Month: May 2017

Hello and how are your weekends starting off??
So far I have only wasted about 3 hours sleeping. I will state again that morning is not my forte, and 5am should only be used for emergencies!
But… I got up and coffeed myself into consciousness and ended up awake enough to set up our sale down at Margies.

We set the gazebo up on the lawn by the driveway with attractive goods – Margies knitwear, nice crockery, Jeff’s arrowhead jewellry, and some of my jams/sauces etc.

Of course, the advertised 8am start is ignored by the frantic, desperate, habitual Garage Sale Lurkers, who turned up at 6.45am!!!
Of course not even half the stuff was set up or ready – but I said if they had money they could come in!! Actually those early birds bought enough stuff that made it worth the inconvenience of trying to manage customers against actually getting properly set up!

Our layout worked really well – first past the nice stuff under the gazebo & Jeff who was greeting people and keeping an eye on what was happening at the front. (In between reading the magazines he bought off Fiona!)

Funny thing – see that cushion he has parked his bum on? Well… Ruby walked all the way down her rather long driveway and out the front and back into the driveway of Margies home carting this cushion for Jeff so the poor dear ‘didn’t get hemorrhoids tonight!’ Ahhhhh nurses! What would we do without them??!!

Anyway, back to layout. People were basically funneled down the drive and did a nice loop, walking past every part of the sale and back out.

Having a combined sale is a good idea. We had 4 households joining in. At times it was a little complicated sorting out sales when a person might buy several things from each of us – but we managed!
It also meant more people to watch all areas and deal with multiple customers/questions at once.
And for the customers, it means greater variety. I remember giving up on going to garage sales in Canberra where you would travel substantial distances to go to a ‘Garage Sale’ that would consist on one card table with a few things on it!!

I had baked a banana cake, Ruby supplied scones and Margie had the coffee going. Its a lot easier to take a tea break at a garage sale than at the markets!! (The loo is closer too!!)

We were so lucky with the weather. Considering the rain we had yesterday and a good portion of last night! Sunshine brought the people in!
Everyone sold a good amount of stuff – and I am really happy to report that Jeff & I got close to $500!!! Couldn’t believe it! (Actually I shouldn’t be that proud. Bottom line is that we have too much crap!)
That is really going to help out in the Texas-Spending-Money-Dept!

I don’t wear a watch but I was thinking at one point.. must be getting close to 3pm… should I start packing?
er – when you get up unusually early you misjudge time a fair bit. It was 11.30am!!

Eventually it was after 3pm and things had really quietened down so we packed up to leave Margie in peace. It was nice not having so much to have to pack back into boxes!

Mission accomplished!

Cheers

Gotta go to bed and its way later than it should be!
I have to get up at an hour I would normally see from the other end of the day (5am)
Have to be at Margies early to set up for the garage sale.
And we all know by now how much I luuuurrrve mornings!! (This will be character building I am sure)

Anyway, the weather has been pretty average… with a lot of rain. We could do without the rain tomorrow, but this is Tasmania in autumn, so – anything is possible!

I shall return tomorrow evening with a full report, a few snaps and with luck, a few more dollars!!!

Cheers!

Hello!
Yesterday I muddled through a few things, then gave up and did a speedy walk around Anniversary Bay with Jeff. We smashed our normal time too! Pre-Overland days we were doing that circuit in over two hours. A few days ago we managed 1hr & 45 minutes. Yesterday we felt a bit chuffed with a 1hr & 31 minute dash!! (pant pant)

So – I felt brave enough to start trying on clothes to see what I could take to summer in Texas. I was upstairs rifling through my swimmer collection and I could hear all these thudding noises… thought it was Jeff.
Well… it was Jeff, but not my Jeff… Cousin Jeff with a load of wood!
Yay (frantically adding this to list)

So – I guess my next job is wood stacking!

Actually there was a small lavender bush growing in the path where the wheel barrow would be going, so I had to do a bit of transplanting first.

It was growing so happily in the dodgiest soil ever!

Since I have managed to do nothing with this patch since I created it, I figured the lavender could live near the self seeded pumpkin.

And I might add my compost soil in here is a bit divine!

I would also like to point out how brilliant this plot is for lack of weeds!! I created it months and months ago, and not a weed in sight! That thick layer of newspaper really did the trick! One day I might plant something in it!! (besides the lavender bush)

Anyway, I then busied myself and turned this –

into this –

It was kind of annoying because I just finished clearing the stack and Cousin Jeff returned to drop the second load off!!

But I left this pile here and will look forward to sorting it out tomorrow

Time to get back into my packing mode.

I had to write a new list – just of people and presents/souvenirs I wanted to take. I think I finally have most of that sorted. (and packed into safe boxes and packets)

Then it was the agony of going through my clothes to see what was suitable to take with me. Happily a lot of my clothes are fitting better. I think I have found enough that aren’t too horrible looking to pack so I can avoid the whole dreaded ‘shopping for clothes’ excursion.
Granted the jeans I want to wear on the plane need a button sewed on, but I can cope with that (All my other jeans have worn through in the nether regions and aren’t possibly the best ones to take with me)

Anyway, I have a pile of possibles to go through, presents sorted, shoes glued and bags decided upon.

11 days and 14 hours to go.

Cheers!

So… what do you do with 32 million five cent coins?

You make them into a massive heart of course  – get yourself a world record then dump all the money into cancer research!

I have been following Connie & her brother Sam at Love Your Sister – a family that has devoted so much to raising money to kick cancer in the backside. (Sam, I must admit has a whole string more of colourful adjectives than I am willing to write down in my blog 🙂 )

One of my sisters, Rosemary, who lives in Canberra where this event is happening, and my niece Emma went down after work to join in the fun – so all the photos are from Rosemary (She is like my interstate correspondent)

Due to the amount of coins received, there was no way they could stack them – so they just built a big heart shape and let people (in Sam’s words) “Piff them in!”

There were stalls set up to buy this and that to add $$ to the cause – I can’t upload videos on my page, but the fairy floss had flashing lights!! Can’t get much cooler than that hey?

Rosemary said the security at the barrels amused her. How far do you think someone is going to get trying to move a barrel full of coins?? Only the very strong criminals need apply.

There was other fun stuff around. Fancy a go on a unicycle?
When Connie was diagnosed with breast cancer, Sam set out on his unicycle and rode 15,000kms (9320 miles) around Australia, setting a Guinness World Record and raising over 1.75 million dollars! That takes brotherly love to a whole new level!

You donated by buying five cent coins by the metre. I am assuming that distances to each location noted here also let you know how many five cent coins you’d need to line up to get there!!

Meh – too much maths – lets eat fairy floss! (Emma and her friend, Oscar – who was experiencing his first ever taste of that sugary goodness!!)

This is Connie’s last project. The cancer is taking its toll, but she wanted to do something amazing while she still could.
They aimed at a million dollars. Things are still happening out there as I write, but at last count they were up to $1.6 million.
I am so very happy it has been such a success – and that money will go directly to the places it needs to go to get the research done.

Cheers!

PS link to an interview with Connie and Sam – They are so excited – its lovely to watch!

PSS while proof reading this I did read that they made over $2 million!

Hello!
I realised yesterday that I only had two weeks left before I am due to leave the country. It shouldn’t have come as a shock, but somehow I thought I had THREE weeks to go (this makes all the difference of course!)
I needed an emergency cup of hot chocolate, a lie-down and probably would have benefited from breathing into a paper bag for a while.
Then I scoffed half a block of chocolate which felt good at first, then I regretted it  (Like how many km’s am I going to have to hike to work THAT off my bottom huh?)
Stupidly I have been a ball of anxiety all day. And its not like I haven’t travelled about the world before!! I’d like to figure out what it is that is making me all skittish and sort that out because its driving me nuts!  I prefer the laid-back version of myself!!

It was a pretty nice day out there!! But I had to knuckle down to some of the essentials.
Went into Burnie to pick up my plane ticket out of Tasmania (essential for sure) and printed nearly 200 photos. (Ruby’s b’day photos and others I needed for my book project)

Then an afternoon jaunt to get a bikini wax (like everyone needed to know). But I am going to summer – with beaches and things! (Note to self- find my swimmers that got no use in our summer this year)
So ow ow ow and that’s all done and another tick off the list (which I re-wrote)

Too nice of a day to miss out on doing some laundry.

My poor shoes! They have been worn almost to death! I bought some shoe glue to try to get the sole sticking back where they are meant to be. New shoes are definitely not in the budget right now, so these are going to have to do. I love them anyway – so comfortable. But I would rather not arrive in USA looking completely scruffy!

So for a start they got a soap up and a scrub and a good feeding with some shoe polish. The tin said ‘dark tan’, but to my eye, that looks purple!
Coooool 🙂
Will glue tomorrow and hope for the best!

Ok – I am going to go and stare at Pip and get some relaxation pointers!

Hope everyones week has started well!

Cheers!