Category: Life

Sunday Alone Time

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Today was the first day in a looooong time where I had the house to myself for more than an hour. Joe left around 9 am to go to the shooting range with his buddies. What did I do? Dishes, finances, (partially) catch up on my YouTube watch later list, catch up on some blog reading, look for freelance jobs to supplement our income, and back up photos which included finally clearing out my Microsoft One Drive account so I have space to do regular iPhone photos backups again.

What didn’t I do? Decorate for Halloween like I had planned (maybe tomorrow) or take a shower. Hell, I didn’t even put my contacts in! I’m still in my PJ’s which include a pair of ridiculously cozy soft pants I got at Savers for $3 recently. They are gray with polar bears on them and I just love them! I hope they don’t shrink like my fleece Star Wars pajama pants did. They are still comfortable, but they are too short now and my legs get cold.

I’ve also been listening to The Cure play in Europe thanks to someone who has been Periscoping the entire show. The picture is sucky on the computer but the sound is fantastic. The set list has been all over the place which I like. They played The Baby Screams and Disintegration which were awesome! Right now they are two songs into their 1st encore. They started around 1:30 pm so I estimate it will end around 4 or 4:15 and I think Joe will be home soon thereafter. I’ve enjoyed my day but man did the time fly! I don’t feel like I did much yet it’s been 6 and a half hours. Where does the time go?

Garage Sale

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Friday and Saturday we held our garage sale. Even though we were very organized and posted on Craigslist & Nextdoor, we didn’t get as much traffic as we were hoping.

The very first thing to sell, however, was my old Kenwood Stereo I purchased for $400 twenty years ago.

KenwoodStereo

It had it all (at the time) – dual cassette deck, 3-CD changer, and radio. The speakers were huge and sounded great (still do, actually) and it was in fantastic condition. But due to its size and how we listen to MP3s these days, it had been collecting dust in the garage for years. Imagine my surprise as the guy who bought it was putting it into his car and I felt this overwhelming sense of panic. I literally had to go inside to calm down – I thought I was going to vomit. I felt seriously bummed and overly emotional afterwards. I had no idea I had formed such a sentimental emotional attachment to it or I might have not sold it. I’ve tried to rationalize the feelings away with logic – it’s too big, I never use it, etc. but I still feel sad about it, although I’m sure that will get better over time. I don’t necessarily like having such a strong attachment to physical objects. Other than the blanket my grandmother knitted for me which I have slept with every night for the last 25 years, I didn’t think I’d feel such a loss without an item in my life. Oh well. I will never see it again (sob), so it’s best to try and get over it.

Anyway, shortly after that “traumatic” event Friday, my coworker called asking for help since our boss was off and he was being asked to do something he had never done before. Walking him through it over the phone wasn’t helping so I drove over to get it done since it’s less than ten minutes away and I really needed the distraction. I ended up working an hour so that will make my next paycheck a little higher which is nice.

Despite everyone telling us that Fridays are super slow and that Saturday would be much better, it really wasn’t. Overall we ended up making a little more on Saturday but not until 4 pm. We had shut down at 2 pm on Friday but extended the hours until 5 on Saturday in hopes we’d get more interest. When all was said and done we made a little over $100. I would have made more working an extra day at work so that’s not really worth my time. Plus we still have a bunch of stuff left that we’re going to donate and try to offload on Craigslist, including the stuff my dad asked us to sell for him that no one wanted.

One cute thing that happened was the neighbor across the street purchased a few old bookbags on Friday and her daughter (who I guess is around 12) came over Saturday with her friends and was wearing one of them. She also told us how much she loved it which was nice. It’s a mini bookbag I’ve had for over twenty years and really loved when I was younger. It was still in excellent shape because I take really good care of my things. Even one of the people who bought some stuff from us mentioned we had really nice stuff. I just wish it would have sold!

When I was lamenting on Facebook about the futility of having a garage sale one of my “friends” told me how it was because we should have had our sale in April and that when her organization had one they earned $1500. Um, how is that even helpful? I’m sure her organization had a lot more things for sale since multiple people contributed. I was so very tempted to “thank” her for her oh so helpful advice and let her know that I’ll just hop into my Delorean and go back in time to April to have my sale then. I am *this close* to unfriending her. Most of her comments are just irritating know-it-all things anyway and ain’t no one got time for that.

So will we ever have another garage sale? That would be a no. Even though the thing I dreaded most – people haggling – didn’t happen too much, I still didn’t enjoy it. Although this one lady got a steal on this purse I had that was brand new and sells for $79. I’ve been trying to sell it online for a year so I lowered the price to $25 for the garage sale. She wanted $15 even though I said $20. I gave in because a) I didn’t pay for it anyway and b) I just wanted it gone, but I’m kinda pissed about it nonetheless. And this is why I hate selling things and garage sales. Never again. I’d rather do Craigslist and sell stuff one at a time.

Rainy Day Saturday & Garage Sale Prep

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It rained all day yesterday and we didn’t leave the house. In the morning I pulled out all the toiletries, medications, etc. and organized them as well as labeled the box with all the first aid related stuff in the hall closet. Oh, and I documented what we have and its location in Evernote. I love using that app to track our stuff. Proof it would have helped – I found two unopened packages of floss. I just bought some recently not knowing we already had plenty.

I came across even more stuff to sell for our upcoming garage sale as well. On one hand I’m getting anxious that we haven’t just had the sale so we can get it over with (I’m not looking forward to it because I hate dealing with cheap people) but on the other hand I’m glad we didn’t rush into it since we’re still coming across stuff we’d like to sell. Case in point: today I went through all my purses and bags and am getting rid of a decent pile. It feels good pairing down our stuff!

I forgot to mention the Dollar Tree is a great place to get garage sale supplies. They have nice sturdy plastic signs that say Garage Sale in red on them and empty white space below to write an address or put an arrow. Friday we bought black adhesive numbers so we can put the street number in that space for the sign outside our subdivision. They also have price stickers. The package includes multiple round stickers, with standard prices on them. There are also some blank stickers as well as some that say “make an offer”. It will make pricing our stuff tomorrow easier.

After a productive morning we spent a good portion of the day playing the Disney Tsum Tsum game we’re both addicted to now. Then we watched Dirty Grandpa which was mediocre. J kept pestering me about seeing it but I think it had a predictable ending and seemed to only exist so the characters could throw around “creative” insults. That’s my take, anyway.

WOW Weekend

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Ironically enough, after such a lovely Friday, our Saturday was rather blah. The weather was overcast, cold, and windy, so other than a trip to the library, we didn’t leave the house. I read magazines while Joe donated blood. Unfortunately all the people in my immediate area were so obnoxious it did nothing to improve my mood. I found a new (to me) Stephen King book called The Long Walk, though, and spent the afternoon reading half of it and procrastinating on all the things around the house I planned on doing. I ended up doing some of them, like cleaning the rats’ cages, on Sunday when we got back from grocery shopping. I really hate being unproductive but I have these days where I lack all energy and just can’t do shit. I hadn’t even worked out for four days in a row!

We also got sliders from White Castle on Sunday because they had a coupon for two free ones and Joe had a craving. I always think I like White Castle until I start eating them and then I realize for the umpteenth time that they aren’t really that good. Plus they have that moniker for a reason. Enough said.

Today (Monday) I made a point to get up earlier and work out first thing. Then I had a lunch date with my friend who I haven’t seen before Joe lost his job so we got caught up about that and everything else that has happened over the past few months.

When I got home from my four hour lunch (we did some serious chatting, like we always do since we only get together every few months), Joe and I replaced some of the light bulbs in the house. We bought LEDs from Costco, but we also have a bunch of CFLs, so we only put the LEDs in the master bathroom and then used the CFLs to replace a couple of the regular halogen bulbs still being used throughout the house.

Oh, I almost forget – a sales person for WOW (Wide Open West) came to our door on Sunday. We had called them a few weeks ago to get an idea how much it would cost us to switch to them but hadn’t pulled the trigger yet. We’ve been waiting for our shows’ season finales so we can dump cable entirely and switch our internet service. We were going to give Comcast one more opportunity to lower our bill to something more reasonable – we called them twice already and they barely adjusted our bill – since WOW charges a $50 installation fee, but the sales person said he’d waive it. That cinched it for us and we made an appointment to get their internet installed a week from today. We going to drop our equipment off at the Comcast office and cancel their service that same afternoon. They had their chance and they blew it.

Right now we’re paying $183 to Comcast for basic+ digital cable (with a DVR), internet, and home security. Once WOW is installed we’ll be paying around $100 total ($40+ taxes to WOW for internet and $40+ taxes to Comcast for the security service IF we choose to keep it (we’re working on a DIY solution)). That’s a savings of over $80! Comcast tries to make it sound like the cable is a negligible add-on cost but it doesn’t seem like that after reviewing the competition’s pricing. WOW’s internet speeds are only 15 MB slower for $30 less and still plenty fast enough to stream Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime so it’s not like we’ll be wanting for something to watch.

It will be very interesting to see how we adapt to the lack of live tv, however. Doing this during the summer is the best time to experiment since we should be spending more of our time outdoors anyway. We can always add basic cable to our WOW package for something like $10 a month extra anyway so I’m not too worried. Losing the DVR will take some getting used to, though. I really love being able to watch tv on my own time, but oh well, it’s not like this change has to be forever. If we truly see value and miss the service we can set up something similar with WOW.

The ironic thing is that once we’ve fulfilled our one year contract with WOW we could switch back to Comcast if we’re so inclined and I’m willing to bet will give us a way better deal than they would to retain our business. Companies are so dumb.

A Lovely Friday

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This morning I fixed myself a glass of iced green tea with lemonade to sip on while we visited some garage sales. I enjoy hunting for bargains even though I rarely buy anything, and today was no exception.

It was one of those beautiful weather days where just driving around with the windows open made me feel so happy. I imagine it’s what retirement would be like. At one point we made a pit-stop at Starbucks and hung out there for awhile while Joe nursed a vanilla latte. We also split one of their breakfast sandwiches even though I wouldn’t recommend them. We have a ton of credit on our card, though, and there was a coupon, so I didn’t feel too guilty.

I think I prefer estate sales to garage sales because I enjoy seeing the inside of other people’s homes. We went to one today where I got total house envy. The place was huge and had a beautiful bright kitchen with a breakfast nook to die for. There was also an awesome deck off the kitchen. Sigh.

A little after lunchtime we went to Costco where we bought some LED light bulbs. ComEd keeps telling me we use more energy than all our neighbors and it’s driving me crazy because I don’t know why that would be. Maybe replacing some bulbs will help. Fridays are great days for free samples too. Between them and the $1.50 hot dogs in their cafe I’m feeling pretty full still. I was really craving Thai food but that would have set us back $20-$25 whereas our Costco lunch was $3.23!

We did some shopping at Target as well where we picked up our favorite new salsa – Jack’s Special Salsa. We got hooked on it when Costco was selling it but they switched out the medium one we like with the cantina style which isn’t nearly as good. I Googled it and learned Target carries it which made us both very happy. Sure, it’s $3.99 for 16 oz which is a third the size that Costco sold for only $4.99 but what can you do? I hope Costco switches back to it at some point.

It’s supposed to be only 55° plus cloudy and windy tomorrow so I plan to do some stuff around the house I’ve been meaning to get done. We will be making a trip to the library in the morning, however, because Joe is giving blood.