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!"


   

Monday Rambles

How did it get to be Monday again?  No one consulted me about this.  Honestly.

I spent yesterday Halloweening the booth.  (I know that's not a real verb, but it totally should be.)  I'm about a week or so off my preferred schedule, but I kept putting it off because I didn't want to deal with the clutter in the shed.

I finally forced myself out there yesterday morning, expecting to spend hours out there dealing with it.  There's a ton of stuff in the shed, and some of it had fallen over, creating a mess I just didn't think I could face.  Turns out, I was done in less than two hours!

The mess was nowhere near as bad as it looked.  I was able to get to exactly what I needed without much trouble, plus rearrange things so that the Christmas stuff is easier to reach to boot!  To top it off, I found a box with several Halloween items merch that I feared was lost after I could not find it last year.   I didn't remember that I had put it into a large cardboard box, instead of the tubs I usually use for storage.  It looked so much like the boxes of my mother's stuff that is still out there that I just assumed it was part of her junk.  I'm really happy to have found these items, because there are some really cute plush ghosts in there that I think will sell fast.

After spending all damn day at the booth rearranging and Halloweening, I'm still not all the way done.  I chose to make getting the Halloween stuff done my priority, so  I didn't do any of the usual tidying and straightening that needed to be done.  I'll be headed out there after work today to get it finished.  In fact, I still have a little of the Halloween stuff to do.  I just dumped a tub of costumes in a chair and I can't leave it like that.

Of course, spending all day at the booth does have its hazards.  I watched two different people knock something in the floor and leave it there!  I beat them to death with a broom and threw the bodies down the freight elevator.  What else was I supposed to do?  (Okay, not really.  But I really wanted to.)  At least one of them bought something.

Send Shara some good sale vibes this week!  Her big, much-anticipated barn sale starts in a couple of days.  Also, reader and commenter Lynn is off on some adventures of her own--Happy Trails, Lynn!

Kosh had a good vet visit.  She said he was looking well and seemed to be happy, other than the fact that he was at the vet, which makes him cranky.  He was pretty well-behaved the whole time.  We made an appointment for Chiquito for November.  God help us all!  It'll take a tactical SWAT strike just to get that boy in the carrier!  He's got an unerring sixth sense when it comes to knowing when to run and hide.  He's faster than either one of us!

Because of Kosh's vet visit, we only had time for a few yard sales, but there weren't too many that looked good anyway.  I did get some vintage folding chairs and a bunch of autumn decor and a tote of Halloween bears.  Pretty light overall.

Thanks for all of the comments on my Albatro$$ series.  I probably should have mentioned that all that stuff has been Craigslisted forever.  (I did write the guide on using CL to promote your booth, you know.)  I did not put the chairs in the kids' section, so I'll try that again.  As for painting anything any color (much less turquoise--yuck!), it ain't gonna happen.  All three items are on the markdown trail, so they will be gone one way or another.

Busy week ahead.  I'm looking at two visits to one booth and one to another, plus some more shed time.  While the weather is nice, I want to deal with some boxes of books I have out there, plus the last of Mom's stuff.  October is going to be a very busy month for me, resale-wise, and I'll need some of that stuff from the shed to do it, so I might as well get started.  I'll tell you all more about my plans later.

Linking Around

It's "Geek Week" on YouTube, so in honor of that I present this pretty awesome Nerdy Jokes video.  How many do you get?  I'm either pleased as punch or appalled that I got everyone of them, save two.  Nerditude confirmed. 

Turns out the most famous Mark Twain quote about Kentucky didn't come from Twain.  Doesn't matter.  It's still true.

Roger already did this one but it's too funny not to share:  George Takei on the aftermath of the DOMA decision.

Finally, links to a couple of collectors sites that I got from monkeybox.  I'm always interested in seeing what people collect.  Sadly, both these sites are defunct, but they've been left up for others to appreciate.  I didn't care for Collection a Day so much because it was so curated and staged.  It really felt artificial and contrived to me, because I didn't feel any of the passion of the real person that is supposedly collecting all these things.  She did get a book deal out of it, so what do I know?

Copycat Collector based her blog on the CaD site, featuring a part of her collections every day for a year.  This one I like a lot.  It just feels much more genuine.  Part of that is because she shares about her items, where they came from, why she likes them.  That is what collecting is about.  It doesn't matter what it is.  There's always a reason why someone collects it.  Divorced from that reason, a collection is just a pile of stuff, and who wants to look at that?