Monday Rambles

ALL HEED  THE WISDOM!

That actually explains a lot....

Here lately, this is definitely a necessity.

WEATHER REPORT

So we've gone through a week of freezing temps and snow and are getting ready to go into a week that is supposed to peak at around 70 later on.  Sigh.  Welcome to the Ohio Valley.  Still the warmer weather will give me a chance to do some stuff outside, which is nice.

We've already started making our junk pile for the Feb. set out by the back fence and it's getting a little untidy.  I would like to straighten it up a bit.  Some of the neighbors have already started throwing things on the curb, even though it's early.  We're a bunch of rebels in my 'hood, for sure.  I need a nice day to get out and scavenge.

I'd also like to spend an afternoon at storage making a load of furniture for the booth.  I'm starting to see I've got a good deal of room for some more big stuff.

SPEAKING OF THE BOOTH

I'm just about finished re-stocking.  Sales have been consistent, despite the weather.  I have heard that tat returns will be delayed this year until the end of February, which is worrying.  I really need that sales boost.  At least that gives me more time to prepare.

Today, I have to try and work another bookshelf into the book booth.  I think I have figured out how to do it.  Keith is getting ready to thin his books and has warned me to get ready for them.

I'm on a crusade right now to get the back log out of my house.  We want to swap out my junk room and the bedroom, as the junk room has more closet space.  The bedroom will be turned into a workroom/office.

Every morning before I go the mall and every evening after I get home, I try to get together a box or two of stuff, which goes to the booth the next day.  I'd rather be figuring out how and where to place it there, where it can make some money, than here, where it is just in the way.

AND NOW A WORD FROM MY MOTHER

I've also been going through old boxes of stuff to see if there's anything that I can sell, donate, or otherwise get rid of.  There's just too much crap around here.  In the course of doing that, I found a folder of jokes and clipping and stuff that my mother used to stick in with her letters (remember those?) when I was in college.  I have a briefcase full of those letters too.

Among them all was this gem, which she sent me while I was in seminary.  I promptly taped it to the door of my dorm room.

If you think that my sense of humor is crazy, you should have known my mother.  She was a nut!

JUST CALL ME DOPEY

I forgot to tell you all that I'm on Ritalin now to try and deal with my treatment-related fatigue.  Apparently my fat, old, tired ass has a lot in common with a sixth-grader who can't sit still.  It actually does help a lot, without the side effects I was having with the steroids.  It's not the same kind of manic energy boost, but more of a controlled, sustaining effect.  I do need to take more than one to keep going through the day.  If I miss my afternoon dose, I sure start feeling it!

DVD OF THE WEEK

In three words:  AMAZON SISTAHS HOLLA!

Sadly, there's no throwing wheel action here, but she kicks plenty of mythological ass!  I highly recommend this one and am now super-psyched for the movie this year.

Monday Rambles (Back Home Edition)

ALL HEED THE WISDOM!

That's the nicest thing a fortune cookie has ever said to me!

Well, it worked for Trump......

True that!


HOME AGAIN HOME AGAIN

We got back at about 11:30-ish Thursday evening and were very happy to be off the road.  We made excellent time coming back too.  The trip is about a 13 hour drive, give or take.  We made it in 11.  We were worn out, but it was worth it to be back home.

FAMILIAR FACE

We were greeting enthusiastically and vociferously by this little guy.

Okay, so he's not quite so enthusiastic here, but trust me, he was.

He even slept in between our pillows that night, something he never ever does.  He was super, super clingy for a few days after.  He definitely doesn't like it when we go away.

We've finally figured out that he's not a very social kitty.  Kind of like his people, he's just not that into interacting with most people.  We're all just anti-socialites here.  We told our cat-checker to just make sure that he was okay when she stopped in, but not to try and pet him or play with him.  Even at that, he still growled at her every time she came over.  He's a two-man cat, our boy.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

Since we still had our rental car for an extra day, we decided to make this year's long overdue cemetery trip.  Mazda just ain't up to long interstate journeys any more, so we rent a car to go to Arkansas.  Things have been too crazy of late to head to the country, so snubbing Black Friday seemed like a good idea.

My mother now has her new winter hat.

I also averted a crisis at my grandparents' grave.

I'm pretty sure Grammie wasn't happy about this.

All better!  I picked up the stray flowers after I took this pic.

THE VISITATION

We had a real good visit in Arkansas.  Even with the extra time we had, it still seemed way too rushed and way too short.  I guess it will always be that way.  Still, we did cover a lot of ground and had wonderful times with as much of his family as we could.  One of his aunts had been going through her mother's papers and pictures and gave him an envelope filled with his old school pics, family pics, and lots of pictures of his father as a boy.  It was great!

HOLIDAY SHOPPING

I did manage to get some junking in during the trip.  More on that tomorrow.  I found a Salvation Army that I had never seen before and revisited a cute little vendor mall that I was last at a couple of years ago.  I also stopped at a couple of flea markets during the cemetery trip as well.  I didn't find a lot, but there were some cool things.

REARRANGING THE DECK CHAIRS

Booth sales are still down in the dumps.  I had a little bounce in November, but not enough of one.  I'm still due for a really low check.  It seems that consumer confidence didn't rise with the election results. 

I've got Mazda loaded down with holiday stuff to put out this week.  We'll see if that helps at all.  I desperately need a really good end to this year.

MUSIC FOR MONDAY (HOLIDAY EDITION)

I guess I'll wrap it up with this and see you all later.

Monday Rambles

Behold the wisdom of the fortune cookie!

Behold the wisdom of the trash can in the alley!

Saw that one while on a trash crawl constitutional during junk set out.

I have a feeling if everyone would take both bits of advice to heart, this world would be a better place.

Who says flea markets aren't classy?

C'mon!  We got caviar in the salvage groceries!  Top that!

I found my birthday present the other day in a showcase across from my booth.

That's the way cool 70's Batmobile, by the way.  And it has both figures with it!  Now, I just need to find someone who loves me enough to drop 50 bucks (!) on it.  Well, we do have six months to save up.

Shara did a ramble last week, so I'm doing a phone dump this week. More to come in a second.

I have never been more glad to see a month end than this one.  Barring a HUGE rush today and tomorrow, I'm going to have my lowest total for 2016, and the lowest one in a while.  Sales have just been off.  And it's not just me.  Nearly everyone I know here is seriously crying the blues, no matter what mall they're in.  Sigh.

I know that May means Derby, Mother's Day, the start of warm weather, yard work, yard sales, graduations and proms.  I know that this is just a cyclical downturn and things will pick back up when it finally gets too warm for the wimpy somewhat less than hardcore yard sale shoppers.  But, dammit, I'm overly dramatic!  I wail because it's what I do.  And right now, I'm having a good one.  Wail, that is.  Not month.

If you listen close you can probably hear me.

How slow has it been?  Well, the last two times I've gone in to straighten up, there was nothing to do!  Typically, when things are the slowest, that's when booths get the messiest.  At least mine do.  Counter-intuitive, I know, but that's been the pattern borne out by seven years of experience.  This time around, they're almost spotless.  Even the comic booth, which is always a wreck.  Sigh.

I was loading the van yesterday, when I started hearing some murmurings from the stuff I was putting in.  It seems I had promised them their moment in the blog, but had never gotten around to getting pictures.    In the interest of peace and harmony, here are a few shots of some recent purchases.

Heavy, rusted antique snow shovel.  I can see this baby in someone's porch decor this winter.

Painted bench and vintage metal kid-size folding chair.  I got three of the chairs.  If there had been more, I would have gotten more.  This came from a church sale I like a lot.  Every year, they bring out a few items from their defunct school.  Usually, it's school desks.  This year, it was these chairs.

 

 Folding wooden chair from the same sale.

Two drawers from the same sale.  I've been kicking myself for not getting more, as they had a bunch.  I love those heavy metal candle holders.  The big GI Joe ship came from a fund-raiser sale that a friend of mine puts on every year.  I was looking through all the small toys on a table when she said "Don't forget the big toys too."  And there it sat.  My friends know me so well.  I also got a huge box full of those big cardboard bricks that they use in nursery schools.  I forgot to get a pic of it.

Speaking of forgotten pics, that photobombing blue thing in the back is a handmade child's stool from the junk set out.  This apparently is the only shot I took of it.  It flips over, so it can still be used as the child grows.  It was completely filthy, but totally solid.

Speaking of the curb finds, they'll be back tomorrow.  I'll be wrapping up the bigger stuff then and moving on the the smalls by the end of the week.  The smalls are where the real awesomeness lies.

I hope everyone has nice plans for the holiday.  I was intending to go to the Big Flea today in honor of my mother.  The sixth anniversary of her death was Saturday.  Memorial weekend has a slightly different meaning for me, I guess.

However, when I was dropping stuff off at the booth, a soon-to-be-departing vendor offered me her two booths full of stuff for fifty bucks.  She's been running a sale all month to clear things out, but still had a whole lot left.  There's easily fifty bucks worth of movies alone.

On Wednesday, I'll ask the mall to add her number to my account, so I don't have to re-tag everything.  Having a separate number for the buy helps me track the sales easily as well.  They can't do it until she gets removed from the system at the end of the month, or all of her sales for May will be added to mine.  (Well, she did say I could have everything.)

So instead of the flea market, I'll be heading to the Peddlers Mall today to sort out that stuff. If anyone does want anything, I can re-tag it.  Otherwise, I'll pull it off the floor and stash it until the first.  The largest items (and there is a little bit of furniture) will go right into my spaces with new tags.  She kept her stuff fairly organized, so it won't be a hard job, but it will take most of the day.

I think Mom would understand.  I'll hit the Big Flea again in July, in honor of her birthday.  She would be 74.

The only thing I was going to be hunting at the flea market was comics, since I am running short.  However, there's already a sale for Saturday on Craigslist that advertises "thousands" of comics for 50 cents each.  And there's a con coming up at the end of June.  I think I'll be all right.

Yes, I do realize that I paid for the privilege of cleaning out someone else's spaces.  It's good karma.  The last two vendors to leave ended up just giving me tons of stuff they didn't want to haul out.

I can't play on the scale of some of the larger vendors, but I do okay for myself.  The best stuff kind of falls into your lap, it seems.

Yes, I know this is why Sorrow Mountain is a thing.  It is slowly coming down.  I need to get some pics of that progress for you all.  

Retro Y'all!

I usually post these without comment, since I want the music to stand on its own, but I do have to say a few things here.

This song always makes me think of my mother, who was a feisty thing.  When I was in about fourth grade, I had a teacher who liked to take my glasses away or make the kids who glasses change pairs.  I have no idea what that was about.  She eventually got fired after she tied a student to a pencil sharpener.  Anyway, when my mother found out about the glasses thing, the fur really flew.  She loved a good scrap, my mom.

After she died, I listened to this song over and over for several weeks.  She loved it. 

Cemetery Trip

I still owe you all pics from our cemetery trip the weekend before last.  This is your warning that you're about to embark on a journey with a fat guy in a white tee that he probably should not have ever worn in public, rainy day or not.

I should also note that I got all the flowers I took down that day from a couple of cool booths at the Dixie Peddlers Mall.  The flags I brought were leftovers from my own booth 4th of July stock.

Putting flowers on my grandmother's grave

I always have to take a couple of minutes to chat with my grandmother when I'm there.  Out of everyone at the cemetery, I miss her the most.  My cousin who lives across the road says that she comes over and talks to Grammie all the time.  She was something else, my grandmother.

My grandfather's parents

My grandfather has two flags, because I brought one and the one the VFW put out on Memorial Day was still there.  

My grandmother's parents

This is the plainest my great grandparents grave has ever looked.  Bit by bit, the ones who do most of the flower-bringing are fading away.  I wish I lived close enough to get down there more often.

I need to do something about all those bare hooks at my parents' graves.  It just looks kind of sad.  At least one of them needs to go, but I start to fear that someone will come over and not have a place to put some flowers.  The hook on the far right is the one my mother used to put out flowers for my father.  Next time I'm down there, I'll move it between the graves and take the middle hook, that I put in.

Missing Mama

I wasn't sold on that saddle arrangement, until I saw it on her tombstone.

It's a good thing I brought the flags.  Dad's VFW flag had broken off, so I replaced it with this one.  I cannot believe it's been almost ten years.

Finally, a shot of me cleaning bird shit off Dad's grave with my bare hands!  (I used a lot of hand sanitizer when I got back in the van.)  It was just a small spot.

Post Mother's Day Thoughts

Mother's Day wasn't anything special for me this year.  Enough time has passed now since Mom died that I don't dwell on it all day any more.  It's not far from my mind on Mothers Day, but I'm more able to go on throughout the day than I was before.

I got on a buying tear on Saturday (more on that later), so I went to the booth and worked all day.  When I came home, I settled in with an old puzzle book that I found when I was cleaning out the shed.  It's one of the series of books put out by Games Magazine that I bought several years ago.  Somehow, it got lost in the shuffle, so I never completed many of the puzzles in the book.  I found a couple of these in the shed and I have been working through them ever since.  It's a nice way to unwind.  This was the first time I had gotten into this book since I found it.

I started thumbing through it, looking to see what had been completed and what had not been started, and I got a real surprise.  There, interspersed with my unreadable scrawl, was page after page of puzzles done in my mother's neat, even printing.  (I've always kind of marveled that she wrote so clearly and nicely, while neither my brother nor I can produce anything resembling legibility.)

At some point in time, during some of her visits with us, she had gotten her hands in this book and worked a few pages.  I found puzzles that I had started and she had completed.  I found puzzles that I had screwed up and she had corrected.  I found pages that she had whipped through on her own.

I get my love of puzzles from Mom.  When I was a kid, I would get into her puzzle books all the time.  I was always amazed at all the different kinds of puzzles she could do so easily.  Somewhere along the line, she started leaving the easy puzzles for me to do, so I would stop trying to do the hard ones and mess them up before she got to them.

For a while, she would cut the easy puzzles out, glue them to a piece of construction paper, put the solution on the back, and let me take them to school, so I would have something to do when I got finished with my other work.  My favorites as a child were word searches.  Today, I like all kinds of puzzles.  My favorite app on my phone is my crossword app, which I use daily to download and work puzzles.

The other night, I could not sleep, so I got up and got out a puzzle book.  Keith woke up and looked at me and said "Are you really doing word puzzles in the middle of the night?"  I said that I was and he said:  "Of course you are." Then he went back to sleep.

I used to get Mom a new puzzle book every year for Christmas.  I found the last couple in her stuff after she died.  They still had some undone pages, so I took them with me.  Finding books of mine that she had worked on made me think of those books of hers.

Last year for Christmas, I got Keith's mother two books of  Bible-themed word searches.  She had never worked any kind of puzzle before. which was a huge surprise to me.  She loved them!  A few weeks ago, she finished the last of them, so we ordered her some more.  I overheard Keith telling her about me and Mom and our puzzles on the phone the other day.

Looking at those puzzles Sunday night made me smile.  I ended up having Mother's Day thoughts about Mom after all, but they were happy ones.  In a couple of weeks, it'll be the fourth anniversary of her death.  My brother turned 45 last week, which means I'm almost exactly six months away from 50.  Where has the time gone?

I think I'll go to the big flea over Memorial Day weekend, since that's one of the things we used to do together as kind of a late Mother's Day celebration.  She'd be looking for yard and garden stuff.  Sometimes, she would find a puzzle book or two.  Maybe I'll find one this year in her honor.  

Monday Rambles

Well, I guess a week where I spent most of my time humming old Muppet sketches, 1990's earworms, plus this, and, somewhat inexplicably, this can't be all bad.  I think.

A quick word on that Doris Day link.  My mother used to sing that song all the time.  Only, being my mother, she'd sweep through with a grand flourish, building up through the "Will I be pretty?  Will I be rich?" line.  Then she'd stop and deadpan in this mousy little voice:  "No!"  And leave the room.  It used to crack me up.  It's probably one of those "you had to be there" moments.  Actually, it's more like one of those "you had to have known her" moments.  She was a hoot sometimes.

It's fixing to be a crazy week in my neck of the woods.  Actually, a crazy month, when you get down to it.  Next week is another furlough week from work, which means I have a ton of stuff to do to get ready for that. 

On top of that, here's what is coming up in the land of booths and re-sales:

Oct 4-5:  Fall festival and outdoor sale at the Peddlers Mall.  I'll have a booth. 

Oct 12:  Outdoor sale at YesterNook.  I'll have a booth.

Oct. 19:  My yard sale.

That's a lot of prep work, on top of the usual booth routines of stocking and foofing and such.  Expect some short posts and video posts and gag posts to fill in the gaps.

Speaking of the booth, to follow up on Saturday's post:  I ended up setting a new booth record!  my total sales were $145.24!  (My old one day record was $125.)  I haven't had a $100 day in at least a year, so it was much welcome.

In fact, it had been such a slow month up to now that I was singing the blues.  I seriously just made rent on Thursday.  The Halloween stuff kicked me into high gear, so I'm pissed that I didn't get it out two weeks earlier.    Several of the autumn items have sold as well, and I typically don't sell many of those.  Many of the most expensive Halloween things have already sold, which is nice.  I always worry that I've sunk my money into a dud.  The only thing that's not really moving is costumes, but I don't have many of those.

I've actually started working on a plan to get that large booth space producing at the level it should be.  I'll have another post about what I'm doing soon.  I'm making some radical changes, some of which are already paying off.

Saturday was a good yard sale day.  A couple of my favorite sales took place, although one was a total bust this time.  In addition to the blow molds in Saturday's post, I got a lot of nice smaller items.  It was one of those days where I ended up holding stuff on my lap, because the car was so full!

Junkin' Memories: The Big Flea Market

This year, they're down to four.  That really bothers me.  Not that long ago, there was one a month.  I think it's due to the economy, which means that they'll be bouncing back as things improve.  I hope so.  The Kentucky Flea Market, which I lovingly call "The Big Flea Market," has been a part of my junking life for decades now.

I cannot remember for sure when I first came to Louisville to go to the big flea market, which is held at the state fairgrounds.  I know I was aware of it when I was in high school, because I remember reading an article about it in the paper.  I know I was going by the time I was in college.  One of my roommates was from the same part of the state as me, so we would ride home together for the holidays and such.  I made a couple of trips to the flea market with him and his family then.

It was when I was in college that I went one time with my dad when I was really sick.  We made it through like two rows and I had to leave.  He called my mom, and the consensus was that I must be really bad sick if I couldn't stay at a flea market!  Buncha comedians in my family.

I know that I've been a regular at the big flea market ever since I moved to Louisville.  It was a really wonderful deal in those days--all kinds of sellers selling all kinds of stuff at really good prices.  I've bought tons of comics there over the years, plus books, CD's, religious articles, and just general fun stuff.  (Not to mention the occasional practical item.) 

The flea market was a monthly deal in those days.  If there was a holiday in the month, then it was held on the holiday weekend.  If there wasn't, then it was usually the last weekend of the month.  Like I said earlier, I think they were still having monthly shows as late as last year.  The holiday shows were the ones to be sure to attend.  Lasting four or five days (depending on what day of the week the holiday fell), they would often fill up two wings of the fairgrounds exhibit space.  That's a heckuva lot of room!

In the past few years, the two wing shows have fallen off considerably.  It finally settled into a pattern where the Labor Day and New Year's Day flea markets would take up one wing, plus an extra hall.  Not quite as much room as before, but still considerable.  The extra hall is dedicated to antique sellers and there's always some awesome stuff during those shows.

For at least a decade before she died, my mother and I would make a trip to either the Memorial Day or the 4th of July flea market.  It was one of our traditions.  Going with Mom was about the people watching as much as the shopping, but we did a lot of that too.  She had opinions about everyone and everything and didn't mind sharing them.  We could have a ball just sitting on a bench watching the world pass us by.

The entire thing is run by one family-owned company that also does flea markets in Indianapolis and Knoxville.  They used to do one in Nashville as well, but discontinued it a while ago.  A few years back, the man that started the company passed away, but his family is carrying on.

I'm kind of surprised and a little disappointed to see them cut back so much this year.  I know part of it is the economy, which is hurting both vendors and customers.  The presence of so many vendor malls and flea markets here in town can't be helping either.  People don't have to wait for a special weekend any more.  They can come on over any time and get their bargain shop on!  It's kind of ironic to be involved in a retail system that might be hurting the flea market I have loved so much over the years.

Another factor that doesn't help is the fairgrounds itself.  They've let some of their fees and things get really out of hand.  It costs eight bucks to park now!  Outrageous.  When I actually go to one of the shows with an antique wing, I have to plot to get around the parking fee.  Those are the shows I am most likely to be looking for merchandise, so I need to not pay 8 bucks to park because I don't want to have to add that in to the cost of the items.  I've ridden my bike.  We've parked somewhere else and walked in.  I've had Keith drop me and the granny cart off outside the gate and pick me up later.  I've flapped my arms and flown over the fence.  (Okay..maybe not that last one...but if I thought it would work, I'd give it a try!)

I'm remaining hopeful that, as soon as it is feasible, the big flea market will increase the number of shows again.  I may not be able to go to all of them like in the good old days, but I'll definitely go to two or three a year!  Old habits die hard.  Whether shopping for me or for a booth, I'll always look forward to a visit to the big flea market.

Those Who Have Gone Before

Today would have been my mother's 72nd birthday.  This is a picture of her, my grandfather, and my Uncle Larry.  I'm not sure when it was taken.  I found it in a bunch of her stuff I was going through.

None of them are with us any more.  Larry passed away about six months before Mom did.  It was kind of sudden.  Mom passed in 2010.  We just buried my grandfather on Tuesday.  My family is getting smaller.  I know it's supposed to happen, but it's still disconcerting.  I am now the oldest member of this particular branch of the family tree.  There's nothing that prepares you to have that thought.

I know that's what my Uncle Mike is feeling right now, too.

When my great-grandparents died in the late eighties, I remember thinking that, because they died in their late 90's, I'd have a long time to spend with my family.  After all, my mother had over 40 years with her grandparents, and my grandmother had her parents in her life for over seven decades.  It was comforting to come from a long-lived line.

It was not even ten years later when my grandmother died, blowing that idea out of the water.  I am the oldest grandchild, and she and I were quite close.  At the time, I thought it wasn't fair that I didn't get nearly as much time with my grandmother as my mother had with hers.  I was barely in my thirties!  It was only later that I realized my mother had much less time with her mother as well.  She died rather suddenly, and it was a loss that still affects me in some ways.

My father died at 75, but my mother was in her late sixties.  Again, I got a lot less time with them than prior generations in my family had with their predecessors.  In fact, it was actually kind of disturbing:  from late 90's (my great-grandparents) to 80's (my grandmother) down to late 60's (my mother).  It seems like each generation was getting less and less time!

My grandfather passed away at home, which is what he wanted.  I'm glad he was able to do that.  He made it into his 90's, so he kind of restored the longevity of our family.  He also still had all that hair when he died.  That kind of gives me hope.

I was privileged to be at the bedside of both my parents as they passed.  I got to have a private, final moment with both of them.  As much as I wish that those passings had not happened, I am thankful that I got to be there.  I got to say good-bye.

Shortly after my mother died, I was standing in the graveyard with my Uncle  Mike.  We had gone down to take care of the settling of the estate and stopped by the cemetery.  As we were walking from grave to grave, he turned to me and said:  "There are an awful lot of people in here that I used to sit around the Thanksgiving dinner table with."

And now there's one more.  Some parts of getting older stink.  This is the stinkiest of them all.

I'll be celebrating her birthday this year by going to the big flea market at the fairgrounds.  It's one of the things we used to do around this time of the year.  We'd either go at Memorial Day or the Fourth of July.  It was kind of our Mother's Day/Mom's Birthday get-together all rolled into one.

We'd start the day with the breakfast bar at Shoney's.  Guess what else isn't there any more?

Memorial Monday Rambles

Sorry to have dropped out of blog-sight last week, but I spent a lot of the week too tired to do anything except go to work and then go to bed.  I thought last week was going to be my "good week," but I think I learned that there aren't really any "good" weeks any more.  There are tired weeks and then tireder weeks.  The goddam bricks are everywhere these days, it seems.

I have my next round of chemo tomorrow.  I can't wait to see what new fun it brings!  Okay, so really I can wait.  A very, very long time, in fact.  Unfortunately, I am not able to wait, so bring on the next round of toxic fill up!

I have been kind of pleased with my blog totals for the year.  I am on pace to meet my 200 posts for 2013, even with my forced vacations.  I really have tried to keep up with the blog as one of my ways of coping with everything.  Plus, having to finish a post before I leave for work gives me an extra incentive to get out of bed.  I need all the incentives I can get, since the bricks provide their own kind of incentive to stay in bed.

Sales have sucked all week.  I've not had a decent day at either site, which means my monthly totals are going to suck.  It's extra discouraging right now because it takes so much out of me to really work the booth the way it needs to be done.  I worked several hours on Friday with a foof and redo that hasn't yielded any results.  I could have phoned it in and been a lot less tired.

Worse yet, I had a text the other day about some AnnaLee dolls I have at one of the booths.  I've got 10 of them, very reasonably priced.  Someone wanted all of them and was inquiring about a discount.  I am more than happy to deal in a case like that and offered a very generous 20% off, which was turned down flat.  Pissed me off too.  That would have really turned my month around.

There's a customer entitlement mentality you run into selling secondhand stuff, particularly vintage items.  Some folks have the idea that you ought to be so glad they have deigned to take an interest in your shit that you should mark it down to next to nothing, then carry it out to the car for them.  I don't have any problem saying "no thanks" to that.  Many of them turn out to be dealers, too.  It's enough to make one cynical.

Until you turn around and have a pretty good day yard saling.  The day started off with a decent sale right down the street from me and kept going all day long.  Every stop ended up being worth it, and that almost never happens.  I'm kicking myself over a couple of chairs and some wicker that I didn't get, but I listened to what the bricks were saying instead of my instincts.  They would have required a run to both booths that day, and I didn't think I was up to it.  Damn bricks talk too loud sometimes.

I ended that day at a vendor mall that's closing at the end of the month.  Lots of the dealers were in their spaces marking things down, so they wouldn't have to take them out in a few days.  I found a few things there.

Yeah.  Just a few.

I think that I'm well set for this next round of chemo, just in case I end up not being able to make it to any sales or thrifts this go around.  I'll be taking some larger items into the booths this week, if I'm able, to give it the quick and easy approach to a new appearance.

The third anniversary of Mom's death is this week.  I'm trying to get a post for that finished, but I may be off by a few days, depending on how I feel.  I'm trying to take advantage of having today off in order to take care of some things that need to be done this week.

There's a terrible lot of whining in this post.  Sorry about that.  Being tired all the time makes me grumpy.  I hope everyone has a good holiday.  Travel safely.  And take it from the dude with melanoma:  Wear a hat when you're out in the sun and use lots of sunscreen!

Monday Rambles

Hope everyone had a safe holiday and was able to stay relatively cool and collected.  I'm guessing there were not a lot of fireworks shows out there due to the weather.  I was kind of worried that folks in the neighborhood were going to burn everything down with the stuff they went across the river to buy.

I'm well into the triple digits with posts, and by the end of next week, I should be cruising to totals unseen on this blog.  Indeed, every post shall become the new record!  (Sometimes, I think reading all of those Marvel comics as a kid really heightened my flair for the over-dramatic.)

We beat the heat by heading to the woods for the weekend.  Between the trees, the breeze and a couple of battery powered fans, we made out okay.  It was very, very nice and relaxing.  I'm not nearly as heavily into camping as Keith is, but a getaway every now and then is okay with me.

Last Friday would have been Mom's 71st birthday.  Coincidentally, earlier in the week, I was working in our shed and found yet more boxes of her stuff that apparently we had overlooked when my brother was here last.  Sigh!

We made the hour and a half trip down to put flowers on her grave for her birthday.  I wish I lived closer, so we could do it more often, but then we get there and I never really know what to do with myself.  It's kind of awkward.  I bought two small arrangements and put one on Mom's grave and the other on my grandmother's.  I picked up a small American flag for Dad's grave.

While we were out in the country, we did hit a couple of yard sales.  I got a nice stash of cobalt blue glass and some religious articles.  I also went to a vendor mall near the camp site we stayed at.  There weren't too many sales around this area over the weekend.  I think between the heat and the holiday, it was just a slow one.  I did manage to stop at a few of them on my way in, though.

I had an awesome sales spike at the booths from the fourth on.  One was consistently strong from the holiday on, the other was less so, but there were some nice days at both.  Got some major work planned at both sites this week.  Going to try to remember to get some pics.

The beat, it does go on.  Eh?