Saturday, October 31, 2015

Retro Y'all! Halloween Edition

I know you all are probably expecting this one today, but, since I like to avoid the obvious choices, I give you this instead:



Happy Halloween Everyone!  May all your ghouls and goblins be friendly ones!

Alice Cooper and the Muppets?  Who'da thunk? 


Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Let's Go Curb-Diving!

Junk set out time is like Christmas for junkers, especially if you cast a wide net for merchandise.  When stuff is free, I will take things that I would not normally pay for.  Free is free.

I started wandering the neighborhood last Wednesday, looking for the early bird piles.  I was not disappointed.  In fact, from Wednesday through Saturday, I did not get any further than two streets away.  There was a new pile or two every day, and people were still adding to the existing piles.

The fall set out is different from the one in the spring.  In the spring, people are doing spring-cleaning and down-sizing.  There's a lot more smalls and furniture that isn't broken and less remodeling debris.  In the fall, that reverses, because people are trying to finish up their projects before it gets cold.  To be really general about it, spring is more about stuff people don't want any more than fall is.

However, there's still plenty around.  Let's take a look.


This coffee table was right down the street from me.  It's heavy, solid and has been painted brown.  (Why?)  I figure someone will see it as a project/makeover kind of thing.  Right now , it's in the shed waiting to get cleaned and taken over.


One of the oddest things I found was this homemade weight bench.  You can kind of see the notches at the top to rest the weight in.  It's smaller than a standard weight bench, so I think it was made for a child.  It's one of those unusual items that I cannot resist when I find them.  Eddie stuff, in other words.  It was down the hill from us, in front of a house that always yields good finds.  They start early and keep piling things on, so I keep coming back.


 This is one of those storage boxes for the back of a pick up truck.  I found it at the same spot as the weigh bench.  I got this for Keith, who likes to store his camping gear in them.


Speaking of Keith, this picket fence section earned me one of his infamous eyerolls.  It's certainly unlike anything I've ever picked up before.  I think it would make a nice porch decoration this winter, with some snowmen and a Santa.  Two of the slats are loose, so they need to be screwed down before I take it in.



 I got a little lazy and didn't set the slide up.  The colors seem to be washed out in the pics.  They're really vibrant and not sun-faded in the least.  They need a good cleaning, but that's no problem.  They're old school Little Tikes from the days when they were made in the USA.  I think the quality in the older toys is much better than the more recent ones.  They're much sturdier, for one thing.  They won't last long in the booth.


I found about eight of these milk crates at the same spot.  They're so useful for storage, transport, display, plus I sell a lot of them.  Please don't tell the Dairy Police on me.  I need to clean them up a bit.  That's always a recurring theme during junk set out.  Also, a really big basket.



White drawer organizer, gold plastic frame, empty silverware box, box of records and a small computer desk.  The organizers sell like crazy at the Peddlers Mall.  The last one I took in sold the day I dropped it off.

At the spot where I got the frame, there was also a mirror that I was about to take, but another guy there asked if he could have it.  I let him take it, because I don't need to get all of the junk.  He then shows me two issues of the National Enquirer that he found there and talking about how "old" they are.  I hated to do it, but I had to point out that they were dated 2015 on the covers.  I was afraid he was building up to try and sell them for ten bucks each.  He said:  "For real?"  Then he took a closer look. "Oh man!"  He tossed them down and took his mirror and left.


Close up of the box of records, which I found behind the secondhand store down the street.  There were a ton of records there, but I only took this box and one other.  I simply don't have the space to be able to handle them all.  Since this is not my forte, and they've already been through a dealer (who surely researched them), I'm going to sell them as a lot.

That's all I have photographed for now.  I've been trying to pull some Xmas to take over to the booth, so I haven't gotten to the rest yet.  Give me a couple of days.  There's some good stuff to come.

Finally, I saw this while I was out hunting.


 I was so very tempted to nab it.  So very tempted.  It was at the curb, after all.

Linking up with Thriftasaurus, because I'm so glad he's back!

Monday, October 26, 2015

Monday Rambles

I guess now that everyone has forgotten about me, I should start blogging again.  This is how you have a blog for over a decade, yet only have a little over 1500 posts.  I told you:  I'm not very good at this.  Never have been. Probably never will be.  But, still, I keep doing it.  Most of the time.

You can kind of look at the index of my postings and see the gaps in my history.  While I do think some of them were understandable, a lot of them were caused by my seeming inability to get back on the horse after getting away from it for a bit.  Once I get out of the habit of doing something, it gets harder and harder for me to get back into it, even if it was something I really loved doing.

In the old days, it was usually just Roger who would check on me and urge me back into the fray.  These days, there are several of you peering under rocks and wondering where I've gone.  It's kind of a nice feeling to know that there are people who miss you, even if your primary contact with them is through a silly little blog.

Truth is, I was having a particularly bad couple of weeks and I just didn't want to set Debbie Downer and Bitchy Betty loose on the blog.  I hate to whine here, even though I do it so freaking much.  Compound that with the downside of having fantastic sales (which I just discovered):  You have to work your space all the time to keep up.  All.  The.  Time.

I ended up not having enough time to process everything else going on, and I didn't want the blog to suffer for it.  I started a "Monday Rambles" post two weeks ago, but trashed it when I saw just how negative it was.  I can write about the bad things, but I don't want to wallow in them.  At least not here.

Everything is better now.  At least a little.  One of the situations I was dealing with is going to take a little more time to resolve, but it is manageable at this point.

The lowest point came when another vendor actually accused me of stealing from her. That was resolved pretty quickly, but I just wasn't in the mood that day to be called a thief over something I bought and paid for.

Health-wise, I seem to be doing okay.  The steroid is messing with my blood sugar, which is not good.  This resulted in a very bad conversation with a nurse at the cancer center who basically told me I was stubborn and uncooperative, but in nicer terms.  She was acting like I was rejecting her advice over the situation, when she really wasn't giving any.  I still have no clue what it was she thought I should be doing.  I told her I was going to talk to my PCP about it and left.  I was upset about the whole situation for days.

My own sales have kind of crapped out over the past couple of weeks.  I've still had some really, really good days, just not one right after the other like I was having.  I was having sales, but they were way lower than they'd been running and way below my daily goal.  Thankfully, I was far enough ahead that I had a big cushion in my daily average, which softened the blow, but even that was starting to get worn down.

I was seriously worried that I might have some of my best days ever and still end up with the same old check at the end.  This business drives me nuts sometimes.  Needless to say, none of this really helped with my mood.  I seem to be recovering, I think.  It looks like, barring a string so low/no sales days that I'll come out well for the month and will even set a record.  We'll see, I guess.

It's junk set out time in our neighborhood!  The neighborhood next to ours had its set out last week, so I prowled it a little, but basically came up empty-handed.  My own neck of the woods is full of early-birds and head-starters, so stuff showed up all week, even though you're not supposed to set anything out until Friday of your week.

I've gotten several great things all through the week, and I've never gotten more than two streets away.  Today will be a big sweep, as I try to dodge the scrappers and other pickers.  Competition is somewhat fierce this year.  It's supposed to storm tomorrow and Wednesday, which will kill everything off.  I'll have pics later this week, but here's a teaser.  

The Official Sign that Junk Set Out Has Begun:

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

AAAAAAUUUUUGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Things are kind of ganging up on me right now, and I am not able to get to the blog as needed at the moment.

Sorry.

Be back soon!

Here's a nice song to enjoy until then.


Saturday, October 10, 2015

Retro Y'all!

I kind of went back and forth on this one, since I wasn't totally sure if it was old enough to be considered "retro" or not.  Then I realized that this is my blog and I make the rules, so it fits.



I first heard the Indigo Girls in my seminary days.  I was in a friend's room and she was playing their cassette.  (I guess maybe this is retro.  Or else I'm old.)  She kept talking and talking about how their music had "so many spiritual messages" in it. 

Then she stopped, leaned forward, and half-whispered:

"And I think they're lesbians."

At that point in my life, lesbian folk-singers was subversive enough for me to be interested.  I became a huge fan.  Keith and I saw them on one of their first tours through Louisville and every time they came back to town for years and years.  I found the old ticket stubs in a box in the shed the other day.

For a long time, I used to make mixes on tape and CD of songs with different personal themes for me.  I always had at least one called "Power" that I would play when life felt particularly out of control or I was feeling helpless and small. 

A good 75% of that mix was Indigo Girls songs.

Monday, October 05, 2015

Monday Rambles

Wow!  What a week!  Sometimes you just have to say it.

Before we get started, please wish blog friend Roger a speedy recovery from his surgery last week.  Roger is my oldest blog pal, and one of the things I really want to do one day is meet him face to face.  Get better soon, buddy.

I'm kind of trapped in the middle of the never-ending booth project from hell right now.  I intended to spend two days working on it last week and be done.  I ended up spending four--and still not finishing.  Every so often, my spaces take on a mind of their own, and I have to muster all my forces of awesomeness and bring them to heel.  We're in the middle of one such pitched battle right now.  I spent the weekend learning new attack phrases and acquiring new battle points and powering up, so I don't think the rebellious booths will know what hit them.

BOOTH ARRANGE SPARKLE CLEAN UP!

I'll need everything I can muster, because I had the most awesome sales weekend ever.  Saturday set a new record for me, much higher than I ever thought I would do on one day.  Almost three hundred dollars!!  I nearly passed out when I got the email.  Before I would believe it at all, I re-added the total myself.  I was sure it had to be a mistake or maybe the monthly total got printed in the wrong slot or something.  I never have days like that!

The wildest thing?  There's no furniture at all in that total.  The most expensive individual item that sold was $12.99.  I sold a ton of stuff.  Happily, it all seems to be coming pretty evenly from all three of my areas, which is what I really like to see.  It also seems to be coming from pretty evenly from various sections in those booths.  As much as I like to see a god run on, say, comic books, evenly spread sales mean sustainability.

I hope you all don't think I'm bragging or anything.  I'm just really excited and had to share.  One weekend into the month, I have rent made.  Seriously, this never happens to me.  I have to keep reminding myself to stay cautiously optimistic and not get carried away.  This is an unpredictable business.  I could not sell another thing all week, which would completely deflate all the momentum from the weekend.  I don't think it will happen, but I have to keep that thought in the back of my mind.

We had a cold rainy Saturday on Highway 60, but I still found some great stuff.  The quantity was down., but the quality wasn't.  I'm going to tease out the finds bit by bit this week, then finish it off at the end with a big flourish.  I am very behind on sharing my finds here, so I'm designating this as "Eddie-torial Comments Fun Finds Catch Up Week."  I'll share some recent finds and stories through out the week, with a little Highway 60 tease, then wrap it up with the rest of the 60 stuff.  Deal?

I will say this, I went out with a small list of specific things to find:

Comics
Vintage wooden ironing board
Blow molds
Vintage Christmas
Any Christmas at all
Long sleeved shirts for me

Most of my long sleeved shirts are shot, so it's time to revive the wardrobe.  Of course, I'm not going to go buy new!  The shirts turned out to be the only thing on the list that I found.  I am so low on Christmas, especially vintage stuff, that the fast on-rushing holiday season scares me.  I've already put out a dab of stuff, which I plan to add to bit by bit until it's all out.  I just hope that the "out" point doesn't come in the middle of October.

Here's a bit of what did come back with me.


I need more shelves and chairs like I need more holes in my head.  But that shelf was so sturdy and cute that it had to come back with me.  As it turns out, I sold a shelf last night, so this one will slide right in the empty space.  I also could not resist the wrought iron lattice work back on that folding chair. (See next pic.)  I had to ask my uncle what the thing with the handle was.  The prices were definitely right.  Everything in this pic cost less than ten bucks!  



My uncle had a yard sale over the weekend, and I always buy his leftovers the Sunday after.  The cute little plant stand on the end of the cart in this next pic was part of what I got from him.


I'm starting a silly little project for the month of October.  It seems like every time I go out for a walk here recently I come home with some kind of find.  Junk, it seems, is where you find it.  I am challenging myself to find some free, sellable junk every day in October.

The rules are simple:

1.  I have to look for something every day that I leave the house.

2. Legitimate finds only!  No stealing out of someone's front yard or porch.

3.  Stuff in the house also counts, as long as it wasn't something originally purchased to be resold.

I am hoping that last rule will encourage me to keep up with the downsizing that I've been doing.

Calvin and Hobbes were right, you know.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51boD-W8ooL.jpg
My life motto


I'll do a wrap up post with a list of finds at the end of the month.

Sunday, October 04, 2015

What's in Mazda?

Kind of a late Sunday post here.  Been that kind of a day. I think most posts this week will be late evening, so please bear with me.

We had a lot of fun on Highway 60 Saturday, despite the really crappy weather.  It was cold, windy, and off and on rainy.  As a result, there were fewer sellers out.  I cannot blame them at all for that.  After all, common sense dictates that on cold rainy days you sit inside and watch old movies with the kitty on your lap while a crock pot of chili slow cooks in the kitchen.

Of course, there were still a good number of folks who recognized a simple fact:  There are insane shoppers who will come out in weather like this looking for bargains!  And they determined to be out there with bargains to be had.

The weather also made for an unspoken bargaining chip in our favor, as I am sure I got some deals simply because some folks were a little tired of the weather.  I also found something I've never seen on Highway 60 before--free boxes.  Some folks had just given up and left their stuff out for whoever wanted it.

I'll have more stories later in the week, along with the finds reveal.  In the meantime, here's the Mazda shot.


What do you see?

Thursday, October 01, 2015

Your Chiquito of the Month for October

Sorry for the lack of posts this week.  The booth has been kicking my ass. Will get back in the groove next week.

In the meantime, here' is your October Chiquito of the Month.


He's in one of his favorite spots, the back of the toilet.  If he even thinks you're heading to the bathroom, he runs in there and gets on the back of the toilet.  He's not a cat that allows you much personal space.

In fact, Tuesday night when I was getting into bed, I found that he had left me a present on my side of the bed--a dead mouse.  (I'll spare you the pictures.  You're welcome.)  I told Keith that must mean that he loves me more.

Actually, I think he was trying to make up for the one that he had SET LOOSE in the bedroom the week before.  He came running in with something n his mouth, and I thought "Oh no!"  While I was looking for something to catch it in, he dropped it and it scurried off before he could grab it.

Poor guy.  He's only a so-so mouser.  But don't tell him I told you so.

The usual routine around here when a cat has a mouse is to get the mouse away as quickly as possible and then toss it over the back fence.  It worked with every cat we had until Chiquito, who can't seem to hold on to them for very long.

My rationale is that the other mice are sitting around outside waiting for Ferdinand to come back from his scouting expedition with reports of bounty.  If I toss him way out, he won't make it back to the hordes, so they'll assume the worst and move on to some other house.

If Ferdinand should happen to make it back to his tribe, he'll have such a wild tale of frightful happenings that the group will vote to move onto the neighbor's.

It's more humane than traps and definitely cleaner than getting mouse guts everywhere.

If you're eating breakfast, I apologize for the mouse guts.  Unless you like that sort of thing.  If you do like that sort of thing, please don't tell me.