And now for something completely different....

Wasn't that the "headline" for a tv variety show or something many, many years ago???

Today we spent our morning with our school work and mid-day while the kids were finishing up some lessons, I packed a few boxes to take to storage.  This afternoon we ALL needed a bit of something completely different.

We piled in the car and went to a local park down by the river.

We headed into the woods on a path and took a nature walk.

The middle child decided to capture a few of her own photos.  She brought along her camera.

Her taking a photo of me taking a photo of her.

A cool centipede we saw on the trail.

Heading deep into the woods.

It is hard to see in this photo above but we recently had a flood.  You can see the dirt tinted leaves.  The river (this is just a stream you see) rose about 12 feet here.

Pretty butterfly we found.

The clan looking at the river.

A fun squirrel to watch.

Looking down the river.  So pretty  and peaceful today.

The green ferns and foliage was so pretty today.

We found and tasted honeysuckles.

Along the path near the boat ramp are scattered beautiful sculptures of the local wildlife.  This is part of a sculpture of egrets called "Family".

We SO needed a break from packing and the mess of the house.  We needed the fresh air and the long walk as a family.

Frustrated - because of RAIN!

Yesterday we had a bit of a yard sale.  We pulled out the stuff that we didn't want to pack and move with us.  Clothes, books, toys, Halloween costumes, linens, and lots of other stuff.  Because it was Friday and Friday isn't usually a yard sale day in our area we didn't expect much.  We did make $130.  We packed everything up and set it aside under a canopy.

There was a chance of rain.

It rained. Poured.

This morning the yard and driveway were soaked.  The canopy had water stuck in it.  The stuff underneath, okay not all the stuff, some of the stuff got wet, but most of it was pretty dry.  HOWEVER there would be no yard sale. It was just too wet outside.  So all the stuff came back inside and we gave up.

We did, though, dig up our Hostas in the front flower bed.  I wanted to get them divided.  They are enormous!  We got them dug out and I figured that I would wait a little while and then divide them when they dried out a bit.

About 3 hours later it poured down rain again.  No go on the dividing the Hostas either. UGH!

But, if the buyers of our house drove by today they would think that we were digging all the flower beds up.  LOL  If only they knew that we were actually helping them by dividing these big bad boys for them.  I do hope they love this house.

Just Got Back From the Consignment Shop

A couple months ago I consigned some of my work clothes that I no longer need.  They were nice shirts, skirts, pants, jackets and dresses.  These were NICE clothes.  Most of them actually still had the tags on them.  I had never worn them.

I shopped around back then to find a consignment store that would take my clothes.  They were name brand, not a department store brand or discount store brands.  I inquired at two shops (clothes in the back of my car).  I go in and they tell me that they can't take my clothes that day.  I have to call on the 20th of the month and set an appointment for the following month to bring in my clothing.  I needed a bit more immediate than that.  The thing that took me by surprise was that everyone in the couple consignment stores I went in to were not very friendly.  They weren't busy at all, only a few shoppers.  No one was at the counter ready to check out, yet they didn't seem that they were interested in giving me the time of day.  I was a bit taken aback by this.  I would think that they would be over friendly since I have to PICK them to sell my clothes.  It is my choice and they benefit from me choosing them.  Most of the shops I inquired in took 50% of the final sale price.  That is fair.

I got tired of driving around with these clothes in the back of my car.  One day when it was pouring down rain, like buckets of rain, I called one last shop.  They said, "no problem, bring them in today."

SERIOUSLY????

LIKE RIGHT NOW?????

I don't have to WAIT until the fourth Wednesday of next month to call and try to get an appointment???

I can't tell you how quickly I sweet talked my husband into getting in the car and going with me to take my clothes.  I don't quite remember what I promised him if he went out in the cold, pouring down rain to help me get my clothes in to this store, but I am pretty sure I have paid it back and then some in these last few months.

We arrive and drive around the parking lot a few times to get a spot sort of close to the door.  It is still raining buckets outside and he graciously grabs the big pile of clothes and we make a run for the door.

Two smiling older ladies are at the counter when we come in all wet.  They gladly start sorting through our clothes and ooo and ahhh over some of them.  Now I am a {eh-hem} larger sort of woman and they were more than thrilled to have that size of nice work style clothing come in the shop.

They quickly gather the pile of clothes they want while I am filling out the paperwork.  I sign my life away and they say, "that will be $20".

WHAT????? You mean I have to PAY to sell my clothes here????

"Yes" they tell me, "but you will make that up quickly with your great items here.

{sigh} Okay.  I pay my hard earned $20 which is a lot of money to us, in hopes of a bigger return on the other side.  They tell me to come back in about a month or two and pick up my check for the clothes I sell.

Off we go back out to the rain, feeling satisfied that 1. people were interested in my clothes, 2. they were really excited about the larger sizes, 3.  they got the pile of clothes out of my car and didn't make me wait 57 years to make an appointment!

About a month later I call them to find out if I have sold anything and what the rules are for picking up my check.  They tell me I can come ANYTIME during their business hours and pick it up.  They also tell me that yes I have sold several things and they give me the sale price of each item.

$19.60
  18.00
  14.00
  11.00
I am getting excited!
  19.60
  15.40
WOW!!  I am doing great!

The very nice lady then tells me to add them all up and I get 40% of that.

WHAT??? 40% a measly 40%????

I thank her and hang up.  What is the use now in arguing? I don't remember 40% but then again I was just so excited they took my clothes before a kid sat on them with strawberry jelly hands or smeared the mud from their sneakers on them.

I didn't run right out because the lady said that I still had more to sell.  Yippeee!!!  Maybe I can make a bit more money.

Fast forward to today.  I decide that I am going to run over to that consignment shop and pick up my big fat check.  I KNOW more clothes sold and I am SURE that they sold for a goodly amount of money.  I get there and put on my happy, smiley face and walk through the door.  Boy are they busy! People are shopping, piles of clothes sit everywhere.  I walk back to the back of the store where I am supposed to and I politely say, "hello, I am wondering if I have a check to pick up." I hand her my consignor's card and she looks me up.  She takes a sheet of paper out of her files and hands it to me and says, "Take this to the front and they will give you your money."

I glance at it and see that it looks like most everything has something written next to it.  I begin to add up the sales and see that there is over $200 in sale prices. Woo Hoo!!!! I'm in the money, I'm in the money! {singing to myself}

I head to the front and hand it to the lady.  She sort of grunts at me and takes my paper.  She begins to add things up.

$19.60
  18.00
  14.00
  19.60
  11.00
  15.40.

She takes her 60% and tells me that I will be getting $39.40 today.

???What??? I thought it would be double that.  I ask her, "what about all the other items?"

She says with a frowny face showing me she isn't interested in talking to me, "all the items with an SA next to them means we sent them off to the Salvation Army".

WHAT????  You didn't say anything about giving my clothes away.  I specifically remember you all saying that you would give them away if I wanted you to but I could come and pick them up.  I didn't say anything about not picking them up.  Why didn't you all call me?

"Honey, we can't call and hold everyone's clothes for them to come pick them up."

Hmmmph.

"But there are two items that look like they are still on the racks.  You can go look for them and pull them if you want."

"Really, I mean, you are still trying to sell them right? I don't want to pull them if they aren't ready to be pulled."

"They should have been pulled honey, but they seem to be on the racks still. So you can get them if you want."

I take my sheet and go to start to look.  I look for about 15 minutes and give up. They aren't there.  I hand my sheet back to the lady in the back and tell her I think those two items must have been stolen because I can't find them.

I leave with my $39.40 in my pocket.

From all that effort I think I could have made more money selling my clothes at a yard sale, of which we have had three since I consigned my clothes.

Profit: $39.40-$20 fee= $19.40 a headache and frustration from having to deal with ladies who don't care to give you the time of day.

Lesson learned: 1. buy clothes you plan to wear and wear them out. Then donate them to Goodwill or Salvation Army on your own.  You will at least get the tax write off and not have to deal with mean ole ladies and have to pay to sell your clothes. (That was a long, hard lesson to learn. It took too much time out of my life.) 2. consignment store workers/owners are not very friendly. It must be an application requirement.

Six Boxes Down to Two Binders

Yes, you read that right!  I took six boxes worth of music CDs and fit them all into two binders set up for storing CDs.

How did I do it?  Simple, I allowed myself to get rid of the plastic cases and toss the paper covers and lyrics.  It took a bit of a hard swallow to do that.  I mean I like looking at Sting when I search for his covers and I like the ease of having the lyrics right there if I want to sing along and don't know the words.  However, in our techo age we can Google the lyrics to the songs and bring them up on our phones, ipods, and laptops.  I no longer need the paper version.

So we bought these Case Logic CD storage binders and started putting our CDs in them.  We had over 350 CDs and we didn't weed out a single one.  We have over 100 Christmas music CDs!  Wow!  That is a LOT of Christmas music.

I love that they have a zipper that closes all the way around the binder.  That way CDs won't fall out when we are traveling or moving it from one place to another.

We had 6 boxes full of these music CDs and were able to get every single CD into two of these awesome cases.

By the way, we did this about two years ago with our movie DVDs and loved that we could take our movies everywhere with us easily.

Now with three of these binders we have all our movies and our music CDs with us where ever we go.  Perfect for traveling and in our RV.  Now how cool is THAT!

Preparing to Move - Mom Style

Ba ha ha ha ha...

This moving stuff is for the birds!

We have 13 years of "baggage" here in this house and let me tell you, it is seeping out of the walls it seems.  Moving for us is inevitable.  Our plan is to put everything in storage and move to our summer/weekend home for the summer and possibly into the fall.  Until the house is actually sold (we have a contract on it but no settlement date yet) we will keep furniture here and some basic items.  There will be times we will be back here and spending the night or two.  Other than that our plan is to get all the rest of the stuff packed and out.

I posted a couple weeks ago that I was unmotivated.  I am motivated now and looking at all our STUFF is overwhelming.  Most of the time I just say "pitch it".

To date we have had three yard sales each earning us a bit over $300. The most recent one we made $450! We have also sold another $200 on Craigslist. But we still have a ways to go.  We have another room full of stuff for another yard sale which will be in a couple weeks.  That will/should be our last one.

In packing my goal is to sort, group, and pack.  I want to sort out the stuff we don't want to keep/no longer need/can't use and put that in one pile.  Then I group all like objects together and pack them away in boxes.

We have collected all our plastic storage containers and are using them as much as we can.  They stack well and can be moved easily as most have handles.  The other boxes we get from the liquor store because they are sturdy but smallish so we can handle the size and weight easily.  The big boxes are easy to pack but get heavy quickly.

At this point my house looks like a bomb blew up the inside or like it was burglarized.

We have some accomplishments at this point.  
1.  The attic has been cleaned out.  It is all over my living room right now but there is nothing in the attic anymore.
2.  My husband and I have cleaned out our closet and sorted through our clothes.  We have gotten rid of 13 trash bags full of clothing. And YES we still have clothes to wear. And YES a lot of those bags were my clothes. LOL
3.  We have moved three loads of boxes and furniture into storage.
4.  We also have sorted through all our stuff already in storage and got rid of almost half of it to go to a yards sale or Goodwill. (That is amazing! To think we were storing stuff we could have gotten rid of a long time ago....)

Things I can't deal with right now:
1. my scrapbook stuff - I have a ton of it and I just can't go through it and sort and get rid of it.
2. a final sort of our homeschool supplies - again I just can't go through it and weed out stuff.  I just don't know what I will need because I am not planning next year yet other than basic subjects.

Our move out date is the end of May.  That is putting our stuff in storage and moving to our summer place.  The house and basic stuff will stay here in our house until it is sold.  But by the end of May we should be living more time at our summer place than here in town. (fingers crossed)

The Great Wheel - Homeschool Lesson on The Ferris Wheel, 1893

Several months ago we bought a curriculum that we thought we would use solely, however that didn't pan out but I kept the books and such and have been pulling this and that from it all year long.

I pulled this one off the shelf a week or so ago and we began reading it.

The Great Wheel, by Robert Lawson.  It is about the building of the first Ferris Wheel for the Chicago's World's Fair in 1893.  The fictional story is weaved in with factual information about the construction of the wheel.  The main character, Conn is an Irish immigrant and we follow him from Ireland, on the boat to America, and his involvement with the Ferris Wheel. The story is intriguing and both me and my preteen children enjoyed the story.

I picked it up with really no plan other than to read it together as a family.  From our read much has sparked our interest.  We are at this point half way through the story and we have already done quite a bit of research on the first Ferris wheel as well as on Mr. Ferris himself.  We have also had great discussions on concrete and how it sets, setting footings for large buildings and structures, and on weight disbursement.

I thought I would offer a few sites that we found some great information to help your lesson if you choose to read this wonderful story.

Here is a wonderful "Mixbook" that someone created with photos of the great wheel which gave us a better understanding of how big this thing was and what it all looked like.  It also has photos of typical homes in Ireland at the time and typical people who would have worked on the wheel.

Here is an great article of the creation and end of the Ferris Wheel of the Exposition of 1893.  It uses higher vocabulary as much of it is from news articles of the time.  Meant for older students and adults.

Here is a kid friendly version of the same article above. It has lower level vocabulary for kids to better understand.

Here is a good picture of the carriages.

Here is a great picture of the Ferris Wheel.

Here is a great picture of the axle with a 6 ft. man standing in front of it.

Here is a good picture of how big the carriages were.

Here is a picture of it towering over all the buildings of the Fair. It stood 296 ft tall.

Here is a great YOU TUBE video created by a group of students on the 1893 World's Fair.  It gives a wonderful overview of the fair.

Here is a great article on GWG Ferris, Jr.'s life.

Here is the Google Doodle of the Ferris Wheel in honor of Ferris an Valentine's Day (It is his birthday).  It gives good information and a video biography of him.

I will continue to add to this post as we continue to read the book and find more interesting things to research.

Happy Reading!

Purging the binges...

LOL  This post title makes me laugh!!!

We have a contract on our house.  It is virtually sold.  We are awaiting a settlement date from the banks and we will be moving out of our house.

At this point I have begun to pack and purge.  Purge our binges, that is.

We decided to have a yard sale last week and we did a pretty good job of getting rid of a bunch of stuff.  We sold a lot but at the end of the sale we didn't really want to pack it all back up and put it all back in the house for another sale later this month.  So we did the inevitable.  We packed it all up in two car loads and dumped it off at the Goodwill.  I will take that tax deduction and not have to store the stuff again for a few more weeks.  That wave is done.

Now on to the second wave.  Ugh!  The more I look at the stuff in our house the more I just want to get rid of it.  Just back up a big dumpster and throw it all out the window into the dumpster.  Part of it is my laziness in dealing with everything.  The other part is that if I haven't seen it in a while then I probably won't miss it anyway.  What makes me not get a big dumpster??? I am greedy.  LOL  I want to make a bit of money on the stuff I have spent my hard earned money on. I know a majority of it will end up getting donated anyway, but the last yard sale we had earned us $245.  And that went a nice little way in paying for other things we needed, (food, gas, etc).

What I have found recently in sorting through my stuff is that we have "binged" on things.  We decide we like something and then we have to have all of that something.  For example I decided that I was going to collect Santas with pipes years ago.  My first ornament given to me by my grandfather was a hand blown ornament of a santa with a pipe.  So this collection began to evolve from there.  When others in the family found out that I was collecting these my collection grew exponentially.  I received them every year for my birthday and Christmas (which are close together).  Any that we saw we seemed to buy.  When our kids got old enough to start pulling things from the shelves, I packed them up in four large Rubbermaid boxes and put them in the attic.  Each year I left them up there, not wanting to get them out and take the time to display every single one.  Last week I pulled these boxes down from the attic and unwrapped each Santa.  They all sat all over the kitchen table (who am I kidding, they are still sitting there.)  I looked that them and realized a good majority of them I don't love.  If I don't love them then I shouldn't keep them, right???  I played the "I can whittle this collection down to 10 Santas" game with my husband.  Who gladly played along.  He wrapped up the ones I picked and those are the ones I am keeping.  It was a difficult decision with some because I know my husband went out of his way to get some of them, but I didn't love them.  I had to talk to him about it and take the emotion of loving him out of my decision on some of the Santa's.  Once we talked and I explained that I loved that he went out of his way and searched high and low to get me some, I just didn't love the Santa.  He agreed that they should then go.  And they did.  I have two huge boxes of Santa's awaiting a yard sale and have put some of the vintage ones up on etsy to sell. I feel so much better with the ones I truly love and not have all the rest of them that I don't love just taking up space.

Speaking of space.  For the next 6 months we will be living, a family of 5, in less than 400 square feet of space.  We can't take our stuff with us.  We must put it in storage. My ideal is to keep the minimum for setting up a house again and getting rid of the rest.  I struggle with this though and I ask myself, "is this worth the expense of storage?"  Lots of times the answer in the beginning is "yes" but later the answer becomes "no". This means that I am going through my stuff twice, getting rid of many things on the first wave and then having to make the hard decisions on the second wave.  Ugh.  This is an arduous and emotional process.