Goooood morning!

Art Nouveau Cast Iron Frame - Daydreaming Woman

It's 10:45am, and I'm just starting to feel awake. All my life, I have forced myself to be an early-riser, and now as an adult, I'm finding that that may not actually be who I am. I've just started watching this eBay shop for what they're selling, and have been enjoying looking over the art that they sell. I need to get a bunch of things together to ship this morning, and then I'm going to do some thrifting, see my Salvation Army pals.

I left pancake batter out for a couple days after I didn't use it all. After one day, it made good pancakes. After two days (i.e. just now, this morning), it was disgusting. Lesson learned. I may eat a lot of pancakes for a normal person who does not live in a diner. I'm okay with that. I decided a long time ago that if I want to eat pancakes, I will make them whole wheat/buckwheat, and I won't feel guilty. I will feel awesome for taking care of myself so well.

Someone confronted me about reselling over the weekend, and I responded without ire (very proud of myself for this). "Is that even legitimate?" "Yup", I responded, "without question". This is, at its essence, what all wholesalers do. Office Depot does not make all of its products. Junk warehouses make money from people digging through their wares. This is part of the economy. If you pay attention, it's happening all around you. Farmers sell their produce through stores. I'm all about buying direct, giving business to the little guy, and I'd like to remain in that role. I'd like to be the little guy who collects cool stuff to offer to people who happen to be looking for it, but don't have the time and energy to thrift constantly. I'd like to offer a service to people who love the hunt, but want to hunt on a larger scale (not everyone has thrift stores on every corner). Anyhoo, I was reinvigorated for my task at hand, and will enjoy the hunt that much more today (when I get off my butt and get down to it, of course).

I attend an amazing church that talks about refugees, and yesterday we talked about the Old Testament, the book of Jeremiah, and the realities of war refugees then and now. Please take a moment to read the most recent news about Syria, and consider making a donation to MCC, currently providing direct aid to Syrian refugees.

Rambling.

Vintage Wood Plaque - De Grazia - A Happy Day

So I think my new Friday afternoon activity will be spent combing through a humongous warehouse of old yard sale lots, cobbled together by a brilliant thrifter and vintage shop owner. I went in yesterday. They said they hadn't seen me in a while (I love it when this happens). I don't even think there's a ton of turnover in the areas I'm looking in, so it may not be worth my time to do this weekly, but it's soothing and therapeutic. There was an oldies station on, and I sang and danced my way through dirt-soaked aisles of junk. Ah, bliss.

I ended up not buying anything, because I only had a couple dollars worth of stuff, and I've been feeling a bit sick to my stomach for the past few days, and haven't been motivated to buy anything. Also, I got yelled at whilst purchasing a bottle of water and banana pre-warehouse digging that made me laugh, but also made me feel icky. "Rich white lady in your fancy car!"

Last day of the month for eBay sales! It's been a good month. At this moment, I've grossed $1165, and for me, that's a good month. I've been focusing on eBay time-wise and I'm glad that it's been paying off.

I turned on NPR this morning to listen to Car Talk, and ended up listening to an hour of pre- and post- coverage of Obama's speech on Syria (along with the speech, of course). Please take a moment to read the most recent news about Syria, and consider making a donation to MCC, currently providing direct aid to Syrian refugees.

Relief efforts :)

Vintage A House Blessing by Arthur Guiterman

This year, I held a rummage sale at my church to raise funds for Syria relief. Money, raw paper money, is what people in crisis situations most need, because it allows them to obtain exactly what they need.

Unfortunately, when tragedy comes (war or tornadoes or tsunamis), people want to feel like they can do something. They want to help. They long to help. So they send things. They send clothing, and devotional books, and toilet paper. And this stuff cannot possibly all be used. It usually creates new problems for the people in need, because now they have all of this extra stuff to figure out how to store.

Vintage Desiderata on wood

We often see other people's tragedies as we would see our own, and we block out all of the unknowns (because they're unknown - duh). We forget that there's a mess to clean up, that there are lots of people and organizations nearby that are set up to help in these situations. If your neighbor lost their home, there would be other neighbors to help. People are helpers. People like to help.

So take this time to figure out how to make cash out of the things you want to send. Maybe you sell them on eBay. Maybe you have a garage/rummage/yard sale. Maybe you need to do that to get the $5 or $10 to send to the Red Cross or Mennonite Disaster Service. Maybe cash just isn't obtainable, so you go donate blood today (hey, you get a cookie, and juice!). Maybe take an extra minute to create space in your life to help more the rest of the year, when there isn't a huge crisis to focus on. Find a place to volunteer once a week. Find a kid who needs some unconditionally positive adult attention. Find a way to create a world where love overwhelms people 365 days of the year, not just one.

Semi-real "to-do" list

Very large vintage Le SportSac duffle bag

In honor of Thrift Core's organizational lists, I'd like to start thinking about the summer and how I'm going to start organizing my life. Mostly I just want to think of fun things to do over the summer.

1. Go to a Goodwill outlet: The thought of this has excited me for so long. I need to get a handle on my apartment before I bring in a bunch more stuff. Maybe if I started hanging things from the ceiling and got rid of some furniture...
2. Get my car situation into a better place: I've been saying this for a couple summers now. Summertime is ridiculous in my area, so pretty much we all just lay around and try not to die of dehydration. So going to the wrecking yard is not something I like to think about. Then suddenly it's March, and I'm wishing that my doors weren't broken.
3. Get rid of everything I don't need (garage sale, maybe?): In a little while, there are going to be a ton of block sales in town. I would love to get on board one of them. The scheduling conflict in a few weekends still chaps my hide, and I don't know if I've really fully decided what to do about it. I think I might look up flea markets, and see where I could go in the next couple months. I sure have enough stuff.

This was so not an exhaustive list. It was just a beginning. In my post-graduation life, I will be linguistically flexible and more organized. I cannot keep living in such a chaotic way. I don't know if that is going to change, in all honesty, but the more I think about it, it may be more likely that I find someone to marry who is organized. I will be the passionate one who makes life beautiful.

Football and NASCAR

I went to an estate sale this morning. It looked as if the organizers had set everything up the night before, and then it rained. The children were organizing the home of their mother. When I bought my stuff, the woman at the table let me know that there was just too much work to sell stuff for what it was really worth. She also said I should come back next weekend, for the good stuff, which would also be victim to the curse of estate sales, and go for less than it's worth.

On the way home, I convinced myself that I shouldn't be annoyed by the people who act like they're doing me a favor when I take their junk. "It's just the grief talking," I tell myself. But there was no talk of death this morning, so it may have just been a move to a smaller location.

There was talk about football and NASCAR. They were all happy that football season was coming to a close, so then they could hit the track. Some were especially sad for "Junior", who just can't seem to make a go of it, and then compared the different tracks they like to go to.

It was a neat crowd. There was a neighbor walking around who admitted that she didn't really know the woman, but stuck around trying to be "helpful". There were some other guys trying to be helpful by telling the children that they should ask more for the horse trailer. Again, it was quite a crowd. Sometimes, I'm one of them, and sometimes I'm on the outside. Today, it was the latter.

Chchchch...changes

Yesterday was an amazingly long day, but I think I helped some people, so it was absolutely worth it. Unfortunately, my schedule this semester is feeling pretty smushed, crunched, limited, etc. I'm starting to think that I am going to shift my thrifting a bit. I don't think I have the energy anymore to go every day. I'm thinking more about a weekend gig with focus on estate sales. I will try it out this weekend and report back to you with how it went. I think I avoided it last semester because I wanted the weekend to rest, but I think I can arrange it so that I still get rest and get sufficient shopping time.

We've been downgraded

So, we've decided to leave some things behind in Iraq. You know, the usual stuff that's difficult to ship via the US Postal Service: guns, tanks, port-a-potties. This seems like a good idea to me, giving to those in need and all. Although, I do hate guns (hate them) and don't think it's any good to just pass them along to someone else. But Iraq is going to maintain a military, no? So it suffices to think that they might be aided by our leaving some essential supplies behind. Or maybe we don't want to bring the mess home, and we're trying to leave it behind for someone else to clean up. That would be a horrible idea. Don't make your problem someone else's problem.

Like I tell the kids when they're "so bored" and start following me around with puppy dog eyes. "Don't make your problem my problem. Don't pout in my face." Come to me for help, or go spend some time thinking about different ways to solve the problem. Don't dump it on my doorstep (Wow, so harsh).

Yeah, leaving things behind is often a difficult task, especially if you plan to do it well. We all have to move on at some point in our lives; change comes and we have to embrace it. I am in the midst of some pretty darn humongous changes right now in my life, and I'm not embracing them, no sirree. I am digging my heels in, hanging on to the past. I know what's coming after graduation and it is not pretty. After the excitement wanes quickly, the depression and unemployment will set in; the loan officers will start calling, and I will still have the rest of my life to be single and help other people with their marriages (Oh, haven't I told you? I'm planning on being single for the rest of my freakin life, or until I turn sixty, whichever comes first.). Yippee!

These are dark days my friend, dark days. I wish someone would leave a tank in my backyard. Not really, since I wouldn't know what to do with it, but all the same, it sure would make me feel powerful for a whole five seconds.

The depth of death

So, for probably the first time in my life, I went to an estate sale on a Friday morning, at 8am. Yup. I'm that awesome. There were already people leaving. Meh. Whatever.

The house smelled like urine. It was awful. I seriously thought, "How long was this person dead before they found her?" Then, to top it off, the people running the sale happened to be professionals and relatives, so I got to talking with one of the women about the deceased. She was 97, single all her life. Once, she traveled around the world in 69 days. She loved life. This I learned while going through her books on her living room floor, wonderful art, architecture, and bird books, and of course the full Left Behind series.

I started to think about how my life would look to those closest to me if they went through my belongings right now, like if I died today, and people had to figure out what to do with my stuff. I know I'm a really honest person, but I wouldn't want just anyone going through my things. It's so personal, even if there aren't necessarily things that I want hidden. I still want the deepest parts of myself to only be known by a couple people. I still want to have special intimate relationships where the other person knows me better than anyone else does. I think I sometimes come across as someone who will tell anyone anything, but that isn't true. I think it just looks like that because I'm a complex person. There's a lot to me, so there's a lot of surface material to work with. But there's a whole hell of a lot underneath that I don't bring out every day.

I hope you know that. Because I want people to see me as an open, honest person. But I also want people to see me as I am, as imperfect, flawed, and human.

And again, I fantasized today about having my own estate sale business. Ah, a beautiful thought.

On-the-street thrift

One of my favorite things in the world is putting stuff on the street for people to take. In Oakland, I noticed that there were a lot of boxes on the street with stuff in them, waiting to be taken. I don't take stuff I don't want; I'm very particular about that.

Today, I put my broken "closet" out on the street. I didn't want to deal with it one more minute. After two Home Depot visits, and three repairs only to end up each time with a pile of clothes and hangers on my floor, I said "enough!" This of course was hastened by the fact that an amazing warmhearted, loving-beyond-my-wildest-dreams friend came over and put big hooks on my wall and now there are three rows of clothes, and lots more floor space. I am pretty clumsy, so keeping things far off the ground is super good for my feet.

[I have been clumsy for as long as I can remember. I don't quite know what to attribute it to, but I think it has something to do with my long arms and legs and ridiculously short torso. In yoga the other day, there were some poses that just made no sense to me, like my brain couldn't even comprehend being able to move that way. Then, at other times, other poses were easier because I'm flexible. You'd think that at my advanced age of almost three complete decades, I'd have complete sense of my body in space, but if there was a disorder called kinesthetic retardation, I'd have it. I'd be high on the scale, high 60s, but still, I'd have something to call this thing.]

Anyhow, the "closet" was gone after a couple hours. Problem solved, and I really hope someone out there is happier with my "closet" than I was. I am super happy with my new setup-thanks friend :)

A thousand deaths for thrift

I have avoided the Salvation Army and Goodwill for at least a year. Maybe it was the bright lights, the uniformed employees, or the whiteness of the walls. I don't know what it was, but it's over. I am having lots of good times at Goodwill. Salvation Army, not so much, which is just as well; my favorite employee is gone and the place just isn't the same without her twenty piercings and ridiculously awesome attitude (I really did adore her). Like many of the employees (or all? I'm not sure), she was probably going through the Salvation Army rehab program, and rehab eventually ends. Good or bad, it ends.

Every one has their time in the sun, and Salvation Army's will return eventually. Even my favorite place in town has lost its zing, and I hardly go there these days. One just has to keep up with the times.

There's a metaphysical component to the thrift world. It's very systemic. There are trends in donations, and trends in buying patterns. There are pricing patterns (we're in a high one right now) and disgruntled shopper patterns (I just made that last one up). But just like life, things come and go, and we just have to ride the wave or we'll get swept under the current, I suppose. I don't think the thrift current is very strong though, so don't fear for your life or anything.

I desperately want to run a thrift store, or manage rummage and estate sales. I don't want to be a grown up and do my real job. Is there even such a thing? If we all did exactly what we wanted, would the world implode? Fall off its axis? Spiral into the sun? I need to write a letter to Sugar concerning this issue; she will have the answer.

Biggest Freakin Yard Sale Ever!

I walk out my front door this morning to a street fair, also known as the yearly yard sale that spans the mile of my street. The place is packed with people, and strollers, and cars. A man asks if it's okay if he can park in front of my driveway. "Um, no". There are four families in my front yard. A ten-year-old girl asks about a bed that's already been sold. I tell her that someone has already bought it, and she responds with appropriate pre-pubescent attitude, "Well who bought it?" Um, I don't know, not you?

I walk a couple doors down and see a boxer mix puppy that I instantly fall in love with. He's adorable, and licks my face. He's only $25 because they're trying to get rid of him. It seems that he doesn't get along well with the female in their home, or the female doesn't want him on her turf. I want to take him home and make him mine SO bad, but there's just no way I can get a dog that big. My place is not big enough.

Another block down is a couple selling pomeranians for $650, then another block after that is the man with the yorkies for $350. I miss my dogs so much (We went on a walk a couple nights ago then snuggled for a little bit. They were alone in the house when I got there and they both had baked bean breath from going through the trash).

I start walking in the street because the sidewalk is so freakin crowded. I begin to think that there need to be rules like in a really crowded marathon: no dogs and no strollers. Every other house has a restaurant in the front yard. Most of the food is Mexican, but I saw some chow mein, and I think I'm going to walk down in another hour or so. I was really wanting Chinese food last night, but ended up eating cake instead (Whose friends made her vegan cake for her birthday? This girl!). I also had vegan cupcakes for lunch because I thought that would be my birthday cake for the day. Ha! My nutritionist would be so proud of me for meeting my caloric goal for the day.

At the end of the street is a Spiderman bounce house with a sign that says, "Bounce for Free". I don't quite know how making it free does anything for their yard sale, since it took up the whole yard. Right next to that house was a full-on Earth Festival-Bob Marley-Reggae tent.

Mostly, this thing is one street-long flea market. I've been to better street-long yard sales in my city. This one is mostly food and crowds and nothing I want to actually purchase. It is important to note that I hadn't eaten breakfast yet, and that I'm just overloaded in general, so even though I had a good time walking up and down the street, I'm much happier now in my quiet apartment listening to Car Talk. Honestly, I don't even want to answer the door, but then I would have missed one of my favorite people, so sometimes life is not exactly what we want.

Speaking of wanting, and the state of my crazy life over the past month, well, not much change and still a lot of heartache. But life goes on, and work goes on, and the sun keeps rising and setting, and sometimes, even when it seems like God couldn't possibly let one more thing through the floodgates, they pour through unbidden anyway, and the void remains...it remains.