YARD SALE!

Essentially the yard sale overshadowed the whole week.  Tom started last week sorting through garage, barn, and shed and staging things in the center of the garage and the overhang.

Monday we went around and priced things. I went through closets in the house for other odds and ends. I also got notification for an Elance job.  It gave me a 5 day turn around to do 5 articles on finance and stocks at 500 words or more.  I was a bit disgruntled.

First, the pay was low.  Second, I’d agreed to the job if they did the research.  But they just gave me topics and said essentially “don’t worry if you’re not a financial advisor (or know what you’re doing). We tell everyone to do their own due diligence.”  And I’m thinkin’ REALLY??  How many finance articles do I read that are written by writers, not experts???

Why didn’t I turn it down?  Good question.  I’m new on elance and need good references.  I wanted to write for the financial sector and this seemed like a good start. When you begin elance, you have to work for dirt for the first few assignments.  But there was a pretty high stress level about writing these articles well.  I figured I needed to do one a day.

That evening, when I went to put the chickens in, one newbie was over the fence in the pasture.  Two others were in the garden.  I grabbed the pasture one and tossed her back into the pen.  The two in the garden needed more hands, so I went to get Tom.  When we came out… no chickens in the garden.  None.   And it’s nearly dark… and getting darker by the moment.  We wandered and searched, but no luck.  We hoped they’d show up in the morning.

Late, late Monday night Miranda and her “chicks” came to visit.

Tuesday we were up early chicken hunting.  We wandered all over the yard and checked under the porch, the garden, the pond area, the barn and the pasture.  No chickens.  I tried to get their friend out of the coop in the hopes she would call to them.  She was a bit distressed at my efforts.  Likely she called, “HELP!  MURDER! Stay away!” 

Just when I’d given up… the two ladies showed up on the pasture side outside of the chicken fence…anxious to rejoin their friends.  With a little persuasion we got them back under the fence to their friends…err friend.  The two older hens are more likely to chase and peck than be friendly.  I had some discussions with them, including a thrown cucumber.  I’m not sure it made them kinder to the pullets, but it made them more leery of me.  

Miranda spent parts of Tuesday and Wednesday hanging out with her friend Sarah Simpson (now married) who lives in Austria but was visiting home.  We did a little more yard sale prep and I managed to write the first finance article.  I sent it off to see if this was what they wanted.  They liked it.

Wednesday we checked that our ad was in the Baxter Bulletin.  We put out some of the weather indifferent stuff in prep for Thursday’s yard sale.  Our neighbor Barbara was having a yard sale with us.  So the missionaries and we worked over there getting tables set up and books set out.  I think we worked Barbara half to death.  In the evening I had a call and then a meeting at church.  Miranda held down the fort.  We had fun playing with Ethan and Camden and visiting with Miranda.

Eeeearly Thursday morning, before daylight, we went out to prep.  We’d listed the time from 8-4… but people were at the gate by 7am.  And being hungry for sales we let them in.  It was a lovely day!  Cool and sunny.  It was a great day to sit outside. Tom found a book from our sales pile and read that in the slow times. 

I came inside and cranked out another finance article.  The articles themselves were not hard to write… but the research!  I spent hours checking out Stansberry Reports, the Palm Beach Letter, Morningstar, Yahoo finance, Motley Fool, and the Wall Street Journal.  Cowabunga!  Now I know why it’s so hard to choose good stocks.  One source says it’s the best thing since Apple.  Another says it’s a fluke.  One says it has great earnings, another says the analysts’ who follow it don’t recommend a buy.  Almost no one agrees on any stock.  Then they wanted parameters of stocks between $5-20 or innovative, or in the real estate or construction market.  Yikes.

Here’s the good news.  I decided I don’t want to write for the financial niche.  I might have gone to Bootcamp promoting myself as a writer in the financial niche. It’s great I learned early it’s not my favorite area.  I like learning about it.  I don’t want to be considered an expert.  I’m also writing for a job coach and I did a job for a career coach and motivational speaker.  I like those areas much better.

We had good sales our first day.  Early Friday morning a storm blew through.  We’d covered everything with plastic and put lots of stuff in the garage.  They’d said 20% chance of rain and maybe 1/10^th of an inch so we didn’t expect much.  But the wind whistled, lightning flickered, flashed, and cracked nearly non-stop, and a ½ inch of rain pelted in about an hour.

Most of our stuff stayed dry, but Barb’s tarps were old and allowed rain to wet sheets and books.  Very disappointing.  The bedding could be washed and dried, the books?  I loaned her a hair dryer.  I think she ironed some of the pages.  Books are her friends!

Miranda kindly made muffins and fed us as we cleaned up the rain debris.  She left about noon to go visit a friend and head home.  It was nice to have her here.

I’d put out a bunch of horse stuff—2 western saddles and an English saddle, 10 bits, 2 cinches, various tie-downs or chest straps, a few light blankets, leg wraps, etc.  Two saddles sold the first day.  Friday a woman came by flush from selling a horse.  She was setting up a consignment booth with horse stuff and basically cleaned me out!  Joy! (Still have the English saddle and one set of leg wraps.)

I got the last of the finance articles written.  Relief!  Saturday I reviewed them one last time and sent them off.

Saturday we were a bit more relaxed for the sale.  We sat around discussing what we’d do with the unsold things… but we still sold over $100 that day.  Mid day, Barb and I went to a surprise 90^th birthday party for Sister Dale.  It was lovely.  We came home and helped pack up all the stuff that didn’t sell.   We’ve got a pile to go to Salvation Army.  Another (including the old file cabinet) for the metal recycler.  And a small pile to try to find a consignment store to take.

By late afternoon, I was bushed!  I had a landing page for my coaching client to spend 2 hours on.  I did one hour in the late afternoon.  Then we went to the ward fish fry.   WOW!  Good food and lot of friends to visit with.  So much food, I could not taste everything.  So sad.

We went to Baxter Retirement Home to visit Sister Dawson and then we came home.  Tom went to bed early.  I finished my last hour on the landing page and joined him.

Sunday the primary children performed their annual program.  It was very sweet.  They processed in singing I am a child of God.  We have one boy with cerebral palsy in a wheel chair.  His part was to say, “I am a child of God.”  It was very moving.  The children sang well.

I taught the Gospel Principles class. It was fun.  After church we had a baptism that was well attended.  Then I went home teaching with Tom. 

And that’s our week… or more than you wanted to know about it.