Garage Sale Day

My mom and I had a garage sale at her house yesterday.  The whole thing was literally in the garage.  She had placed an at in the local paper and sure enough we had about ten or twelve people waiting outside when we raised the doors!  I wasn't expecting the onslaught.  When I have sales in my own driveway I have to sit there all day to sell anything.  My mom had a lot of vintage furniture, which seems to draw a lot of people.  I did sell the bear footstool, and a load of nice dishes that I had no use for at home.  I was gifted three sets of dishes last year all at once, and I already use two sets and have no room for more!  It's nice to see people excited about your stuff. 

My star customer was a guy, about 60 or so, who wanted to buy vinyl albums.  We had some, Jim Nabors and the Pointer Sisters et. al., but not what he was after.  He told me the records we had were "too liberal" for him, and that he wanted music from the 1950s.  I showed him a shoebox full of cassettes just in case.  He passed up Hank Williams Sr. and Patsy Cline but purchased Rage Against the Machine's Battle of Los Angeles.  ?!?!?!  Then he got a backpack shaped like a bat, hoping that one of his grandkids would like it.  That's a bat, like the small flying mammal, not a baseball bat.

I'm reading a book called Lies My Mother Never Told Me, by Kaylie Jones.  She's the daughter of James Jones, the author of books like The Thin Red Line and From Here to Eternity.  Kaylie has written several novels, including A Soldier's Daugher Never Cries, which is based on her childhood.  The book I'm reading is an actual memoir about both of her parents, their lives together and their alcoholism, which Kaylie inherited.  It's very good, but I think I would like to read some of James Jones' work for once.  I read some a book with some of his letters to friends, not his novels yet.

What was my mother doing with a Pointer Sisters album?

Basket Slips

I put some slips of paper in a basket with some ideas of things to keep me busy when I think I've run out - it's not like I ever do, but sometimes I need something to spur me to the next thing.  I can't seem to get my head together since before Christmas.  I think it's the SAD, I can't make myself do anything until it's getting late.

The slips say things like "clean the kitchen floor" or "frame a picture".  I am just so dulled out in my mind these days.  I wish I was perkier.  Coffee is doing very little to help.

I got a haircut today at Bella Institute over on SE Division.  My stylist was from Paris!  I wonder why she'd come all the way to the humble reaches of Portland?!  She did a great job, her name is Natacha if you need a new look for 2013!

Last night I tried to gather things that I'm going to bring over to my parents' house when they have their garage sale.   I have a spot in the basement, out of view of the photos you've seen, where it's all going.  I hope the sale will happen in a week or two.

I am working on clearing out the room that will become my bedroom.  It is unrecognizable from the way it was about a month ago.  I need to clean and spackle the walls but first I will have to take apart my whole computer setup that I use everyday and move it out of the room.  I've been dreading it and putting it off, but I must work fast in case I get a temp job soon and have to put it off more. 

What's behind the mask

Things have come a long way and I'm willing to give myself credit, but there's always another mountain to climb.  Here is a picture of that mountain.  The photos I had taken a few days ago concealed what's going on on the far wall of the room: all these books and magazines.  I think I'm going to get radical with this area.  I'm not going to reveal what I mean yet, but I promise I won't set any fires.

Someday, it would be nice to have a roommate.  I'm not ready for one, but even if I was he or she couldn't move in.  There's too much upstairs that might have to come down here, and there's not enough room still.

While cleaning tonight though, I cleaned up an item I found on the street a long time ago that should help me sort a few treasures:

It was filthy, but now it's on a shelf holding art supplies.  I came up with a new tip: If you can fit a container on a shelf that will hold things that you normally put in a unit that sits on the floor, go with the shelf thingy.  Freeing floor space will free your mind.  Every time I get something off the floor for good I feel ten times better.

I'm having another brainwave about having a garage sale or combining efforts with my mom in a couple weeks and bringing things up to Olympia to sell in her sale.  She has a better garage.  But, I would pay in time and gas traveling up to Oly, and I'd have to hold onto the things for longer.  Those Freakonomics guys should do a study on all the reasoning I am putting into where and when I disperse my possessions.

My blog is growing up!

My blog has one "follower", that feels like a big deal.  Thanks follower!

Again I'm away from my nest, but I did a few cleanup things this week.  After big move I did about a month ago, where I closed an old office/store, I had a few pieces of merchandise that I took over to the new office.  Instant clean space! A couple square feet of it, anyway.  I thought I'd have time to sell more books and get them out of the way, so I put them in my car.  They are still in there, I didn't get the time.

I've had this half-baked idea for a garage sale in the next couple weeks, but I don't know if the weather will be inclement by then.  It's been an unusually pleasant, sunny autumn  for Portland, OR.  I heard that it rained in Olympia today so those days might be over for the next five months.

Many years ago, I had a job working for a woman who was a shut-in.  We'd clean her house, but she could only stand to do about a square foot a day most of the time.  She couldn't go out because she had environmental sensitivities, and she was allergic to dust from cleaning.  I keep thinking about her these days.  I'd have to wear a space helmet to do everything I'm doing.

As for the books I'm donating, my accountant tells me I need to take pictures of the books and write down titles, authors, market value, etc.  Do you remember how many there were in that photo?  Well, now there are more!  I hope this is all worth it.

Heavy Matter Pt. 2

A couple friends came over tonight and helped me move more books - I think I am ready to take this donation process to the next level!  There are about twice as many book stacks now in my living room.

I will be contacting my accountant tomorrow to ask about tax deductions and itemizing the things that are going.  After running a sole proprietorship this whole year, I want to get the maximum deduction possible!  I had to pay a massive amount of tax this year and I don't want to experience that again.  As I'm donating a few hundred books, I want to do the least amount of work possible to get the deduction form complete.

As for the basement, that is coming along very well.  If the great weather holds up into next week I'd like to have a small garage sale.  That might be a good way to say goodbye to a few pieces of furniture that are clogging up the floor area down there.  I have two lovely chairs and a side table that I can't really use, as well as all of those books and household goods I couldn't get rid of otherwise.

I've been cycling a bit through my emotions - I feel a sense of accomplishment for a while, and then I feel low.  I keep reminding myself that a few months ago I was going through a similar thing when I had to get rid of some old furniture in order to make room for a gift of new furniture.  I got through that, and I've had a lot of experience trying to make the basement the way I want.  Maybe I just have to give up on the basement altogether!

One tool I've found useful for this project is an egg timer.  If I set it for about half an hour and just clean and sort (or use it for any other chore), and I stick to it.  When I set a time limit, I look harder for little things that need doing.  I don't try to rush, but I do try to be more thorough.

A little bit of plastic

What I have pictured here are some small implements that can change your life!  They don't look like much, but they've been a great help to me and I didn't even know they existed until just over a year ago.  They sit right on a shelf, just about any shelf in a cupboard, and they give you a little more surface to set things on.  They're especially good for small objects, because you can set them on top and slide little things right under them.  Because they're not really as deep as a cupboard, you can stand things in front of them that are taller.  If you look at my previous entry, you can see them in action.  On the larger wire tray at right, I included some small vintage trays to set on top to show how they can hold tiny things that will slip through the openings.

My mother gave me the larger wire thing, as well as others.  I got about ten of the smaller ones at a yard sale for ten cents each.  I took all that they had!

This leads me to another pointer: you don't have to spend a lot to get sorted.  Keep an eye out at yard sales for containers.  You don't have to have a closet company come in and build a thing that looks like a cat hotel for your shoes and shirts.

I just returned from a week's visit with my family in California.  I have to admit that the continuing endeavors to clean out my basement were in my thoughts more than once. It's a creative project, and it's making me look at myself and my surroundings in a new way.  I think it's partly because I've turned some corners in the grieving process for my husband, and I'm looking at possessions as separate from memories.  It's very hard but it's extremely important for me.