Literary Corner (Someone Else Edition)

A Poem Which I Wish I Would Have Wrote, But Someone Else Did It Instead

Presented by Michael Edward Mitchell, Age 48

Seriously, it's genius! 

Weekend Finds

In Monday's post, I mentioned that I'd put some pics of my weekend finds later in the week.  Well, that time is here.

I'm such a bad junking blogger.  In my drive to get stuff to the booth as quickly as possible, I usually overlook the act of taking pics for the blog.  When I buy something larger in size, it usually has to go right to the booth, since I don't have space to store stuff.

So it was this past weekend.  Much of the items were smaller furniture, so they went right off to YesterNook.  No time for photos, in other words.  On Monday, I went back over to the booth and took a few pics.  They're not the best, since I was using my cell phone, but I think you can get the idea.

This is the bathroom shelf from the Cantina Room!

Close up of the burnt wood details on the shelf.

This is the sweetest Madonna and Child I have ever seen!

Magazine stand or sheet music holder?

This little dude is kind of shy, but cute.

There were a few other things, but those are the highlights.  In the last pic, you can also see a Cosco bathroom stool and a retro-ish chair I also bought over the weekend.

Floored

This past weekend, I did a bit of pet-sitting.  There's this adorable dog that I have minded for a while when his owner is out of town.  He also lived with two kitties, and I look after them too.  I sued to give him an afternoon walk, but I had to stop that for the surgery, and I've been waiting to see how the longer-term of the treatment affects me before I start back with that.

Pet-sitting, though, is like watching TV in someone else's house, except you have to get up and let the dog out from time to time.  I figured it was low impact enough that I could still handle it, so I said I would do it.  Plus, I've been missing the little fellow.  He's a sweetie.

One thing I forgot was how many steps the place has!  It was okay in the morning, but at the end of the day, I had a hard time hauling it up there.

It's a beautiful spacious older home, and the owner is slowly re-doing it, as time and money permit.  A little while ago, the carpet in the guest bedroom (where I sleep) got pulled up.  Guess what was underneath it?

Don't you love it?  It's one solid sheet of linoleum, from the 1920's to judge by the pattern.  It needs a good clean and shine, and those paint spots have got to be removed, but I am totally fascinated by it.  I love the pattern and the colors.  I could stare at it for hours.

If it were mine, I'd be hauling out the Mr Clean and the scraper and bringing that baby back to its former glory, for sure!  My pics don't do it justice.  The colors are bright and bold.  Yes, the pattern is a tad busy, but that's part of its overall charm.

I know that one day it will be gone, either pulled up and replaced or covered over by carpet once again.  It's inevitable.  I, for one, will be very sad when that happens.  At least I've got some pics.

The New Space!

Welcome to the new Eddie's Attic!  (Or as I like to affectionately call it "Ed-Mart"!)

I call this pegboard display my "storefront."

I've spent a lot of time talking about the new space, but not enough time showing it. Let me rectify that right now.

To review, I took over the fourth corner of a little fourplex spot in the Peddlers Mall.  I already had three of the four spaces, so I basically run this little quadrant now.

One of the things I like about it is that it is so roomy and spread out.  I have a ton of stuff in there for sale, but I still have room for lots of small furniture or a couple of large pieces.  Yard sale shopping will be fun this year!  I can't wait.

Of course, it would not be my space without lots of comic books.  I've been able to add a couple of boxes and they have been selling really well.  In fact, I need to get some more ready to bring in!

And the religion wall, or as we call it, St Attica, is still there!

I love having my books on real bookcases!

This magazine rack is a yard sale find!

I hope you have enjoyed the tour.  If you are ever in Louisville, let me know and I'll be glad to show you the place (plus my other spot at YesterNook!)

Finally, I could not have down this transition without help.  I took the new spot right after my surgery.  I couldn't lift anything or really do a lot without tiring out and I was still in a bit of pain.  I kind of supervised how I wanted things, and Keith put and moved them where they needed to go.  He did a great job!

Monday Rambles

Some of the stuff I read about my chemo drug, DTIC, indicated that the effects would be at their most intense about three or so weeks after the infusion.  Well, that was last week, and I was definitely feeling it!  It's also pretty obvious that I'm not on steroids any more.  In other words, my sizable ass is dragging!  I cannot imagine being any more tired than this, but I am sure that it is possible.

Tuesday, I woke up at about 9-ish and at about 9:05-ish felt like I was ready to call it a day.  My get up and go definitely got up and went.  Wednesday was about the same.  I came home from work and was in bed by 5.  I didn't wake up until 7 on Thursday.  Thursday was a good day, and Friday was for about half the day, until I crashed and burned at 2:30 for a three hour nap.

I think it's going to be good days and bad days from here on out.  I think I've figured out that I need to limit myself to the essentials on the bad days and rest as much as I can, then work the good days for all they're worth. 

I get my next chemo treatment next Tuesday.  Hopefully, I'll still be able to have some good days with two rounds in me.

Sales last week just about dried up for a few days, after being awesome all month.  I hate to lose momentum like that.  Bummer.  They did pick up towards the end of the week.  Hopefully I can still bounce back some more  I am still ahead of last month at both spots.

We hit a few estate sales on Saturday, plus one church sale.  The church sale was pretty unremarkable, but the estate sales were fun.  One was so crowded that I almost gave up.  The people giving the sale said the house had been closed up for three years!  There was tons of stuff, and the prices were pretty good.  The basement was mainly unpriced.  As I was coming down there, a man was buying three small 48 star flags for a dollar each!  Ack!  I died.

 At another sale, I watched a guy take the lid off a sewing kit, set it aside, and proceed to pull the best stuff out of it.  He walked out of the closet with two old tins of buttons and some old darning tools, leaving the rest behind.  I poked my head in once he left and saw that the lid he removed was priced.  In other words, he was cherry-picking something that had a lot price.  This is what is known in the business as an "asshole move."

In the basement of the house, I ran into him again.  I was looking at a bunch of tools when he came in the room, so I grabbed the level and walked away.  Keith was like, "That's what you are getting?"  I told him:  "I don't want him to get it."  So, I carried it with me until he left the area.  Then, I decided I really liked it, so I bought it!

I waited around until the guy checked out, because I wanted to see what would happen.  I was also fully prepared to narc on the guy.  Crap like this makes it harder for honest dealers and collectors to get things at fair prices.  Seriously, the whole sewing box was only six bucks, which was an excellent price.  Fortunately, the people running the sale recognized the stuff and told him that it was an all or nothing deal for the kit.  He tried to protest that he "hadn't seen the price because the lid was sitting to one side."  (Yeah, because he put it there.)  Then he tried the "But I don't want this other stuff" line.  The sale runners told him it was all or nothing and he could donate or re-sell what he didn't want.

 After he left, I finished my shopping.  When I was checking out, I told the folks running the show what I had seen.  They were really annoyed at the whole deal, especially because the overall price was so good.  Hell, I've bought lots of box lots just to get one or two really good items.  It's part of the game!

That last sale, by the way, was super cool.  The basement of the place had been converted into a replica of a Mexican cantina.

Pics nicked from the Craigslist ad for the sale.

I'm going to be doing a post later in the week with some pics of my finds.  Most of them went right to a booth, so I've got to go back and get pics when I go to straighten up.  (I forgot when I was putting everything out.)  I got a couple of really fab things.

Well, I gotta run.  Hope everyone has a good day and week.  I'm going to try to keep the blog up this week, so check back and see if I do.

The Soundtrack of My Life

Like a lot of us, I love to have music in the background when  I work on projects or clean the house.  At my last job, people would make special trips past my office to listen to whatever I was playing, since my tastes do run to the eclectic.

This is one of my high-energy favorites, for those times when I need to kick it into high gear.*



Oy, the outfits!  Did we really all lose our minds in the 80's when it came to taste?  (Don't answer that!)

*It's also one of those rare things I have to listen to when I'm alone.  Keith is not wild about vocalese styles.

And Then There Was the Time Emmylou Harris sang a Johnny Cash Song with Sheryl Crow and Mary Chapin Carpenter

With Marty Stuart playing mandolin, yet!  Does it get any better than this?  I think not.

Uhm...Do No Evil?

Sometimes, I miss out on a cool find, but it ends up at home anyway.  Keith typically goes yard saling with me, although he doesn't check out every sale on my list.  Still, he buys his fair share of stuff.

I have to kind of keep an eye on him, because he'll dredge up some purely awful stuff sometimes and be convinced he has to have it.  (Nose hair trimmer, anyone?)  Then, it will sit around in a box or bag for about six months, until he finally gets around to putting things away.  At this point, he'll look at it, say "What was I thinking?" and hand it off to me to put in a booth!  Problem is, I don't want to sell nose hair trimmers!

In fairness, he does sometimes find some killer item that I have passed by and bring it to my attention.  Usually, though, I have to divide my time between watching him and, well, working. 

He unpacked one of his boxes recently, and made me totally jealous in the process.  This awesome thing is now overlooking the computer desk where I type these words.

Take a real close look.  Aren't there traditionally only three monkeys?  Who's that guy on the end?

And what's he keeping from performing evil deeds?

Hmmmmm?

Gotta love it!  (Even if I didn't see it first!)

Untold Tales of Curb-Diving Acquisitions

A couple of months ago, we went to my 25th college reunion.  I got some junking in while we were there, including some stuff I recently posted about.  When we got back to Louisville, I kind of got annoyed that it was also the weekend for junk set out in our neighborhood, but I had missed most of the best picking because I was away.  That'll teach me to go out of town when I should be working!  I did hit a couple of curb piles and found a few things, including a stack of Three Investigators books.  I loved those things when I was a kid, even more than the Hardy Boys!

A little later, we started hauling some of our own junk out to the curb, when I notice a neat stack down the street that wasn't there before.  Since it was an unpicked pile (and because rain was predicted for the coming Monday), I hoofed it on down to check it out.

The first thing I found was this:

I have no idea who Miss Pinny is or why she's an art whore, (or what an "art whore" is) but I thought it was cool.

It was on top of one of those cloth storage bins you can get at Bed, Bath and Beyond and the like.  I looked inside and saw this:

The green thing is a vintage magazine holder from a library.

JACKPOT!!!!!!!!!

A bevy of Madonnas (some vintage) and a large pink Jesus.  

Let me repeat that: 

  

LARGE 

PINK 

JESUS!!!

Not the best pic, I know.  My camera died and I've not yet mastered pics with my phone.

Happy Dance!  Happy Dance!

Even better, Jesus is like a Magic 8 Ball.  He'll give you answers.  Wow!

In addition, there was a bag of old sewing machine supplies that I'm sure I can sell somewhere.  Best haul of the whole weekend!  Three houses down from us. 

Sadly, it did indeed rain that Monday, putting an end to the picking.  Stuff ain't no good after it gets wet.  No more curb-diving until May!  (Which cannot get here fast enough!)

Literary Corner (Cancer Edition)

A Poem Which I Have Wrote about My Cancer

by Michael Edward Mitchell, age 48

This is my radiation tan.

It follows my scar

as best it can

to kill the cancer
inside this man.

This is my radiation tan.

I meant to do this one a while ago, when I was really a lot redder, but got too busy to do the pic.  I think you can still see some of the color.  I think it's pretty noticeable, particularly from head on. One of my ears is definitely redder than the other.  The scar is really healing nicely now.

Monday Rambles

Cancer is helping me to understand drug abuse.  Not condoning, mind you, but I can better understand the appeal of certain substances, now that I've had to take them for a while.  Take pain meds, for example.  Percocet was a godsend after the surgery!  It was so nice not to be in pain and to be able to sleep well.  I can understand the draw it has for people now, except that  I simply cannot imagine living in that kind of fog all the time.

Another example is steroids.  I had so much energy all last week while I was on them!  I felt like I did before the surgery.  I could get things done.  I didn't need to sit or take rest breaks.  It was awesome.  I also ate uncontrollably.  It's kind of a drag to go back into the land of fatigue and healing, but I know my body needs it.  I'm just glad I was able to get some things done that I had not been able to work on.  Hopefully, that'll at least give me a little bit of a leg up for a few weeks.

One of the things I did was schedule some video posts for the next few weekends, so that I could at least have some content, even if it's low content.  I got some other things outlined, so maybe it won't take too much to get them finished. 

I got a little thrifting in this past week.  Still no special or fabulous finds, but I kind of got tickled over these.  Sometimes, I can't help myself.

Would you say that I have a plethora of Our Lady of Fatima holy water bottles?

Same with weekend yard sales.  A couple of waaaaaay over-priced estate sales and a garage sale.  I did score a couple of cool religious pics, but the one I really, really wanted at the sale was $25!  Because it had a light!  That was so off-kilter, because everything else was a buck or less.  Go fig.

This puppy is huge!  And it was a buck!

Sales are very strong this month for both locations.  I'm kind of back in that old situation of now having furniture at YesterNook and playing the waiting game for it to sell, which I never really like.  Stuff just needs to go as soon as I put it out, you know?  That should be a rule.  Who do I write about that?

At Peddler's Mall, I'm already at last month's total, with half a month left to go.  Nice.  The new space finally has a flow to it and stuff is moving.  I had an 80 dollar day in the middle of the week (!) last week when someone cleaned out a bunch of my religious articles.  Need to do that more often, let me tell ya!

Problem is, I'm about to run out of stuff!  My new space takes a lot more merch to restock.  My winter stash is just about gone.  It's too early in the season for a huge haul from that yard sales.  My recuperation has kept me out of the thrifts for the first part of the year.

I've got a bit of a backlog of stuff for YesterNook, but I don't really want to take it to the other booth.  I kind of select stuff that's the best fit for each destination.  I might have to sort through some of it and pull some stuff, if I don't have a super-score pretty quick.  I think I might have a box or two of stuff in the shed, but it won't be much.  Oh, the perils of re-selling!  Feast or famine, let me tell you!

On the other hand, sometimes it's the odd things that make it all worthwhile.  There's a restaurant down the street from us that also sells flea market finds, but at outrageous prices.  Sometimes, I run into one of the owners at a yard sale, then it becomes a rush to grab the good stuff first, because she has deeper pockets and a bigger vehicle than me.

Anyway, from time to time they just set stuff out on the curb by their back door.  I think it's probably stuff they've gotten in either box lots or buy-outs that they don't want to sell for various reasons.  I've made some good finds there in the past, including a some old Masonic books, an old Hebrew Bible, and a director's chair.

So last week, we were heading home and there were some small things set out on the curb.  I always have to check things out, so we stopped.  I picked up this small display rack, kind of like they use to hang ties on or maybe jewelry.  This is kind of like what I'm talking about:

The one I found was made out of wood and had a little more of a masculine vibe to it, so I really do think it was for ties.  It was tabletop size, and I thought it would be a great display piece for the booth.  I sell a lot of rosaries and religious medals and trinkets, and it was the right size to make a perfect display for me!

Well, on my next trip to the booth, I forgot to take it in, so it was still in the car on Friday.  Keith told me that one of his co-workers had seen it in the car and asked if he would sell it.  She liked it for her own jewelry.  He had told her that it wasn't for sale, because I was going to use it, but I gave him a price to give her.  I didn't think she'd go for it, because it was missing a couple of prongs, but she took it!  He was kind of surprised that I would sell it, but I told him that I could always find something like it to use, if I needed to, but that a sale is something you should never pass up. That's your Booth 101 lesson for today.

It's kind of a busy week for me.  I have two doctor's appointments on top of everything else.  Cancer sure increases the number of your doctors and appointments.  I'm going to try to get some stuff finished and scheduled.  I have a couple of posts that are near completion, so I'm hoping to polish them off.  if not, I have a couple of special videos posted for the weekend.

Thanks again to everyone for their kind thoughts and notes and wishes.  It really does help.  I hope you all have good weeks too!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

Not sure what Bob Dylan really has to do with St Pat's, but I love Flogging Molly's version of the song.  And they most certainly do!

Cat Philosophy

Who needs instructions?

Oh Dear!

Superman has lost his head!  Uh oh!

 

 I'm not that much of a comic blogger any more, but I picked this one up with a bunch of other comics at YesterNook the other day and could  not resist including it here.  How cool is that?  No matter how old I get, this kind of DC comics Bronze Age silliness still tickles my inner 9 year old to death.

I'm betting most of the cool, satirical comics sites have had their way with this one years ago.  I'd be really surprised if the awesome Mike Sterling at Progressive Ruin hadn't already poked some loving fun with this gem ages ago.

Help Me. Stop Me. Please.

Three or more of anything is a collection.  I swear to god, folks, these things are all at the booth and for sale.  Really.  What is wrong with me??  Would it help if I told you they were a buck or so each?

The old school urinals are kind of cool in their own way.

I never saw one with a graniteware finish before.  

I cleaned this one out after I took the pic!

This one has a lid for neatness' sake.

I think using the spout in the gray one while lying in a hospital bed and not making a mess in the process would be a bit of a challenge.

This has been Eddie's plea for help for the week.

Fun Finds: The Catechism Game!

I remember my days back at Our Mother of the Perpetual Perpetualness School with fondness.  On Fridays in Lent, when we were finished with our lessons, Sister Mary Ignatia would play her nose flute for us.  Then, Sister Mary Clarabelle would get into the "special closet" and bring out....

THE CATECHISM GAME!

It was an exciting time, for sure.

Seriously, stuff like this is the reason I love shopping at Catholic thrifts.

Rashy Monday Rambles

Friday, I started developing a rash all over my arms and torso.  I guess the side effects have started.  I've dug out a little notebook and started a chemo journal of all the effects and happenings.  I figure it might help at my appointments.

Sorry for the pic of my fat, fat leg here.  I promise you that I am indeed wearing shorts.  I hope no one is having breakfast at this moment.  Anyway, you can see some of the rash.  It's worse on my arms and belly.  The arm pics didn't come out so well and I refuse to inflict the sight of my fat, white belly on you all.  No need to lose readers over this cancer thing.

When I went to get my IL2 shot on Friday, I told the nurse about it and she told me to take Pepcid.  I know the look that I gave her was incredibly rude, but by that point I had been scratching all damn day.  Really?  She laughed at me and said most people do that same thing every time she says that.  She says that Pepcid is a histamine blocker and good for rashes and the like.  Okay, but I've been taking Benadryl all week long, and I still have this damn rash.  I think we're talking more than just a little excess histamine here.

Then she finally takes a look at my back and stomach and decides to call the doc.  Doc says that it's probably a reaction to the IL2, so no shot for me on Friday.  Instead, I get a prescription for steroids.  Yipee.  I'm actually taking the same pills that Kosh takes for his flea allergies and excess scratching.  Only my doses are bigger.  Every day cancer bonds me with my cat in new and interesting ways.

I spent the weekend working on a lot of stuff.  I have tried to get a few posts ready, so that you all have something to read about besides chemo this and chemo that.  Cancer or no cancer, life still goes on.  There are videos to watch, comics to read, blog posts to write and soap operas to stew over, after all.  Not to mention junk to buy and sell.

Speaking of which, restocking at YesterNook fired up my sales there, which was nice to see.  Peddler's Mall sales have started to hit the level that I need them to be at, just not every day.  I'm realizing that the need to keep that large space restocked is going to be critical, and that I need to have more items in the 10-20 dollar range.  I'm going to be shopping for the higher end of things this summer, I guess.

Another one of my favorite church sales happened over the weekend.  I've always loved this sale.  Tons of stuff--a whole auditorium full, in fact.  Not much furniture, but lots of other stuff.  I bought a set of cross-stitch Precious Moments framed pics for a couple bucks each.  PM peaked a long time ago as a collectible, but it's perfect flea market fodder.  I actually sell a lot of PM stuff.  Go figure.

I also got a kids' puppet stage for a dollar!  Woo hoo!  We ended up making two trips through the place.  As we were leaving the last time, the ladies  at the check out table asked us if we were coming back again!  Love little old church ladies!  (And their pricing!  Most of the stuff in my big, big box was a quarter or less.)

Ever since the chemo, I've been feeling a little off.  It's kind of hard to define, actually.  The best I could do for Keith was say "I don't feel like I'm supposed to feel."   It's like some little reminder that something is happening in my body, but so far it's just a little unease.  I'm wondering if it's going to increase as time goes on or not.

The Best of Care

Don't worry about me.  I'm in good hands.  Or rather paws.

Yes, Doctor Kosh is on the job.  That's me in bed and he is laying his head right on my face.  He does that whenever he gets worried.  Usually, it's after I've been gone for a while.

I have to go to the cancer center in the afternoons this week and get a follow-up IL2 shot as part of the treatment.  I have to take a couple of Tylenol and a Benedryl before I get the shot.  Still not clear as to why that is.  The Benedryl makes me extremely sleepy, so I laid down when I got home yesterday.

One of the effects of the shot is that I get super-size chills and body aches at some point after getting it.  They eventually go away and I can take OTC stuff to help with them, but they are pretty hefty when they first hit.

So, I woke up last night and I was kind of dizzy and disoriented and just wracked with chills and aches.  I had Keith walk me to the bathroom, just to make sure I didn't fall or trip over something.  Then I took some Ibuprofen and crawled back into bed.  Keith threw an extra cover on me, as well.  I also had him check to make sure I didn't really have a fever.

Kosh immediately crawled up to the spot you see in the pic.  He lay there and purred and purred and purred.  We stayed like that for quite a while, until the chills broke and I didn't need the extra covers any more.

I'm getting better care than I realized.  Maybe I should take him in for my next consult.

Chemo Scoreboard

ONE DOWN!

FIVE MORE TO GO!

So how do I feel?

Roughly like I've been hit in the face by a shovel.

I'm dizzy.

I'm queasy.

Stuff hurts.

And I taste metal.

Monday Rambles Return!

Well, I didn't do too well with the posts in February there, did I?  Sorry about that.  I started a post two weeks ago, right after the trip and it got to be so whiny and negative that I just couldn't post it.  I hate to be that self-absorbed, even if this is my blog.  I also decided at that point that I would not post anything until I could write a reasonable, non-whiny post.

It's taken me a bit to get to that point, it seems.

Anyway, I caught a cold on the trip that is just now clearing up.  Four people in our delegation had the flu and didn't mind sharing with the rest of us.  It settled into my throat and would not let go.  We're talking hoarseness, loss of voice, and lots of pain.  But no symptoms anywhere else.  That's when the whining started.

I thought it was a radiation side effect, because they were blasting my jaw and the side of my throat, but the radiation doc didn't think so.  I didn't have any blisters or spots that would indicate the most common side effects.  Still, he gave me a prescription for this stuff they mix at the cancer center called, I kid you not, Mary's Magic Potion.  Apparently, this is a pretty common treatment option for folks with cancer treatments.

So, I got all excited about Mary's Magic Potion (who wouldn't?), but it didn't do anything for me.  It did deaden the pain, but it didn't clear anything out.  And it gave me the runs.  The write up they gave me with the bottle says that it contains some pretty powerful anti-fungal agents, which would kill thrush, which is a radiaton side effect.  Since I didn't have thrush, I didn't need all those meds, so I had to reluctantly give up Mary's Magic Potion.

I'm hanging on to the bottle, just in case the house is ever invaded by giants or trolls.  I have a gut feeling that it might just come in handy.  What's in your emergency kit?

I finally went to my primary doc last Tuesday and he gave me some really strong anti-biotics that seem to be knocking this sucker out.  Yay!  Interestingly, he did a strep throat swab and a flu swab and both came back negative.  My white blood cells were normal too.

Speaking of radiation, I finished those treatments!  Yay!  Now for the chemo, which starts tomorrow.  I'm going to have a treatment every 28 days for the next six months.  I'll get the chemo (DTIC), along with an immune booster shot (IL2) on Tuesday of the treatment week.  Then, I have to get another immune booster shot on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of that week.

I have to admit that I am really nervous about this.  I don't like the idea of putting toxic substances in my body, even though I already have something deadly there that has to be dealt with.  I'm mainly worried about more fatigue.  I think I can deal with everything else as far as side effects go, but I'm so slowed down right now, that I can't imagine being any more tired than this.

I feel kind of selfish when I have thoughts like this.  The one thing I have really wanted to do through this whole thing is call my mother and compare cancer treatment notes, but I can't do that.  She had it so much worse than me, and I'm whining about being a little more tired.

I'm drifting into self-absoprtion mode again.  Time to change course.

The trip went okay.  It wasn't the best time or circumstance to go, but it had to be done.  It was my first time being around a group of folks who did not know about the surgery.  People do not seem to be shy about asking about visible scars.  I was unaware of this.  Walking through airports lugging a carry on bag will definitely require some rest breaks.

I did squeeze in one quick thrift visit on the trip.  I couldn't buy much, but I got some vintage cookie cutters and old children's religious books.  Can you believe that there was actually a series of books called "Easy Reading Books of Saints and Friendly Beasts"?  I now have proof.

I swiped this image off eBay.  Mine is in much better condition.  No time for pics right now.

I spent the weekend trying to revive the booths, which are dying a slow and agonizing death.  I'm not yet seeing the kind of sales bump that I need to support the new rent amount at Peddlers Mall and I had not been to YesterNook in ages.  Neither of those things is good.  Not good at all.

I took too long to get the new space finished, which cut into my sales for the first half of February.  Once things settled down, sales picked up quickly and were good for the last half of the month, but you can't overcome a poor start in a month that's already two days short.  My check there was just about the lowest it has ever been.  March is starting really strong though.  Hope it holds up.

Maybe a funny story?  I was working the space the other day and this big dude with, like, fourteen neck tattoos comes over and starts looking at my religion wall.  We get to talking and he says "I love Jesus, too man."  This after I have to explain a lot of the merch to him, including why the holy water font has a sponge in it.  "Yeah," he says, "I don't go to church at all, but that Jesus has a story that'll make you just fall in love."  I feel ya, bro.

I have finally been well enough to break into my winter merch stash.  I know winter is almost over, but, hey, I have cancer.  You may have heard that. I hold some stuff back throughout the summer to carry me through the cold months when there are no yard sales.  I think I still have enough to get me through at least part of my chemo sessions, so maybe the pressure to get new stuff won't be so hard on me.

I've had crap luck on what limited hunting runs I've been able to make.  I know I have the stash, but most of us junkers started out as shoppers, so it's in the blood.  You got to keep the beast at least slightly satiated, you know.

I did, however, strike gold on Saturday at two church sales.  I filled the back of my truck for 40 bucks, including a nice glass topped end table, boxes full of small stuff, a Redmon picnic basket, a couple of vintage kids play vanities, and a ton more!  If that ends up being my only yard sale run for the spring, I damn sure made it count! 

Finally, a request.  You may have seen Kathy commenting here and there on this blog.  She's a YesterNook vendor and really nice person.  She's having some health issues of her own right now.  Would mind sending her a happy thought or two?