Bad Blogger...

Sorry.
I've neglected you.
Again.

I just don't know where the time has gone... oh wait... yes I do... stupid Facebook. Yeah... I'm addicted.

Let's catch up.

First off...


Yep... My niece turned double digits last year and well.. she's only two more years away from being a TEENAGER! Holy cow lady... slow down!

Jerome and I had a pretty successful garage sale again this year. We were open Thursday, Friday and Saturday 8am - 5pm and then on Sunday we were open till noon and had most items at 1/2 price. It was pretty slow Saturday and almost dead on Sunday. Thursday was SUPER busy. Seriously I had MAYBE 5 minuets when someone wasn't on our property. And those 5 minuets were stretched out with 30 seconds here and a minuet there. Not 5 back to back minuets. Crazy... and because of that our biggest selling day.

I had a few families bring stuff over for us to sell as well... Micaela from Striving Green along with her mom, Linda and Amy, Lisa, and my fellow blockhead Tiff.

We sold so much stuff from dumpster diving. I just don't get why people throw this stuff out there for me to pick up, but I'm not complaining. Keep doing it... I'll keep making money off of you people! :) Here's some pics from the sale, holy cow there was a ton of stuff:

COMING SOON!

NOTE TO SELF: next year just do Thursday and Friday full days and make Saturday be till noon and 1/2 price.

With our new found cash we purchased a new digital camera. After all the concerts this year our Kodak camera was starting to die. Buttons were no longer working, the rechargeable and pretty expensive batteries weren't keeping long charges any more, and well it was old. It was great when it was brand new, but I've learned a few photography things since having it and it's not functioning to the best of my abilities, so time for an upgrade.

We ended up with this, a Canon PowerShot SX110 IS. I haven't had the chance to really play with it yet except at the store and a few shots of Pork Chop at home.

I will be giving it a good work out very soon though. The rest of our sale money is taking us to Jerome's annual family reunion. Yep, it's that time of the year again. This year it's being held in the home state of the family. Should be hot, humid, but fun as always.

Jerome and I will be spending a night in the French Quarter so I can stop complaining that I've never been to New Orleans. I'm hoping to do some fantastic people watching, drink a Hurricane at Pat O'Breins, take a guided tour of the city to see all the hot spots and architecture. My excitement is being held back a little but, I can not wait to since my teeth in to a shrimp Po'Boy and some Beignets from Cafe Du Monde. Yum-o!

We'll also be attending the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans. We'll be going with Jerome's parents, his two sisters and their families. Beyonce, John Legend, Salt and Pepa, and Neyo you better watch out for us!




What else? Well we've been taking in a ton of movies for free. I'm not talking like renting a DVD... an actual movie in the theatre. The Hangover, My Life in Ruins, The Proposal, Phalem 1, 2, 3, Imagine That, Terminator just to name a few. Some good, some bad, only one had me crying, smiling and everything in between and that was The Proposal. Go see it.

Mark your calendars!

Just wanted to let you know we are planning our annual garage sale for Thursday, June 11th - Sunday, June 14th. We usually start around 8am till 5 or 6pm, with Sunday being a 1/2 price day and only going to noon.

If you have anything you would like sold or if you would like to hang out with me during the day I'd appreciate it. The more the merrier! JT is hoping to get 1/2 of Thursday off and all of Friday, but if someone else is able to help me out on one of those days I'd love for him to not have to take off. I really need myself and another person to "work" at all times.

I plan to advertise on craigslist, on my jobs internal website and a few other freebie advertising sites, along with having signs out, oh yeah and this here blog!

Please let me know asap if you can help out or if you have items you would like to put into the sale. If you have a "good amount" of items I would ask that you bring a table with. I do set up our garage sales like a store, like items with like items, so you won't have your own table necessarily.

Here's to good weather and happy garage sale hunters! Let me know if you have any questions!

Dumpster Dives Part I & II

Take a peek... but not too close... I may be selling certain items and I could be keeping others... you'll have to wait for our Garage Sale, we're thinking it will be in June as usual.

Tis the season!

To help you with all your yard sales, garage sale, treasure sales, junk sales... whatever you call them...

This site you can plug in your City and State at it will populate all the yard sales ads that are on Craigslist! Totally great find if I do say so myself... Thanks Striving Green!

Success

So our annual garage sale was this weekend. I have to say it was a total success... even though dumpster diving sucked this year. Next year though, I plan to have it Thursday, Friday, and Saturday... and skip Sunday.

Friday was really busy.... Pam helped me out pricing and sorting things. She and her family were in town and it worked out perfectly, since Jerome wasn't able to take Friday off. They left around noon to head to their next stop.

Lisa arrived around noon with lunch. I got fried and I think even heat stroke. Seriously. I put an ice pack on my neck and head while we were waiting for Lisa and Rod to figure out where/when we were going out to eat. We went to the buffet, but I was so tired and achy. My head was throbbing. I kept drinking water through out enough.

Saturday Jerome and I set up and had a few customers. A definite drop from Friday. Lisa showed up again after noon. The three of us ended up passing the time with a trivia game, I was pretty tired so Lisa read the questions. It was pretty fun and I think I'll save it for future garage sale lulls.

Sunday Jerome and I set up and then Jerome worked on PST's car. I worked the sale - with the few people that were showing up. I don't think anyone really even showed up until about 10am. Ugh and it was 1/2 price day! We closed up shop at 3pm or so because it had started to sprinkle. I started packing up all the left over goodies but there is still plenty to do.

Next year... same place... different days of the week and well... who knows what weekend so keep gathering your unwanted stuff and stick a price on it... we will have another sale next... and who actually knows... perhaps again before fall t00!

Garage Sale

Well this weekend I'm holding my 2nd annual garage sale... should be fun, I hope we make some $$$ like last year. It's too bad that dumpster diving was so unsuccessful this year because of the weather. Last year we actually picked up a lot of stuff and ended up selling it at our garage sale! It was such a bonus.

Next year... weather gods... please let it be nice. Let me dig through peoples junk and bring it home to make a profit at my sale. Please Please PLEASE?!?!!?

My sister Pam and her family are camping and will be stopping in, maybe staying the night at our place this week/weekend as well. I'm sure Casera will hit up the Mall of America.

So I didn't set a New Year's resolution.Sue me.

I use to set a New Year's resolution. Lose weight. Eat healthier. Drink more water. Do the dishes every other day instead of letting them pile up until I don't have any forks. Yeah those.

Now that I've finally not set a resolution I don't have any goals for the year... Well... I can't do it. I need a resolution. I've decided I would choose one that I can actually accomplish.

Purge.

That's my resolution. I plan to purge our house... everything in the house needs to have a purpose... and not one that is "I'll need that some day". I think of the three curling irons that I have. The last time I used a curling iron... was... ummmm... let me think. I have no idea. Sure, some day I may have bangs again and want to do mall bangs. I could save one curling iron and sell the others at my "ANNUAL" garage sale. (Oh did you see that? I see resolution #2 there!)

Yep, I'm thinking I may do an annual garage sale. With the positive sale we had this past summer how could I not?

There you have it.

Do you have a resolution this year? What is it? If not, why not?

Stove is sold!!!

Whooooo whoooooo! It's gone.

A guy called me last night about the stove and wanted to set up a time to see it today. I told him that he would need to call me back in the morning as I would have to check my work schedule to make room to leave work to meet him at the house.

He called back today and at 11am we were at the house. He came with a friend and they loaded the stove in the back of his open bed pickup truck, gave me the cash and were on their way within 5 minuets!

Woooo hoooo... there's a little space in the garage again.

Now anyone need a metal entertainment center or a fish tank?

Cheap Stove and more

So when we moved into the house there was a gas stove. We took out the gas stove a ways back and it's been sitting in our garage ever since. Well I've posted it on craigslist again at a lower price and I'm finally getting people who are interested. I hope it sells as it will bring a computer just that much closer to our house!

I'm actually planning on going out to the garage tonight or tomorrow and taking pictures of all the stuff that was left from the garage sale. I'm going to post items on craigslist and see if I can make some money... it's free and I figure that way I can make people come here to get it vs. me packing it up and shipping it somewhere like I would need to on eBay.

Anyone know of any other free sites like craigslist?

Weekend in review

Friday night I was invited to a purse party... and you know me... I had to go! On my way there I met up with Lisa for a brief exchange and went on my way. The party was at a Pampered Chef consultant from my cluster's house. I haven't seen her, or her sweet little one since my director had a holiday party at her house - two Christmas's ago! It was good to see and catch up with her.

Saturday morning Jerome and I awoke and started picking up the house. My sister and her two kids were on their way back home after visiting with mom and dad and heading for Chicago for the weekend for a wedding. The had a layover at the airport here and we weren't sure if we were going to be heading out for lunch or making it at our house... so... of course we picked up a little. Ends up that we headed to AppleBee's for lunch.

I had the Aloha Burger. YUM-O! I totally have a thing for pineapple. I love it. Especially since going to Cancun, Mexico and having fresh pineapple every morning. Jerome had a Chicken Strip platter, Tammy had some sort of salad and the kids... well of course had hamburgers and chicken fingers!

AKT, my niece and godchild, (and the flower girl that didn't make it down the isle at our wedding) managed to drop her bottle of beer on the floor which happens... no biggie but of course she cried. Poor girl. She's getting so big!

ALT, my oldest niece, was a barrel of fun! She sat next to me which was nice, I was able to poke and tickle her while we waited for our food to come. Jerome had the camera and took plenty of pictures I would guess, but I don't think I looked at them!

The bill came and we left. I was taking them back to the airport. Stupid me, instead of getting on Hwy 5 to the airport didn't get off the ramp and ended up taking them on 494. I hope they weren't too late. I didn't get a call so I assume they made their flight. SORRY AGAIN!

Once I left the airport and returned home I jumped in bed for a quick nap as we were going to a party Saturday night. Last weekend at the birthday BBQ at Lisa's house we were invited to E's house for his birthday bash. Lisa gave me the heads up that it could be an all nighter - aka leave at 6am kind of party... thus the nap Saturday afternoon. We had a good time at E's and even watched an HBO boxing fight on the the projection screen that was attached to the back of his house... I wish I had taken a picture!

Sunday we woke up and headed out for breakfast. I had been craving pancakes. Yes, pancakes. I wanted Denny's fluffy pancakes. Scary I know. So off we went, plus we had a $5 off coupon for there!

After breakfast we went home and were gathering items to go to Anna's house. She had purchased at mirror from our garage sale that she needed hanging but didn't have a stud finder. So I took Jerome, ha ha ha... (stud finder). No really, we went and hung up the mirror in her kitchen/dining room.

Once that was finished we headed to Lisa and Rod's to pick up the battery charger for the car (the bucket). Apparently there is something going on with the battery of my old car... I don't know I don't drive it but Jerome does. I headed in for a quick nap while dozing off to the TV while Jerome was outside.

We did end up slapping some paint on the wall Sunday night to see if we liked the color... I have a feeling I'll be painting the rest tonight... I like!

That's about it. C-ya later!

Garage Sale Weekend has come and gone...

So the big event was this past weekend, our garage sale.

Wednesday night my co-work MV came over to drop off some kids clothes and a few other things for my sale. As she set up her goodies I kinda took a break. I skipped out on my contact fitting appointment and set up the tables and such in the garage. When she brought in her items that's when it felt like a true sale.

Thursday after work I dropped Jerome off at home while I headed to a happy hour for an old boss. He was canned, or in nice terms laid off from our company a few weeks short of his 10 year mark.... makes you wonder! Anyways, while I was sipping on my single beer Jerome was at home checking things off a list that I had of things to do by the end of the night. How lucky am I that once I got home most of the items were already done! Thanks Hun.

So we set up the sale more and more, figured out what things would be outside, what would remain inside of the garage, etc, etc. I wondered a bit how I was going to do this all by myself in the morning... but, Jerome called in sick on Friday, poor baby was sick. :)

We woke up Friday morning and started setting items up. I put the signs all out around our little neighborhood and grabbed breakfast for us from McDonald's. Stupid McDonald's tried to short us a Hashbrown... how dare they! I had to run back to McDonald's to complain. Soon after breakfast our first customers showed up. It was a long and hot day - we even had the A/C unit that we found during dumpster days going in the garage. So many people wanted to buy it that we stuck a "not for sale" sign on it! We had a great turn out and plenty of sales. One of our customers was nice enough to tell us that our sign down the street had been knocked down/blown over. Jerome ran down the street to fix it. Even Nicole made a surprise appearance at the sale.

It rained Friday night, and Saturday morning there was a ton of fog. I watched the weather and it said that around noon we should be having showers... not the case though! I ran around making sure all of our signs we still standing only to find out the one that had been knocked down the other day to be missing. Yup, I think our neighbors stole it... how awful... and they weren't even home... JERKS! So I made another one out of scrap wood that we had and set it up on the opposite corner. Another good sale day and a pretty good turn out, but I think Fridays was better. We sold our TV that was in our living room, we tried to load it into the guys car, but it didn't fit. He said he would come back on Sunday to pick it up in his brothers truck.

Sunday we sat around... in the heat... burning up. I ran around looking for the signs, now paranoid that our signs were all going to be missing. YUP... one more sign gone. JEEEZE. This time I took a end table that we were trying to sell off and made a sign. Silly me put the arrows on but didn't check the other side... I had arrows going both ways! Ughh... So I had to repaint it.

Anna and Nate showed up in support of the sale. We tried to get Anna to buy anything and everything that we thought she should have. She ended up getting tons of stuff - and all three lamps... wooo hooo no more sitting in the dark! It was a slow day, but then again it was Father's Day (Happy Father's Day Dad!) and a Sunday at that. So we didn't make much of a profit on Sunday and started closing up shop at 3 pm - gathering the other contributors items into piles so they can take them away, moving tables around so maybe we can use 1/2 of the garage for the truck or cars, and bringing the stuff from outside in. We had a few more customers - after all it was 1/2 price day! But I think we were officially closed at 4:30.

All in all we made a pretty good profit. Next year I think we'll be having another one - so start saving your stuff now... but beware, you'll need your own table and I will probably be charging some sort of fee for us sitting there selling your stuff if you aren't there. (This year, not a big deal as there wasn't all that much stuff from others - one of those contributors even tried to make us money with Pull Tabs!)

We will be dumpster diving this year and making money off of other peoples trash!!!!

So... 2 signs stolen, 1 pair of earrings stolen, 1 switching of price stickers that was caught, dumpster junk sold for a profit, TV sold at a profit, one McDonald's hashbrown almost missed
... and money made to boot... I'd say was a pretty good run for three days!

Our 10 days of Summer is here

And of course this weekend is my garage sale... guess I'll be seeing if that A/C works in the garage!

What did you do this weekend?

I became a housewife...

I cooked, I cleaned, I sewed, I painted, I even did laundry.

What do I have to show for it... nada. Or actually... I do. I had a PC Show on Saturday which so far has sales around $500 and one booking for September. Guess I did get something for "cooking".

JST was here Saturday and most of the day on Sunday. She and I went Father's Day shopping for Jerome. We ran to a few stores and I managed to pick up something for her at each. Bad part is, she wasn't even trying to get stuff for herself!

This is what brings me to the sewing. With her bulging belly she tries to wear jeans that she wore before baby belly. Well, that doesn't work for Jerome and it sure doesn't work for me. Jerome and I bought her some outfits the last time she was here, but they are still too big for her I guess. So off to Walmart we went for some of her Father's Day present. While we were there we spotted a clearance rack in the maternity section and got her a few things.

We found pant... but it's June. The girl needs some shorts.... but I wasn't about to pay $20 for a pair of capris. Nope.... I'll make 'em! That was the easy task... just moving a hem. But, that was after I tried to make a pair of shorts out of some knit pants. Oh my.... those were a doosie.... and it didn't help that I was up till 2 am trying to figure the shorts out!

Well, once I got the hang of it, Jerome ran upstairs since we set up "shop" in the laundry room. He brought down a pair of jeans that he wanted a cuff on. Here we go. I broke two... count them two needles. Off to Walmart again....

Only to find out that they were having a huge sale on their grills.... so... yup... I called Jerome and he came with the truck to pick it up. We even had it assembled for free. Wooo hooo! Who's coming over for some gas grill now????

Jerome took JST home once we took this months baby belly pics in the living room... I took a quick cat nap. Then decided to get up and work on Jerome's pant legs again now that I had new needles.

I ate a bowl of cereal for dinner and went outside to spray paint the signs for my garage sale next weekend. Jerome came out to help after I was out of the first can... six signs and four cans of red spray paint later I've got the base coat done and will do the lettering tomorrow if it's not raining.

What a jam packed weekend.... now onto this week.

Yard and Garage Work

Since we have been stuffing the garage with all our new treasures until they are properly disinfected I decided we should take a look and clean out the garage. We thought about moving Jerome's work bench over to the other side and moved the totes around. It's almost clean enough to eat off the floor in there!

Since we have our dumpster day coming up in a few weeks I thought we could get our pile of "other people's treasures" together. Sure, some of the stuff that I picked up will end up going back out that day - I guess I didn't fully inspect it, I admit it. And some stuff just when we got home or I got home wasn't up to par - or I found something better after I picked up a different one. Oh well. So we started our pile in the middle of the garage. Fun!

I also got the sticks all bundled since they also take those that day along with our heap of cardboard boxes.


Here's that nook I was talking about, and yep... that's the trellis from our wedding...

Dumpster Diving - week one

Do you dumpster dive? I should hope you know that dumpster diving is... if not... let me explain.

Dumpster diving is so much fun when you find that special item... for free. Those of you that love the hunt of a garage sale or a great eBay find have an idea of dumpster diving...

The city where we live offers a treat to it's residents. It breaks up the city into five different chunks of land. On a certain weekend your area will have trucks come around to haul away your unwanted items. Two days before that though, you can set your items out on the curb. "Looters" or Dumpster Divers as I prefer to be called can come around a pick through your curb items. They can take what they want... for free.

This past week this started in the first section of land. Of course, I went out to search for the perfect things. Here are some of the things that I got for free... no questions asked.

Two patio chairs almost identical to ours, no cushion but you can always buy new ones of those


Two umbrellas for our patio table - one will be tossed on our dumpster day


Wire shelving - either for the laundry room or the garage


A wood bench... it'll look great in our back yard for a sweet little nook



A hose holder thingy


Office chair - it doesn't go up or down but it's pretty nice other than that


Kids snow board - this will be for sale at my garage sale :)


One card table with two folding chairs - yeah there is paint on them but if it's for my garage sale for a check out table it will work just fine. And there is also another table behind the card table that folds in 1/2 to make an 6 or 8 ft long table - also for the sale and hey... it's free!


Yes, an air hockey table and yes, it works!!!!

What did I get done so far...

It's 2 pm on Saturday. I woke up at 7 am from a bellowing cat... yes... Miss Lily was lonely and wanted to let everyone know. I did say anything hoping she would get over it and go back to bed... doesn't she know it's the weekend??? She could at least do those deep meows on a weekday... when I need to be up at 7 am... but no... she chooses the weekends!

I got up after not falling back to sleep... it was dark in the house... I went to the computer and squinted my eyes to see if my virus scan had found anything and then checked my email. I looked around at a few blogs... I even checked my bank account. At 8 am I went back to bed. I was freezing and cuddling up to Jerome is a sure was to get my feet warmed up again.

I woke up again around 9:30 am I think. I loaded the dishwasher and then washed the rest of the pots and pans and stoneware. Wiped off the counter and the stove. Looked at the table and decided I wasn't ready to shake the table cloth outside just yet.

I went downstairs and started to sort laundry. I started a load of jeans. Then I started straightening the laundry room picking up lint fuzzies and dry sheets that must have missed the garbage can. I pondered on how I'd like to have the wash and dryer built into a unit with shelving above it for laundry soap and other laundry items.

Jerome was dragging the twin bed in from the lounge (the living room that's in the basement... I came up with that since Jerome said he wanted it to have a music kind of theme as far as the artwork and such... piano lounge!). He was bringing it into the laundry/storage room. Where in the heck is he going to put that?!?!?! Ughhh. I went back to putting away some tools that had lost their way to the furnace room where all the other tools are.

I brought my clothes up that Jerome had washed a ways back. You know, I could probably go a good two months and not need to do laundry. Thus, I didn't miss the clothes that were clean sitting downstairs. Once I got upstairs I pulled all the empty hangers from my closet. And then it happened. I started pulling clothes into color, sleeve length, summer, winter, etc. I put everything in order and then started hanging up the pile of clothes from downstairs. Well that wasn't enough. I went to put away some sweat pants in the big armoire that we have. I pulled ever piece of clothing (minus my never folded drawer of underwear). Every piece. Refolded it. Tucked it back into it's proper place. Then I put away the sweats.

I ran back downstairs since before Jerome left to get his haircut he told me that the dryer had stopped. Sure enough... but the jeans were still wet. I cranked them back on and gathered the towels... here we go again. I took every towel, washcloth, bath towel, bath sheet, sheet, pillowcase out and arranged them back to their correct positions.

I thought to myself that's enough organization for today... then I noticed the bottom of the closet had tons of stuff just crammed in it. I thought I would post first and then head back to it since it will then lead me to the bottom of the sink in the main bathroom. I'll be organizing all day I think. Good thing the living room is in one piece for the most part as I picked that up the other night and I don't really touch the spare room since that's basically Jerome's closet. That just leaves the office and the totes of Christmas decorations and Garage Sale items that need to go out to the garage... by that time it will be too cold and dark for me to want to tackle the garage... or at least I hope!

The Holidays are gone...

It's official. The holidays are gone.

The tree came down last night. The cute little Santas and snowmen were wrapped and put in their tote. The holiday decor is all put away.

Oh wait. There is one item that is still up. I just thought about it now. My mistletoe. It's hanging from my kitchen "track lighting". I'll have to remember to get that down this weekend.

I even went thru my Christmas stuff to see if there was anything I may want to sell in the garage sale. Sure was... a whole tote full of Holiday decor - and that's only Christmas stuff!

The couch is moved to where it should be now that the tree space is available again. But the presents and day after Christmas shopping stuff is still where the tree was. Guess I'll be finding homes for that stuff this weekend as well.

I'm planning on getting the house back into order since I've been gone that past few weekends helping Lisa with dress shopping and such this weekend. Gosh I hope it doesn't go by too fast.

I picked up the bedroom a bit last night (put clothes down the laundry shoot is about it mind you!) and changed the bed sheets. I'd like to have some shelves hung and pictures this weekend. Perhaps then we will feel more "like home".

You would think... we moved in July... it's now January. Still nothing on the walls except for the mirror that my dad hung up the first time he was at the house after we moved in! The other items on the walls are just there because the previous owners left nails in the wall!