I am thinking.....that over the weekend, I did a lot of sleeping but feel like I am still tired. Must be the heat and humidity.
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I am thankful for..... the yard sale being over and that I got a little bit of money for stuff that I was tossing anyway. As soon as we packed things up after the yard sale, my husband drove the van up to the driveway so we could load up the boxes inside and he drove them immediately away to the thrift store. They never came back into the house.
From the kitchen.....I made a potato salad early in the day yesterday and also put spareribs in the crock pot with my own homemade BBQ sauce. It is what we enjoyed for dinner last night but I am hoping for reruns tonight. Ha. I feel even less like cooking today.
I am wearing.....blue denim capris and a pink and gray cotton button down shirt. My hair is in a ponytail again so my hair isn't hanging down on my neck. I am barefoot.
I am creating.......more cards this week. I can sit under the ceiling fan in the dining room and do paper crafts when it is too hot to do anything else. I am almost completely out of birthday cards from my stash. My friend who has endured a lot after her abdominal surgery, is celebrating her birthday this Friday (July 1st-- also Canada Day), and I have promised her more homemade cards on her birthday. I also have another lot of family birthdays in the month of July.
I am going.....grocery shopping sometime this week
I am hoping....... to get a lot more weeding done this week when the temperatures are supposed to dip down tomorrow into the low 20s. They will rise again into the 30s by the weekend, but while they are cooler, I hope to get so much done outdoors.
I am hearing......my chimes. There must be a slight breeze. I can hear the television on. My Sweetie is watching Jericho on Netflix.
Around the house....it feels messy and disorganized. It is the aftermath of the yard sale. I am so glad I got the downstairs vacuuming done last week. I have laundry from the weekend that needs folding and putting away. I feel tired and irritable, so I don't feel like accomplishing much today. Maybe this will be a good time to do crafting.
One of my favourite things.......lately, is having a window A/C unit in my bedroom to cool the room down BEFORE we sleep, and a fan to blow over me WHILE I sleep.
A few plans for the rest of the week.......include sorting out my possessions downstairs. There might be more stuff I will pack up for donations to the thrift store. And definitely, take advantage of cooler temperatures to weed the veggie garden and the backyard flower beds. Plans for Canada Day include a trip over to Amherst Island for a birthday potluck dinner, parade, and fireworks display.
Will you be surprised to learn that I took no pictures of the yard sale tables this Saturday? It never once occurred to me. They started arriving before we were ready and it was a constant flow all through the morning until 2 o'clock. Even so, they kept arriving as we were packing everything up. I had no large items. It was only 10 cent to 50 cent purchases. Overall, we made almost $150; but personally, I made $33. That wasn't a lot, but I was very happy to have made something from items I was getting rid of regardless. My son and his GF are putting their $100+ into their house fund, but they also informed me that their tiny house plans are being put on hold for a while. She is planning on going back to school for a year. I suspected something was up, but sitting outside together manning the tables gave me the opportunity to come straight out and ask what their plans were. They will use this year to save money for tuition and a year's living expenses while she is studying.
Here is a picture I am sharing..... my clematis. Look at all the new buds.
$33 might not sound like a lot but I think it's more than I ever made at one of my garage sales AND you made money on stuff you were going to get rid off AND planning a garage sale gave you the impetus to get rid of all that stuff in the first place... so I think that's a huge success! Now you're right, you need to rest. The heat and humidity definitely makes us tired and not want to do anything. That's the way I feel like today as well. I don't think any painting will get done. I have now hit the snooze button on my alarm to go hang my laundry every 10 minutes since 10:15 a.m. and it's 12:30 as I type this, lol.
ReplyDeleteLove the clematis. The color is so vibrant! Oooh, you have a field trip planned! Take pictures!
So... are your son and GF going to continue living with you for the year that she goes back to school, then? Is that something that you're happy about? Were they planning on asking if it was OK for them to do that or were you just told that's what's going on? Sorry if I'm being nosy. I AM being nosy, aren't I? You don't have to answer. I'm just interested since my own son (the oldest son) is in a similar situation at his dad's. I think the stepmom really expects him to move out in August but when I asked him yesterday if he had gone back to work at Target or Starbucks in order to make money in order to support himself 100%, I could tell that he didn't want to talk about it but his answer was "yeah, I'm going to have to consider doing that..." and "I guess I'll have to start paying dad rent in August..." and I was thinking "Oh man, I love him but I'm GLAD he's not living here." Doesn't make me feel great as a mother but goodness, he's 22 and out of college now and he's still not working anywhere because... what? he's hoping that any day now he's going to get a full time job as a jazz musician? Ugh. At his age I was working double shift at Disney and so was his dad. Both of us were hoping for something better but we weren't sitting on our butts waiting for it to happen while our parents subsidized us. Susan, I'm not saying that's what's happening with your son, but that's definitely what's happening with MINE. My first thought yesterday, when he said "well, I don't know if I'll be able to use that concession money (the $3 certificate that I won and was gifting him) because money is really tight so I have no plans to go to the movies" was to buy him a gc so he could go to the movies but then I thought "Damn it... he could be working right now and he's not. Screw it." It's hard, being a mom.
Yes, it is hard being a parent. It doesn't get any easier when they are older. You were wise to ask your son about his working plans now that he has graduated. If more people were asking him what his plans are, he is bound to get the message that he isn't expected to sit back and wait for the jobs to come to him. He has to be out hustling. I think it would help also to point out to him that in the beginning, it is hard. Wages were low when you started out. Times were harder and you needed to work a couple of jobs to put a roof over your head. You just didn't land into the job, wage and benefits that you enjoy today. You had to sacrifice to get where you are today. The best way to land a job, is to be working already, making connections. He will make that connection I'm hopeful.
ReplyDeleteDo you meant the job where I'm married to a great guy who makes good money so I don't have to work outside the home? LOL. But yes, you are right. His dad and I were making $5.35/hr back then and we were lucky to make that much. I did work hard, during my 15-year career with Disney, to make it to Executive Secretary before a remarriage and a subsequent layoff lead me to becoming a homemaker.
DeleteDon't get me wrong, my son has worked extremely hard since he's started college... his studies required him to practice his trumpet 8 hours a day on top of his classes AND he worked a part-time job for the first couple of years too. Many nights were spent on the floor of the practice room because he was too tired to drive back to his dorm room or apartment to sleep a couple of hours in his own bed before he had to be back in class. But he's also been very foolish with the money that he did earn (I guess being frugal isn't a trait that you pass in your DNA!) and nowadays that he doesn't have classes to attend (he does still practice a ton every day, especially since he has that mid-July concert to practice for and it's all brand new music to him with "weird" arrangements that he has to get used to) I think the least he could do is get at least a part-time job at a restaurant to earn **some** money and pay for his own phone (his dad pays), car insurance (I think he only pays part of it to his dad), get his own car (the car he drives is owned by his dad), pay his dad and stepmom some rent (he's lived there rent-free for a couple of years now). I don't know what his food situation is like. He's going to have student loans to repay in a few months so you'd think he'd be busting his butt NOW to make money while the theme parks and restaurants are full of summertime tourists! He is making lots of connections in the music business but let's face it: the vast majority of the musicians who have regular gigs are also teachers, belong to several bands/orchestras, play at weddings and retirement parties... very very few just have one music-related full time job, because they just don't make a lot of money! So I'm happy for him that he followed his passion but I'm annoyed that he doesn't seem bothered that his passion is being subsidized by his dad and stepmom. Of course, that's their own fault too. I did warn them when he first went to college and they were eager to pay for everything while saying that I was a horrible mother because I wasn't, that it would come to this. So I feel kind of vindicated, I won't lie. But also pissed off because all their mollycoddling didn't help him as much as they think. It certainly didn't help him mature.
I still remember how difficult it was during my post-secondary studies. It was the most gruelling part of my life. And in the back of your mind you expect things will become easier once it is all over. You put in all that money, time and effort, you expect that your talents will shine and people will be clamouring to sign you to a contract. Sadly, that is not the case, especially in the arts.
DeleteGood job on the yard sale! While I hang on to endless amounts of things, it's very hard for me to conceive of ever doing anything with it other than donating it to Goodwill. They just seem so overwhelming! But, I wouldn't be sad about the cash on hand at the end. Anyway, kudos to you guys.
ReplyDeleteI love having a cool bedroom and ceiling fan at night, too. I really don't sleep well when I am hot.
When it comes to having yard sales, you are right. It is a lot of work and can be overwhelming. It IS far easier to just donate. However, I organized this one mainly for my son and his GF. She was ready to just give all of her stuff to the thrift store. I talked her into trying to make a few bucks by having a yard sale; so I was glad to see that they made some money for a few hours of work. And like Nathalie has pointed out, it forced me to look at my "stuff" with an eye to get rid of it. It was a solid motivation.
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