Showing posts with label yard sale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label yard sale. Show all posts

Monday, July 13, 2009

Just Totally... Oh, Look! A Chicken!

I get the Bad Blogger of the Year award, because it has been 8 days since I posted. I have been totally uninspired. Or perhaps rather, completely overwhelmed and exhausted. Yes, folks, even Wonder Woman needs rest sometime.

Ok, I guess first on the list. In 23 years of homeschooling, we have never had lice. I don't know how people whose kids go to school cope, but the little public-school girl next door unknowingly gifted us with lice, and despite treatments every 4 days, cleaning bedding, etc., meticulous combing and picking, I am still finding *a* nymph or two every time we treat, after 6 weeks. The kids have been good natured and patient about it. The boys shaved their heads. The rest of us, with hair ranging from 6" (Beverly) to 2 feet long (me), are just about sick of lice treatments. Maybe next time will be the last.

Did I say something about a chicken? Can't remember if I posted this or not. But our 7 week old chickens are now in their coop, and they are very happy. Don't they look happy? And I am happy that they are no longer in a large box on my front porch, in the 95-degree F heat. Whew.


So we had a yard sale. Des and Tony hauled all their stuff from moving, down here over 30 miles from their house, and I cleaned out stuff, and stuff, and stuff. We cleaned and ticketed and sorted. Put out signs, put up a tent, sat in the 95-degree heat Friday (I was out from 7:30AM to 5 PM). Saturday did it all again. I made about what my dh makes in one day at work, in the air conditioning, $100. Told my dh I could have made that on my back in 2 hours. He said "Yeah, but it might be hard to find 20 willing guys. Har, Har. (or should I say, "Ho,Ho"?) Des and I were both struck with heat prostration (mine hit on the way to church to keep the nursery, and I had to come home). If I never have another yard sale again, it would be fine.

Diantha went to auditions for a Christian modeling agency Friday evening. Saturday she got her callback. So from now until January she will have a coach, and in January she will make a trip to Orlando FL for a scouting convention from major agencies like Ford, Nickelodeon, Mattel, etc. The trip will cost $3600 so from now until then, all our Etsy profits that aren't going to the Youth Center, will go to fund-raise for her trip.

I bought some beautiful stone whorls to make some spindles out of. There are 3 or 4 more that aren't shown here but I love these. Clockwise from left:
  • Blue Dumortierite 50 mm
  • Purple Mookaite 40 mm
  • Dalmation Jasper 50mm
  • Black Onyx 40mm (very light)
  • Pink Rhodonite 50mm
  • Pink Onyx 50 mm
  • Center: Orange Mosaic Flower Turquoise 50mm (very heavy for it's size!)
  • I also got a gorgeous spindle in the mail. I will try to get pics of my surprise package tomorrow and post them. Wonderful stuff!

    So, as if two days in a row weren't enough in the heat. Sunday my little grandson Jeremiah turned 4. Big boy!! Looks *just* like his daddy too! So we all trooped to Clinton to a really nice little park which happens to be just past a rock drainage ditch across from the back yard of the house Des and Tony are buying. Hung out for a couple hours having pizza and pasta salad and cake, then retired to Des' house for the afternoon/evening where eventually I pried myself out of a really good book and made pancakes 'n' cheesy eggs for dinner and helped Des pack up a few more boxes of stuff. A week to go to Moving Day.

    Beverly held up alright in the park, but looks sleepy and sweaty here. Precious though!

    I made some Ugly yarn. I hand dyed this formerly pink to a cantaloupe color. Nice cotton-blend summer sock weight, but not quite enough for a whole pair of even short socks, unless a toe and heel are added. So I was going to put this skein of green/blue recycled sock weight that I actually BOUGHT at one time with it, like cantaloupe and rind(?), add the pattern for these socks that I did for Diantha, and sell it as a package. (Pic of the socks has been paled out for color comparison to the yarns. The real sock is hurt-your-eyes orange-red and deep turquoise, LOL) But I think I am too chicken to put it up and never see it sell. So whaddya t'ink? Should I list it? Or should I hold a giveaway on the blog and give it to someone creative? Make it conditional that they have a month to send back pics of something interesting made of it? Comments, Please!!

    Tuesday, October 7, 2008

    Don't Sacrifice A Sheep In Your Kitchen

    I had a yard sale Friday and started to have one Sat... Fri. night I started coming down with a cold or something (always do whenI go too long with not enough sleep) so Saturday I felt LOUSY.

    We closed up shop early and decided to take a drive... they do this thing twice a year here where there is like 100 miles of 411 that is one long continuous yard sale, so we decided to go drive some of it and see what we could see.

    While getting ready, one of my kids was in the shower so I put a hank of wool in a dye pot on the stove, thinking I would let it heat while she showered and in 10 min. or so turn it off and it could soak while we were gone. Got busy putting yard sale stuff away, grabbed the kids into the car and left.

    When we were out 2.5 hours I remembered the wool. We were half anhour from home; nobody we could call nearby to go in and turn it off and rescue me. Got here to find out house FILLED with smoke and the WORST stench (burnt sheep, or imagine taking 3.5 oz (100 gr) of someone's haircut and putting it on the burner). The wool was CHARCOAL.

    We opened all the windows, lit smelly jar candles, put fans in the doorways and stayed outside until church that night. Went to my sister's afterward, left some of my kids there (so they wouldn't have to sleep in the burnt smell) and came home. With my terrible lungs (respiratory allergies and having had pneumonia repeatedly) I don't need to breathe it either but dh wanted to come home to check things. So we shut our room off from the rest of the house with fans blowing fresh air through... I took some cough medicine. My house still REEKED of burnt sheep.

    Sunday I got up at 6AM and went to the local Wally World, bought 3 cans of Febreeze and another candle. Our room was actually worse than thebody of the house! When he went to work I went back tomy sister's house for the day.

    While at her house I finished my 2ndhandspun... 4 oz. of supersoft green/blue/brown/copper merino that I started out in the yard Saturday. Got it washed to set the twistand it looks like I got 97 yards but I still feel I am REALLY bad at this spindling.

    Plus I unraveled and skeined 2, 100-gram components of different sweaters. However I did NOT get my webcode written for the W/U Fabric Challenge. Blek. So much for getting anything done here. Here it is Tuesday and my house still smells slightly. We slept with all the windows open @ 53 degrees for the last 3 nights too.

    Next time I want to make a burnt offering, I think I will do it on the gas grill...