Monday Rambles

I had a terrible existential  crisis over the weekend.  I kept wandering around and wondering:

"Where am I?"

"Where am I?"

"Where am I?"

Suddenly, a sign!

Crisis resolved!

The contradictions of this junk thing get to me sometimes.  On the one hand, you just can't wait for the nicest weather so the yard sales will start in earnest.  On the other hand, as soon as that weather hits, you watch your booth sales take a serious dive.

Last week, we had one of the longest streak of the nicest days yet.  Folks are doing their yard work and spring cleaning and first cook-outs and such stuff as they do this time of year instead of going to the vendor malls.  Honestly, I can't blame them much.  Still, I got junk to sell!

As if to prove my point, last Thursday was rainy and cool.  My sales shot way back up--nearly a hundred bucks!  Overall, it's still a good month, but it's not going to set any records.  I can't complain too much.

Today will be the end of the never-ending booth update, even if I have to pile everything into a pyre and burn it!  Seriously, the madness stops today!  I got really close to finishing on Friday, but ran out of steam.  Last week was a treatment week, but I insisted on going to the booth instead of staying home and rested.  The progress I made did help, but I was moving too slow in the end to get all the way done.  Today for sure.  He said, optimistically.  If not, I'm going on the pyre too!

Oh yeah, I've been dumpster diving again. The really tall dumpster across the street got hauled away, but the other two are still here.  They put the old windows and doors from the house in the one down the hill, but I could only get to two of the windows.

I sliced the Dickens out of my thumb on one of them.  Thankfully, it wasn't very deep.  It was a clean slice, so I think it was on the glass, rather than a rusty nail.  Still, I am going to talk to my doctor about a tetanus shot.  Occupational hazards, you know.  I've been dousing the thumb in peroxide and slathering on the anti-bacterial ointment all weekend, and it seems to be okay.

I do have a nice pair of heavy gloves that I bought for this kind of thing.  I just keep forgetting to put them on. Back to the dumpsters, I discovered a new one at a house on the street that runs behind ours tonight.  It only comes to chest height on me, so checking it out is really easy.

Speaking of diving for freebies, we're only a couple of weeks away from our next junk set out period.  People are already starting to sneak their unwanted stuff to the curbs and alleys.  I don't know why they do it early, because the trash guys will not take it.  It seems to be something they do in this part of town, regardless.  I'm doing some spot checks, but nothing worthwhile yet.  It seems like it's mostly really broken down crap.

Back to the booth, the Derby Festival started on Saturday, so we're in for a couple of weeks of iffy sales, at best. I'm doing a 20% off sale on Derby Week to try and boost things a bit. We just got the ability to do sales in our booths, so I want to take advantage of it.  Mine will start this Saturday and run until Mother's Day, which is the day after Derby.

I won't be adding anything else to the booth (after today) until after the sale is over. I'm hoping it will give me more room to drag some more stuff in.

I guess that brings me around to my big, crazy news.  I'm getting another booth.  I figured out that if I really want to get serious about razing Mount Sorrow, then I need a way to get more stuff in the booth.  If I can get most of the large and small furniture that I have in storage out right now, plus all the tall shelves, then the unit would be half empty.  Seriously.  I'm only planning on keeping this extra booth until this stuff is off the Mountain and out the door to someone else's place.  I honestly don't want this new booth, but I want the mound of stuff even less.  It will also give me space to better display all this salvage stuff I keep dragging in.

This was a pretty junk-centric Ramble today, so let me break that up a little bit with some Monday Music.



Have a good week, folks!  Look for some, uhm, interesting posts here this week, with a special treat come Friday!

Monday (Tuesday) Rambles

Well, hello there!  How was your Derby?  Did your horse win?  If so, will you take me to lunch?  My horse didn't win.  Well, sort of.  I didn't really have a horde, but I did draw one in the Peddlers Mall Derby pool. Still, I didn't win.

Horses aside, there are some recent other winners of a sort who need to be congratulated:

Good blog friend Roger just celebrated ten years of his blog!  It's even more amazing when you consider that he actually manages to blog every single day!

Linda at A La Carte recently became a grandma for the second time.

Shara just expanded her booth space at one of her flea markets.  Long may she sell!

Distressed Donna also recently had a blogiversary.  I'll have some more to say about that in a longer post.

I'd also like to recommend a really good recent read at Things I Find in the Garbage, probably the best trash-picking blog out there.  I have to admit, he's got me checking to see when move out day at the local colleges is.  Free stuff is free stuff, after all.  I like this post because he touches on the issues of consumption and its environmental impacts, which are topics that I roll around in my head from time to time as they relate to re-selling.   There's a post for me in all of this that has needed to be written for a while now.  Maybe I'll finally get around to it now.

The post at TIFITG reminds me of the time that Keith and I were moving out of the apartment we had been in for nine years and into the house.  Our apartment was close to the University of Louisville, so there were a lot of students living in our complex, as well as the surrounding apartment buildings.  When we had gotten down to the things we did not want to take with us, we took three or four carloads to Goodwill.  That left some large items that we didn't really have room to haul in the car.  I had some boards and cinder blocks I was using as bookshelves and an old desk that was too small for my needs.  Instead of tossing them, we left them sitting beside the dumpster.  I figured that one of the students in the area might want them.  They were gone before we pulled out of the parking lot of the last time.  I guess the relationship between students and the trash goes both ways!

There wasn't a Mazda shot this weekend because we simply didn't have time to do it.  Keith had an afternoon commitment that meant we had to unload stuff quickly and get moving.  Let me tease you just a bit with the finds in anticipation of the full reveal tomorrow:

Croquet mallets all in a row

Painted child's chair

Audaciously ugly lamp.

That's what the tag I made for the lamp says!

Despite being Derby, there were a lot of yard sales going on.  This was largely due to the rain last Saturday, which cancelled lots of sales.  We hit the annual Derby street sale which is held by several dealers and their friends not far from our house.  Stuff is always plentiful and prices are generally good.  I was a little disappointed that the one guy that always has fun smalls had nothing I was interested in.

One of the sales I wanted to hit did not seem to be happening, but that just made more time for what turned out to be one of the best sales I've been to in a while.  Tons of vintage toys and really good prices.  Despite the fact that I had to work around a couple of guys and their constant eBay searches (Arrgh!), I got a lot of good stuff at this one.  I'll have pics of the finds tomorrow.

It was also a fun walk down memory lane.  There were so many toys and books there that I had as a kid!  I love it when that happens.  I heard the seller talking to one of the shoppers, and it turns out that she had conducted her father's estate sale about six or so years ago, which I had attended.  He ran a print and bookbinding shop, and there were massive amounts of all kinds of printed material at the sale.  I got a nice sized stack of vintage romance comic books and a bunch of religious tracts a that sale, which is why I remembered it.

Of course, the real highlight of the day was Free Comic Book Day.  I had planned to visit four shops, but only made it to two.  The reason?

 
Well, there were big crowds, which meant long lines.  But the sales were worth it!  I'll have more on that in a few days.  I also managed to get a hefty stack of the FCBD books.

I missed out on a couple of the ones I wanted, but I had the chance to get a few other titles, so I did.  You know me and free.  I'll end up passing most of them on in some way or another.

I did see something disturbing at one store.

"The Dark Avenger of the Night is not sweet and fluffy!"

My brother is planning to come up for a visit next week.  I am really excited for that.  I can hardly wait!  We don't get to see each other often enough, so we really have a good time when we're together.  I've got a lot to do to get the house ready for his visit, though.

Booth sales were actually good for Derby Weekend.  I had strong days on both Oaks (Friday) and Derby (Saturday).  I'm hoping that this is a good sign for the rest of the month.  I was working the other day when another vendor gave me a dining table, an end table and some other stuff she didn't want to move out of her space.  You know me and free!  I took it all, even the broken down pressboard writing desk that was ready for the trash.  I put the desk in my booth with a "free" sign on it and it was gone by the weekend.  Never hurts to repay the "free karma."

On that note, I'll say "Bye-Bye!"