuse to get her up here for a visit and if she has anything she'd like to sell, here's her chance. But, no reply as yet. I think she's still mad at me. Mad because she didn't have a golden childhood and it's all my fault. At least she is talking to me again, just not recently.
I watched Titanic again last night with Hubby. He enjoyed it also. It was strange, the power went out for a second while we were watching it. Funny we never lost power at all during those blizzards we had, but a little bit of rain and it goes out. Just long enough to mess up all the clocks and the computers. I wonder if someone hit a pole out on the main road, what else could it have been?
Well, it's so nice to be sitting here and not freezing, not shivering, my old bones aren't aching, how nice. Hopefully it will be a trend. I realize it's still only March, but the damn groundhogs said it would be an early spring. I've seen Robins already. Today I saw Morning Doves too, which bugger Eddie promptly chased away.
K, I'm outta here. Have a great evening.

Garage Sale Chatter

I woke up today with this pain in one side of my back, it is excruciating, and it hasn't stopped. I have no idea what it could be from, and I have no idea how to make it go away.
Hubby has been over at S.Ws every day this week. They've put on a new roof and everything. He's been going to his appointments first thing and then heading over there until dinner time or later. The break away from each other has been good, almost like he's back to work. I haven't been doing much, sleeping and puttering, waiting for spring. I'm thinking I need stronger medication, it doesn't seem to be working as well now. I've been super lazy, not even getting dressed unless I absolutely have to, only going out when I have to, sleeping a lot, more or less how I am when I'm depressed, hmmmm. But I don't have the feelings of sadness or anything, my moods are stable, I feel ok, weird.
Speaking of work, Hubby got a letter from his boss with some more forms for his doctors to fill out etc. The letter sounds all official and shit and then near the end it says "witch" instead of "which". There were other minor typos and stuff, but come on, this is his boss, the owner of the company, Mr. Big Man, kind of hard to take him seriously sometimes. The whole thing is not going well, he is not happy with Hubby at this point. Oh well.
Today has been bad because of this stupid back pain and its been cold and dreary out, now it's pouring rain, cold rain, yuk. But I guess it's better than more snow.
I have been puttering with my yard sale stuff on and off. I've got several boxes packed and many more to go. They're small boxes. I find myself not wanting to part with stuff, but so far I've been ruthless, haven't changed my mind and decided to keep anything yet. I have one big box in the basement of toys I was keeping for grandbabies. I haven't gotten to that box yet. I keep trying to tell myself I can just get NEW toys if and when I ever have grandbabies, but then I think, "But these toys are so cool, I won't be able to get THESE toys again". I may have trouble parting with that box. I also have several boxes down there of stuff we got at an auction just before we moved here, so I'm not even sure what all is in them. And a couple of last minute boxes that have never been unpacked. You know when you move and there's just odds and sods laying around and you just toss it all in a box?
So I'm plugging away, cleaning everything and sticking prices on it and packing it in boxes. I still haven't decided if I'll be joining in on the "community garage sale" or not. I likely won't decide until the time comes.
I read a couple of websites about yard sale tips. One of them said to go ahead and put out broken appliances, people will buy them just for parts or whatever. I'm wondering if that includes electronics. I have DVD players that no longer work, video games, VCRs, stereos, computers coming out the wazoo. But I can't see myself trying to sell stuff that doesn't work, it just doesn't seem right. I find it hard to believe anyone would actually buy broken stuff. We'll see. I've washed two loads of stuffed animals so far. Little R wants to keep some of them, but ugh, why? And I still have another load to wash. They're all very cute and in excellent condition and I can certainly understand her not wanting to part with some of them. One thing I know, I'm glad I did get started two months ahead, because I just have a ton of stuff to go through and this way I can do it at my leisure and make sure I get everything. It would suck to come across a bunch of forgotten stuff after the fact.
And well, the sewing machine is still sitting there, waiting to be threaded. I had another look at all the fabrics I got, and now I'm not even sure I'll have enough for a quilt. That's a good excuse eh? I'm so antsy lately, just want some nice weather, want to get outside puttering and I can't seem to hold my concentration. Part of BPD? I don't know.
We have all this wood we've collected for making stuff, like bird houses and things like that. I have a brand new scroll saw, still in its box, and a brand new dremel tool, but Hubby used that to cut some part on my car. I haven't done anything with it, had it for ages. When I went to that meeting last week, the hostess brought out a bird house that she had made and plans on selling at the community garage sale. She used wood left over from firewood. She did a very good job. She plans on asking $15. I'm thinking, wow, that could be lucrative. I know a couple of summers ago, one ride we went on was in search of bird houses for one of our riding friends. It was a good excuse for a good ride out in the country. But it was a Sunday and nothing was open. The point is, people do buy bird houses and actually go looking for them. My dilemma is I have nowhere to set up my brand new scroll saw, etc., until I de-clutter. I have tons of wood for all kinds of crafty projects, barn boards and trim. I just have nowhere to work.
So yeah, that is my main focus these days, what can I get rid of to make room around here to do all the things I want to do. I must say I've seen, even bought, some fairly odd stuff at yard/garage/barn sales. I keep reminding myself the one sale I did have about ten years ago was quite a success. I got rid of the majority of stuff and made a pretty penny doing it too. I think success depends on your motivation and presentation. If you're doing it to make money you probably won't get far. If you just want to get rid of everything, you'll do well. Also if you clean everything up and make sure everything is working etc. you'll do better than if you just put out a bunch of old dusty, rusty, crap. Though I must admit seeing a bunch of dusty, rusty old crap has never stopped me from browsing. Crazy.
Well, I'm off. All this talk about it has got me in the mood to go rooting through my crap some more.
Have a lovely evening y'all.