Some pics I forgot to share

I've had these kicking around for a while, since my last cancer treatment, in fact.  I just kept forgetting to put them in a post.  Being way off track in my blogging schedule lately threw off a lot of my content plans.  When I have to rush to get something (anything) up, it throws off my content plans.  Since I have another treatment tomorrow, it seems like a good time to put these out.

Getting my port accessed.  That's my favorite nurse at the center.  He is so laid back and mellow.  I'm letting my hair grow out right now, so it's always somewhat of a mess.

Lily also came by again for a visit.  She went right to me and laid on my feet for the longest time.  I'm hoping she might drop by again tomorrow.

Monday Rambles

A funny thing happened over the weekend.

I finally hit and then passed my monthly sales goal for the booth.  In fact, even if I don't sell anything else this month, I'll now have set a sales record for this store.  If I keep selling at the rate I have been (and who can predict such things), I'll have my second or third best month overall anywhere.

Suddenly, a wave of entrepreneurial energy has flooded over me!

Look out wanna-be presidential candidates!

The Donald is over!

It is now the era of The Edward!

Fun fact:  The Edward has better (and more natural hair) than the Donald, even if he does still need a damn haircut.

Don't worry.  I am not going to start referring to myself in the third person all of the time now.  Just some of the time. When I'm feeling cocky flushed with victory.

Strong sales this time of year are not unusual.  Fall is a good time for the vendor malls around here.  What's weird is that this sales-run is entirely smalls driven.  I've sold two pieces of furniture this month.  Two.  I've only sold a couple of larger-priced items besides that.  Everything else has been small stuff that's ten bucks or less, with much of that being in the one-three buck range.

My biggest sellers have been Halloween and comic books.  I'm going to have to reshuffle the Halloween again to try and fill in some major holes.  I think I'm going to sneak the fall stuff in amongst the Halloween to see if some of it might sell by mistake.

I'm down to my last batch of already priced comics.  I priced up everything I got last weekend, but I'm going to have to do some bagging and pricing this week.  I'll also need to haul in a box of books.

Once I get the restocking done, I need to spend some time working on the Endcap Booth.  It's become a little more disorganized than I like, so I'm going to try creating some sections and "zones."  I'm also going to move pull all the furniture out and put it in new spots to try and jump start those sales.

In other good news, my scan was good.  Really good, in fact.  The docs are happy.  I'm happy.  Things are definitely moving in the right direction.  The treatment will be continuing for some time now, but it's doing what it's supposed to be doing.

The whole visit went really smoothly last week, except that the lab got backed up, which delayed my treatment for a little while.  I was out about 30 minutes later than normal, so it wasn't too bad.  The Bingo volunteers were there this time.  I didn't play, because I was really engrossed in my puzzle book, but there was a woman in my section who was intense about it.  Made me realize that Bingo Halls are not places I want to be hanging out.  People get cut-throat over their Bingo.  Even though I didn't play, they let me pick a prize out of the prize basket at the end. 

Still waiting for the arts and crafts lady with the macaroni art.

Celebratory Good News Mexican Food Lunch!

This weekend is the big Highway 60 sale, and I am psyched to go!  We'll only go about an hour or two down the road, then turn around and come back.  That's usually enough for a full van load.  I'd love to make a killer vintage Christmas score.  My Christmas stash feels so light this year that it worries me.

It's just going to be a short trip, but it's going to be fun and different and I think I would like that right about now.

Helping Hands

This is what I'm calling my steroid now.

Thought you'd like to know.

Seriously.  The doctor on Tuesday said I looked like a whole different person!  I'll take it.  I have never been a fan of having to take a lot of meds, but this is really helping.

I made a new friend at the cancer center during my infusion.

Her name is Lily and she's a therapy dog.  She was a true sweetheart!  She just laid her head in my lap for a long time and let me pet her.  She also got a big kick out of sniffing around in Keith's beard.  Everyone loves Keith's beard.

I think I'm pretty much past the point of emotional distress during my infusions, but spending time with her left me with a huge smile.  In all the time I've been going there, this was the first time I was there with a therapy animal.  It was way cool and I loved it.  I hope to see Lily or one of her friends again soon.

There was a parade of helping hands through the cancer center on Tuesday, in fact.  None of which I have ever seen there before.  Over the past couple of years, I've seen the chaplain come through a couple of times, but that's about it.

On Tuesday, we had Lily, followed by a wandering violinist, followed by the massage therapist (who had a cancellation, so she came to the clinic to see if anyone wanted a quick massage).  I kept hoping the arts and crafts lady would be next.  I haven't made any macaroni art in ages, and I totally rock at macaroni art!

Monday Rambles

To start us off, a poor picture of belly-button rings.

OUCH!

Why a poor picture?  Because I accidentally totally deleted the carefully edited and fixed up one.  I am a crappy blogger.

Why belly button rings? Because I found them when I was going through a big batch of jewelry that came with the booth I bought.  I was bagging like items into bulk lots and marking other things down.  It just struck me as kind of odd to find all this body jewelry mixed in.  There are booths in the Peddlers Mall that sell body jewelry and stuff like that, but that's all they sell.  You don't normally find it mixed in with lots of toys and dozens of relish dishes.

Also, aren't some of them a tad elaborate to be hanging out of a navel?  I'd be afraid they'd get tangled in my shirt or something.  Of course, I'm not really a piercing kind of guy, unless you count the time I took a BB to my left buttock hind quarter.

Too much info?

How is that for a totally random start to the week?  How about some junking stories?

I was in a thrift near the booth a little while ago, just kind of browsing stuff.  There was an older couple there, also just browsing stuff.  All of a sudden, he finds a pink wig.  He starts rubbing it and holds it out to his wife.  "It's sooooooo soft!  Feel this!"

They walk around the store carrying the wig for a while.  When I go to check out, they get in line behind me, still carrying the wig.  They're chatting with each other and the cashier.  I'm chatting with the cashier as well.  Finally, I cannot control myself any longer.  I've paid for my stuff and they're getting ready to pay.  I turn to them and say:  "I just have to know which one of you is going to wear the wig."

Everyone starts laughing, then he kind of stammers out:  "My wife will wear it."  To which she immediately replies:  "It's your collection.  You wear it!"

Collection? Of pink wigs? Odd colored wigs? Wigs in general? Cosplay stuff?  What can of worms did I unwittingly open?  Oh my!

Sometimes I need to just keep my mouth shut, I guess.

It has been a typical August for the booth--a long, hot slog.  Daily sales have been all over the place.  Fabulous one day.  Not so hot the very next one.  I was holding my own until the fair started last week. For the first three days, everything ground to a halt.  Killed my momentum and my sales.

The fair was late this year.  Usually, there's a week or two afterwards for sales to recover.  This year, there's only two days.  I'm going to come out about like normal, when all is said and done, but I'm looking for some sales growth before the end of the year.

The fall is usually good for sales.  I've already put my fall decor in, and am going to start putting Halloween out this week.  It's a little early for the Halloween, but I've got the space and a little more Halloween than normal.  Last year, during Halloween clearance sale time, when I was stocking up for this year, it was right around the time I started chemo again.  I think I was a little more aggressive in my shopping in order to make some kind of personal point.

At any rate, I've got a lot of skulls to sell.

No one seemed to know what to call the metal thing in Mazda yesterday, other than "something metal."  The community sale I went to was right around the corner from the Peddlers Mall, so I dropped off the big stuff and took these reveal pics.

The metal thing is actually used to convert linear measurements between metric and standard units.  It's just odd enough and geeky enough that I couldn't resist it.  Also an old window.  I only like to carry windows that have something kind of special or different about them.  I like the privacy style glass on this one.

Everybody pretty much guessed the bookcase.  The checks are contact paper.  One of the churches I went to had closed its preschool and was selling stuff off.  Unfortunately, most of the furniture was either too large, too ratty, or too pricey for my needs, with the exception of this bookcase.

I did get some fun small stuff there, however.  But you'll have to wait for tomorrow for that.

Technology has been frustrating us lately.  Our internet went our last weekend, when something knocked our cable loose.  We get that fixed, and then the power goes out Saturday right before we were heading out to the sales.  A transformer down the street blew.  I step out front and join the neighbors in staring down the street, like that's going to fix something.  It was back on by the end of the day.

This Saturday, the Peddlers Mall is going to have a sidewalk sale and cookout.  I've signed up for a spot and will work on getting stuff together this week.  I plan on putting out a lot of what I have left from the booth buy-out--marked down real cheap. I've had a lot of luck moving the marked down glass stuff and toys.  The toys are nearly gone, and a good hunk of those divided dishes are too.  Now is the time to finish them off, along with a lot of the household implements and such from that buy.  It'll be a bargain extravaganza!  (I'm hoping to find a few deals for me from other sellers.)

I set up a special sale table for those dishes.  That's helped them move.

I'm also going to pull a couple of things off Sorrow Mountain to join the fun.  Speaking of Sorrow Mountain, that post brought lots of comment.  I call it "Sorrow Mountain" because I am not so happy that it is there.  I don't like the added expense that comes a long with it and I hate having that much excess stuff.  My goal in life is to whittle it away to Weepy Molehill.

I resisted getting a storage unit as long as I could, but it was inevitable.  When you lose a store where you have ten spots, including a storage room, it's a big hit.  Up until the last days of the move out, I kept insisting that we could handle the overflow in my junk room, our shed, and the small storage unit we have for the house.  As it turned out, I used all of those areas to hold stuff, and still had to get Sorrow Mountain.

I didn't mind having a backlog in the beginning, because I was afraid that I might not be able to get out as much in the summer, due to my treatments.  My plan was to slowly whittle away at it with the goal of majorly reducing it by the fall.  I had a vision of going over there every week and sorting stuff and tagging stuff and making it something more viable than just a repository.  That kind of didn't happen, mainly due to the treatment fatigue.  It's been hanging on me like a weight ever since.  Getting over there the other day to do the little I did felt good.  Real good.

By the way, in answer to Judy's question, the patron saint of Sorrow Mountain is, of course, Our Mother of Sorrows.  This reminds me that I ought to warn tell you that my answers to your "Ask Eddie Anything" questions resume this week.

Turns out I got a little too carried away pulling stuff off Sorrow Mountain to take the booth last week.  Somehow I had it in my mind that I needed four small pieces of furniture to fill holes that didn't really exist.  I'm a bit packed right now, needless to say.  Fortunately, one piece was a too cute yellow primitive table that sold practically as soon as I unloaded it and thus made more money than it would have continuing to sit on the Mount.  Unfortunately, I realized too late that I had never taken a pic of that table for the blog.  Sorry.  Bad blogger.

I took six boxes of books, tapes and records from Sorrow Mountain to Half-Price Books last week.  HPB is my last ditch resort to get rid of stuff, since they don't pay that much.  I ended up walking out with something better than money.

WOO to the HOO!

TWO FLATS OF MANGA!!!!!!  That's over 100 volumes.  I made enough selling my stuff to pay cover one of the flats, so that all worked out well.  I had to rearrange my book booth to get them all in.  I now have two entire bookshelves of manga.  I think I'm going to take the shelf I bought over the weekend and dedicate it to graphic novels, which will free up space in the comic boxes, which means I can bring more comics in.  All is good.  That sound you hear is the local nerd council humming in agreement and approval.

Of course, since it's Labor Day weekend coming up, that means there's also going to be a Big Flea coming up--with an antique wing, yet--woo hoo! Gotta get the granny cart spruced up and ready.

I read the best book the other day.  I've been trying to use my down time to read more, since that always makes me feel better.  It's sad when I get too tired to read.

Image from Amazon.

It's a sort of alternative look at Shakespeare's King Lear though the eyes of the court jester, who's quit a bit smarter than his sovereign.  If you remember your Shakespeare at all, you'll know that being brighter than Lear wasn't terribly difficult.  I say it's a "sort of" alternative look, because Moore deviates wildly from the plot, tosses in characters from other plays (like the witches from Macbeth), and is not afraid to throw in an anachronism or two for giggles.  It's a wonderful, if somewhat bawdy, romp and an awesome way to spend an afternoon.

While our cable was out, I needed something to listen to/watch while I tagged merch, so I dug through the DVD pile and did some binge watching.

Image also from Amazon

This is one of those lesser quality sets you can buy for five bucks at Wal-Mart and the like, usually containing material not available elsewhere.  I paid a buck for this one when the local Borders stores were closing.  It provided hours of entertainment.  It seriously doesn't get any more retro cheesily wonderful than this--preposterous plots, laughable special effects, and plenty of buff shirtless guys in mini-skirts.  (Not that I was noticing that or anything.)  Totally awesome.  I ought to do stuff like that more often.  I have a Bela Lugosi set around here somewhere....

While we're on the subject of good reading and the like, please check out this awesome post of tips for folks planning to hit those long highway yard sales from Melissa's Antiques.  She actually went to the Highway 127 sale for the first time this year, but--like me--she's a vet of several smaller, local highway sales.  Good tips and advice in there.  One that I would add is to keep an eye out for small country churches.  Even when they're not having sales, the empty parking lots are a safe place to pull off the road and do things like rearrange your load, without having to worry about getting mowed over by a semi.  Be sure not to miss the pic about halfway down or so in her post.  You'll know which one I'm talking about.

I have my next cancer center visit tomorrow.  These infusion days roll around fast.  At my last visit, they gave me a prescription for a low dose steroid in hopes of helping with my fatigue.  Boy Howdy!  The difference is like night and day.  I'm not even taking the whole prescribed amount each day and I feel so much better.  I need fewer rest breaks and my energy level is much more consistent.  I do feel a fade slowly come on late in the day, but I'm able to get so much more done in a day and not feel like death while I'm doing it.

Don't worry.  I'm being cautious and careful and not overextending myself.  I'm still rests and breaks and the like, but it feels good to get things freaking done.  I feel like my life has been on hold all year, while I've been eking out little dribs and drabs that have never quite been enough.  It's nice to see a change on that front. I don't like adding another med to my regimen, but this feeling seems to be worth it.

How about we wrap things up with a pic of Chiquito making his sleepy face?  He always looks so cute when he's struggling to wake up and figure out what's going on.

Focus on the cute, groggy kitty.  Not the messy sheets.

That's not even your Chiquito of the Month for September!  You'll get that tomorrow, of course.

The real reason I hang out at the cancer center

FREE

Fat Eddie is Happy Eddie!

ICE CREAM!

I guess that secret's out now.

Seriously, two ice cream cups is part of my ritual there, along with the heated blanket and a pillow.  For some reason, I ended up not asking for the them yesterday.  I never skip out on the ice cream.

The little red thing is the badge with my patient number on it.  I'm supposed to wear it every time I go in, so they can ensure I get my treatments and not Hortense P Snodwaller's by mistake.  Usually, I forget it.  In fact, I think yesterday may be the first time I remembered it this year.  I should have gotten an extra ice cream for that.

You can kind of see the IV tube snaking its way across to the Purple Power Port.  (ENGAGE!)

Yesterday went about as smoothly as it's ever gone.  In at eight, out by eleven.  That's my motto!  Hardly any wait time at all, except for my labs to get back, which is a necessary wait.  If certain numbers are off, then I cannot have the treatment.  Thankfully, that has never happened for me.  I did hear one of the nurses trying to explain to another patient yesterday that her labs showed she was almost dehydrated, which is one of the things that can keep you from getting treated.

This is a very fast infusion.  It only takes 30 minutes.  Once the drug arrives, and they hook it up, it hardly takes any time at all. Quite a switch from my first treatment, which took 90 minutes, plus pre-meds.

By the way, I started that book I'm reading right after I got to the cancer center and finished it after I woke up from my nap.  It's been a while since I read a book all the way through in a day.

Don't forget to leave a question for Ask Eddie Anything!  I'd love to have a few questions from readers who have never commented before.

Monday Rambles

This is what it's like here right now.




It's that hot.  And humid.  And icky.  To top it off, we get these thundering downpours that last an hour or so several times a day, making everything even stickier and more humid afterwards.  It's kind of like living in South Florida.

We went out for maybe two-three hours on Saturday, and I could not wait to get home.  I'm kind of glad to have a moratorium right now. I certainly don't wanna be standing in some stranger's driveway, dripping in sweat.

I did go to a nerd herd sidewalk sale at the comic shop on Saturday, because those are not part of the moratorium and I need lots of comics for the booth these days.  Instead of being 50 cents each, like they usually are at these sales, the comics were a quarter each, which is bargain city!

I was thinking that they would move the sale indoors, due to the heat.  They have a side room that they have used in the past for sales, including three this year.  However, everything was out on the sidewalk in the blazing heat.  At one point, it was just me and one other guy there.  He looks at me and says:  "Either we like this stuff a lot or we're nuts."  Or both. It was pretty miserable.

That song, by the way, is a John Prine classic, which has also been covered by my beloved Iris DeMent.  I could not find a good video of either of them performing it, so I went with Josh Ritter, who is quite a fine singer-songwriter in his own right.  (Still love my Americana music!)

Like I always say, you can't go wrong with a Prine song for a blog-opener.  Well, maybe I don't always say that, but I do when the occasion calls for it.  Like this one.

We've had so much rain that all our bushes and such are growing out of control.  I keep thinking about working on that a little bit, but the heat keeps putting me off.  If you drive past our house, turn your head.  At least the neighbors haven't complained yet.

Tomorrow is a treatment day.  Number six, I think.  I'm scheduled early, early this time, so maybe I won't get caught by the delays we've had the past couple of times.  Then I'll be home for my post-treatment nap.

I'm going to try to go the booth Wednesday and Thursday.  It will need straightening and tweaking.  I want to get some better pics too.  I have not promoted the booths on Craigslist for a while, since i moved into this store, in fact.  I need to get in gear again.  I'll share pics with you all, of course.

My plan for the next few weeks is to keep the place tidy, but not to restock for a bit (except maybe for comics and replacing furniture that sells).  I've got a bit too much in stock in the booth right now and need to sell it down to make room for new stuff.

One of the odd things that I often is experience is a slight sales drop after I do a lot of work on the booth.  It's not a big one this time, but there is a difference between what was happening when the place was trashed and what's going on now, counter-intuitive as it sounds.  Sometimes,  I cannot figure this business out.

Finally, a new idea.  Blog pal Roger dealt with last week's incredibly boring ramble by asking an excellent question.  That gave me an idea:  Why not see if anyone else has any questions they would like to ask?

Soooooo....introducing:

THE FIRST EVER ASK EDDIE ANYTHING!

If you've ever had a question(s) that you wanted to ask me, leave it in the comments, or drop me en email, or contact me on Facebook.  I'll take those questions and answer them here in the blog in upcoming posts.  Deadline for questions is this Friday!  Get pondering and get asking!  I'll answer Roger's question in a few days.

Thanks for reading!

Moving on Up and Staying Put!

This

{{{{{HUG!}}}}}

is for everyone who has taken the time to follow this blog, leave a comment, or think a good thought for me during this whole ordeal.  One day, I hope to meet at least some of you face to face and give it to you in person.

I know more than a few of you expressed concern over my rather ambitious booth-moving plans for the week. Trust me, I have been pacing myself throughout.  The only way I know how to go about things is to make "shoot for the moon" plans and then accomplish whatever I can.  If I don't, then I end up sitting around, intimidated by everything that needs to be done and my somewhat limited abilities to get it all done. 

I absolutely hate these forced periods of inactivity and rest breaks that I have to take all the time.  It's not that I'm the most ambitious go-getter person alive.  I'm actually pretty lazy.  I just like to choose when I get to be lazy.  You know?

Monday, I got to the Peddlers Mall at about 10:30 and worked until about 7:30 that evening.  I took four half-hour long rest breaks during that time and managed to get done everything that I planned for that day.

Tuesday was treatment, so no Peddlers Mall for me.

Wednesday, I got there at about 1:00.  An earlier arrival was not in the cards that day.  I worked until about 6:30.  I got done what I wanted to get done, so I went on home.  I knew there wasn't going to be any extra work out of me last night.

Today, I stayed in.  I could tell when I tried to get up that it wasn't going to happen, so I didn't force it.  Despite what it may seem, I do listen to my body.  It screams at me quite loudly, in fact.  Today has been one long nap.  Much needed.  I think I have to pretty much go in "day on followed by day off" mode.  At most, I can sometimes do two days "on," but that's about it.

Missing today's put me behind, but assuming that I do make it over tomorrow, and that I get as much done as I want to, then I'll still be 3/4 of the way done, and that's goof enough for the weekend.  Then I can take the weekend off, and finish up on Monday or Tuesday next week, still be in good shape, and have everything where I want it to be.

Despite the chaos, I started of July with a very strong day yesterday.  The chippy pink cabinet that wooed many of you is GONE!  Someone else is loving it now, just the way I like it.  The green chair is still there, largely because no one can get near it.  About half my space is totally inaccessible.

Here is kind of what I am working with.  I don't have pics of everything, but you get the idea.

This is what my space looked like after my drop off on Saturday.  Last bit of accessibility gone.  I still managed to sell nearly a hundred bucks worth of stuff that day.  Somehow.  My uncle and I have a joke that some people will crawl into a dumpster over dead rats and broken glass to get at good junk.  An untidy booth doesn't phase 'em.  To that, I say "God bless 'em!"  \

But I do like to keep my space a little better than this.  See all of those shelves in the back?  They've been moved to the new book booth, along with the table of comic boxes on the left, so that's opened up some space to work with.  It's still disheveled, but now it looks like someone is trying to work on it, instead of just storing crap there.

This is the start of the book booth, which is directly across from the other one.  I did not get an after picture, but it has been completely done.  I still have some little things to do, like get a few shelves for toys on the peg wall, but all the other merch is there.

If you can imagine the bookshelves above lining those tape lines, with the books on them and the comics on the table, you pretty much got it.  It's a book booth, you know!

The other thing I've had to deal with was this.

I mentioned that I bought some shelves from a vendor who was leaving.  Well, I also kinda-sorta bought the stuff on the shelves, too.  FROM HERE ON OUT THE MORATORIUM IS TOTAL AND SERIOUS!  I WILL NOT LEAVE THE HOUSE ON SATURDAY!  It was one of those decisions that was kinda dumb and kinda smart.  Dumb because I didn't need the stuff and it's more work to do.  Smart because it was good stuff at a total bargain price and I would be kicking myself if I didn't do it. 

It's the sales from this stuff that's keeping me afloat right now.  I had to get all of this out of where it was, because the space had been rented for July, so I just placed it all around the edges of my other space.  It's been selling like crazy.  I think people never knew it was in the previous booth.  Those shelves hold a lot.

The shelves I had to cram into my other set of booths.  I do not have a picture of that, so if you can just imagine higgledy-piggledy, then you have it. 

I have a set of shelves I need to move from one undone booth to the other once, then some rearranging in  both spots, and restocking, and I'll be done.  I know it seems like a lot, but I'd rather be out and busy than sitting at home all the time.  I'll sit at home when I have to, but I have to get out when I can.

I'll have pics of the entire new set up when it's done next week. 

Until then, remember:

No, I am not on drugs in this picture!

This guy loves you all very much!