yard sale and travel

5-24-10

The yard sale wasn’t as successful as hoped. This was for a couple of reasons. First, we determined that the sign we up on one of the main streets was inadvertently being used for a different yard sale on the main street. So Ken changed the signs to indicate our street name.

In addition to that, we just didn’t have items that all yard salers wanted. A good chunk of our inventory was baby clothing. Well, let’s face it, if you are not pregnant or have little kids, you are probably not looking for a cute, slightly used onsie.

What amazed me, still, was the folks who still seemed to think $.25 was too much for things. Shoot, we were practically giving away some things, yet they all seemed so skeptical. Look, you can be like that before you spend $80 on a pair of jeans, but fuck you if you think that a quarter for a bag of books is a bad price. Asses.

We set up around 5 and stayed out till about noon. We sold about $60 worth of crap. We bagged up the rest of the clothing and drove it over to one of those charity mailboxes that take clothing. I still have my nice dishes I want to put on Ebay. I didn’t expect them to sell at the yard sale, but I was impressed with how many people were interested.

In the movement of gobs of crap and bending over a million times, I was in massive amounts of pain. My back and ankle were screaming at me most of the day and still now. I did manage to sit a lot, thankfully, in order to rest from the extreme energy output.

The boys played while we sold stuff. They rode their scooters up and down the block, which was fun. Bobby also kept being our little greeter to customers. He was loving that part. Dax was more indifferent to the folks rummaging through his old overalls.

The dogs hung with us on the porch, too. Luna was awesome, only barking at the first people she saw. Then she mostly just sat on the porch, eyeing everyone with a doggie smile. Lycos was more poofy with her vocal displeasure. She doesn’t trust people, just as her mother doesn’t. I let her go back inside, which she was ok with since she liked being able to sit at the screen door.

Monarch took a few adventures outside since we were there. Ittles did as well. In fact, the only family not out with us at some point were IO and One10. One10 was the only one a little bummed at this, but it was mostly due to her worry about Ittles being outside. We don’t let her out if we can help it due to her Vietnam Vet style flashbacks she seems to get the minute she steps outside. Our poor IO was probably thrilled to hang out by himself in the bedroom. He also was pleased when Monarch came back all exhausted from his travels and had curled up with his buddy.

Sunday was more mellow. We had bowling which was uneventful, shockingly. I credit this to my threats to Matt on Friday when he tried to pick numerous fights with me. I told him straight up that I wasn’t interested in his bullshit and told him that if he insisted on picking a fight with me, I would gather the boys and we would leave and he would then have to explain to our mother why she wasn’t going to get to see her grandchildren that day. My dad seemed amused with this. He said to Matt that it would be in his best interest to not piss me off as it would be a bad punishment to have Mom bitch him out. I was very calm in my explanation of what would take place.

After bowling, we did a couple of minor errands (btw-this is not to discount the happiness that Target presents me with when I get to go, but it was truly just a quick visit) and went home to start the clean up process from yard sale.

I managed to get almost all the laundry done. I have a load in each machine currently and one more on deck. I managed to also pack my clothing and pull out the boys’ outfits for the trip. I realize of course that I over packed for the boys. They need only really 2 sets of clothing, but I think I packed them each 4. LOL! Oh well, if it all fits, we are fine. We will have to pack 3 bags since I ended up needing the large suitcase for my stuff what with me being gone for a full week.

We also played with the boys and dogs out back for a couple hours. I knew that since I was leaving, I needed to bond with my dependents a bit for my own sanity. Sure, I had other things I needed to get done, but this was more important.

I printed out a bunch of recent pictures for my desk, which is all kinds of happy making. I have a couple of others I still need to print tonight. I also need to reprint the ones I did for Bobby. He wanted some more pictures for his photo album. I printed them all way too big. Oops!

I am still torn on cutting my hair. I spend a great deal of time mulling over the net images under my search of “medium length layered hair”. I am considering just trimming a couple inches off the back as that may pacify my need to cut it. Of course, that being said, I don’t want to spend the money if it is simply a trim. I want to see a difference. Since I am not sure, I will wait until after Ohio. I will probably be wearing my hair up a lot of the trip, so I don’t need to mess with the length to a point where pulling it back is a hassle.

The one fun thing about Bobby’s new hair is mousse. Spiking up his hair and making Mohawks is a great deal of fun. Last night Ken put a bunch of product in his hair and made it so freaking awesome. It was all spiked out and rock star like. Bobby also really likes me calling him my little rock star, so it is all goodness in my book.

I have work to do today in the form of report prep. I also have lots of reading ahead of my in the form of family history paperwork I have forgotten to scan in until this morning. Luckily, that is something I can do on the plane on the way out.

I packed multiple books for the trip. I know that even though we will be on the move a lot and down time will probably be rare, knowing me, I will not be able to sleep so I will need something to do. Plus, 6 hour flight back, let me tell you. I have a lot of time to kill. Sleep will only do so much. LOL!

Silly me started reading through kindergarten crap this morning. I read a prep list for the month before school down to the day of. Everything from introducing your child to the teacher to letting them check out the school. All of it is daunting only because I am fairly sure no matter how much prep is being done, both Bobby and I are going to be a mess. I need to reschedule Dax’s appt since the first day of school is the same day and I need to be able to concentrate all my energy on Bobby. I do want to get Bobby a new backpack for his momentous enrollment into big boy school. I also thought that he could pick out a new shirt for the day. I figure he isn’t going to need much in the way of new school clothes yet, so no need to splurge. I also am debating on lunch boxes. I wonder if perhaps a backpack that can hold a lunch pail would be best. I don’t know. I am over thinking everything. Gee, what a shock, right?