So, did you miss me?
I'll pretend you said yes.
For the last month, I've felt like a passenger on one of those little helicopter like leaves that you find on the ground, throw up into the air and then watch as it spins down to the ground. I don't know the official, scientific name for them, but you know the leaves I'm talking about.
I've been busy. Busy at work, busy at home, busy with T-ball. Busy. Important stuff, to be sure. Things that need proper attention. Sometimes, you do what you gotta do.
I've been slammed at my real job. I shouldn't complain too much about that because I know there are tons of people who don't have a job to complain about. I don't want to seem ungrateful, and I'm not. I have been blessed beyond measure to have a job with the flexibility that I need. I've had jobs with crazy requirements like showing up at a certain time. Staying until a certain time. At least looking busy while you're there. And the dress code. Who came up with that lame idea?
Yeah, no thanks. I'll take the show up when you can, stay as long as you want, do some stuff while you're here and I don't care what you're wearing job.
But don't get the wrong idea. While I may not dress like a banker or even keep banker's hours, I get stuff done. I get stuff done and those who rely on me are usually happy with what I do and they never have the slightest idea what I'm wearing.
I've also been helping with Jack's T-ball team. If you have kids, please don't deny them (or yourself) the opportunity to get involved in sports. I coached both my daughters in softball and soccer until they got old enough to move on to bigger and better things. Now, I'm starting all over with Jack and it's still fun. Kids are a hoot and I never cease to be amazed at some of the crazy things they come up with. Spend time with a bunch of kids and you'll have an abundance of entertainment that money just can't buy.
So, those things have kept me hopping recently, but the real kicker was the yard sale. Yes, it's a well known fact that I love yard sales. I go to a lot of them.
But, this time, the yard sale was mine.
At my house.
Unless you have actually had one, you don't realize how much work goes into a yard sale. Sure I could just grab a few things and throw them out onto the driveway and call it a yard sale. Then people would talk under their breath about how lame it was. "If I didn't have any more than that, I would just donate it to charity." I've been to plenty of crappy yard sales and I've said that more than once. But, I was determined not to be the guy with the crappy yard sale that week, so I took measures to ensure that mine would be successful.
I started preparing about two weeks prior to the actual sale. I sorted through junk in the garage, bedrooms, bonus room and any other rooms that had stuff that we really didn't want or need. I drug out clothes, Happy Meal toys, pool supplies...you name it, I probably had it. And, just for good measure, I included the two Coke machines that were in the garage. They had been there for a couple of years and I obviously hadn't gotten around to doing anything with them, so I felt like it was time for them to go. I needed the space more than I needed the machines. And the money. I needed that too.
I placed an ad in the newspaper and on Craigslist and, on Thursday night (the sale was Friday and Saturday), I hung signs around the neighborhood. The hour was nigh.
And, the crazy thing was that I was actually excited about it. I had been wound up for a week, looking forward to D-Day. Nigh, indeed...
As I expected, they began showing up around 6:30 am. They brought money and left with some stuff. They kept pouring in. They came in droves. I conducted the entire operation by myself and there was such a constant stream of people that I couldn't get a break. I felt like I should have put on an adult diaper like that crazy astronaut woman who drove across the country, non-stop, to try to kill her boyfriend. You almost forgot about that one, didn't you?
Anyway, I was busy that day. I planned to shut down at noon on Friday, but I finally got the last people out around 1:15 pm. I unloaded a ton of stuff on Friday. Saturday was good, but nothing close to Friday. When it was all over, we only had a few boxes of things to donate to charity.
So, I say all that to try to make excuses for not being more active in the blogoshpere. (Spell check says that's not a word. I say it is.) I love writing this blog and I love working on the projects that I write about.
My yard sale is over but I still have a real job and we have another 6 weeks or so of T-ball. But, yard sale season is picking up and now I have empty space in my garage.
I'll be back next time with an actual project to talk about!
