Another busy weekend!

This past weekend wasn't quite as busy as garage sale weekend...but it felt busy. It was at least a productive weekend. On Saturday I spent all day working in the basement. The night before the garage sale, Aubry came over and finished sorting and packing all the stuff in her room. She and a friend of hers got a small storage unit and they were able to take some of her stuff over there. So this weekend I worked on taking down the bed and the desk and getting the rest of the stuff out of her room. Then I moved almost all of the boxes of my mother-in-law's stuff into Aubry's closet. If the closet was just a little bit bigger I could've fit all of them...just needed one more row. 

I also moved all the cat stuff into Aubry's room too...their food and water bowls, litterbox, cat tree, etc. Then I moved the gate that we had at the top of the stairs to the door of Aubry's room. The dogs have been barking at the cats at the top of the stairs so I wanted to remove that "tension spot" as much as possible. It's really working out a lot better. Even without the gate, Bozley has no desire to go down the stairs...but Nova loves going down there. It's actually giving Nova and the cats some time to get to know each other without Bozley around. Boz and Nova tend to get each other worked up and being that excited makes the cats just want to hide. But when Bozley isn't around, Nova is a lot more calm and she will just sit or lay down and watch the cats from the other side of the gate. She goes down to check on them every once in awhile and then comes back upstairs. So it's nice that Leo and Angel are able to get to know Nova in a more calm manner than when Bozley is around. Hopefully Leo and Angel will start to feel comfortable enough to come upstairs again eventually. I mean...they seem content downstairs, we just miss seeing them more often. :) 

I also took apart our big dining room table Saturday and took it downstairs. It's a tall, hexagon shaped table and took up a lot of room. It's nice for big family dinners, but we only have those maybe once or twice a year anymore. So on Sunday, my parents brought over my grandma's dining room table. It's a smaller round table that has a couple leaves that we can use to expand the table when we have dinners. Grandma decided the table and chairs were just too heavy for her to move around while cleaning and everything so she has a lighter table now and we have a smaller table. :) And the wood of the new table matches our cabinets and floor better than the darker hexagon table we had. The only thing that's taking some time to get used to is the fact that the table seems so short compared to our old one! :P But it really looks good in the space and I think we'll really like the extra room. 

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I finally got all the stuff left over from the garage sale put into the plastic bins...at least the items small enough to fit in the bins. I still need to finish going through the basement AND decide where I'm going to store the bins (the basement or the garage) but I'll start working on that after I take a break. I'm way too tired and sore to work on it right now. :P It's one of those things where my mind is all, "Ooh this sounds like a good idea!" And then the next day (or week) my body is like, "Why are you so dumb?" LOL. But...now that all the stuff we sold or got rid of in the garage sale is out of the way, at least I have more room to work in the basement and the garage to sort and organize what's left. I am going to have to do it soon though...because we'll have to figure out what to do with our queen-size bed because we're going to be getting a king-size adjustable bed soon. :) 

In other news, Ashlyn has started training for her new job! She's just worked a couple days so far and then next week she'll start her actual job. This is her first payroll job and she seems to be enjoying it so far. :) 

I'm sad that the season finales of our shows are coming up or have already aired. We watched NCIS last night and the Law & Order SVU and Organized Crime season finales aired last week. Then Friday night we have the Blacklist season finale. BUT...one nice thing is that several other shows that we watch are starting up again. Season 4 of Stranger Things is being released Friday so we'll binge watch that after Blacklist. And then In the Dark starts again in about two weeks. I think The Boys has a third season being released next week. I was hoping Manifest would come back over the summer...but I think that won't be until late fall or something. But...you know...first world problems. :P 

It was a loooong week.

This past weekend was the citywide garage sale. It was very successful!

The weekend before I started working on getting everything ready and pricing stuff. Thursday we went to my storage unit to go through everything there. I'd forgotten what I had in there...which apparently was everything from the last garage sale we had in 2014. :P There were boxes upon boxes upon boxes of clothes in there...on top of the 10 plastic bin of clothes (plus some more clothes that didn't fit in those bins) that I had at home that I'd just priced! There was just SO MANY CLOTHES. So, we loaded up my grandma's truck and my dad's truck to bring everything out to my house. We also got a canopy that my dad had gotten from the school (they were just throwing it away because the track team had gotten new ones) which was definitely amazing and provided us some much needed shade...because it was pretty hot out. We also had an extension cord and a fan so that also helped a lot. I'd also made chicken salad Thursday evening so we'd have something to eat for lunch that could be eaten cold.  

I tried to organize everything as much as possible Thursday night to make Friday morning move more smoothly. I ended up not getting to bed until almost 3am. I set my alarm to wake up by 5:30am but...I woke up to my mom ringing the doorbell at 6:01am. :P But we got right to work setting up. We had four long tables and a card table. We'd planned to hang the shirts up, but our original idea for that fell through. So we hung up the dresses but actually ended up just leaving the shirts in the bins and boxes. Luckily, they were all organized by size and I think that helped a lot. Then everything else was either spread out on the tables or along the driveway and sidewalk. We have a sidewalk that is basically the width of two sidewalks so we definitely took advantage of that. 

The Rotary Club "runs" the citywide garage sale. They put together a list of all the addresses and makes the list available through the local newspaper. For $10 you can be included on the list and receive a yard sign (there were 118 addresses listed this year). I wasn't 100% sure what the weather was going to be like...plus I knew we weren't going to be participating on Thursday. So I actually didn't sign up for be included in the list. But we live on a busy road so we naturally get a lot of traffic...which is also on the way to other developments where there were other garage sales. So I think a lot of people just saw our garage sale on the way to other garage sales. We are also close by a school...so that helps too. 

I price my items fairly low, because my main motivation is to get rid of as much as possible. We actually had more than one customer give us MORE than the quarter that was listed for each item because they felt it was worth more than that. I've never had that happen before! We also had a couple of girls who told us that ours was the best garage sale they'd been to of the entire day. So that was nice to hear! We did amazing on Friday. We still did well on Saturday...but since a lot had been bought, the sale looked smaller on Saturday so it didn't draw as many people in from the street. I was honestly surprised that we sold so many clothes considering people had to dig through the bins and boxes since we couldn't hang them up. In my hometown, people didn't really dig through things to look...they just browsed at whatever they could see. I was also surprised that we sold so many shoes! Aside from baby shoes, we've probably only sold less than half a dozen shoes TOTAL in all the garage sales we've ever had combined (and we used to have at least once garage sale a year when I was growing up). But with this garage sale, we sold MORE than a dozen pairs of shoes and boots. A lot of the shoes we sold were pairs that didn't sell in our previous garage sales! lol. 

We actually didn't have as much stuff put out there as I planned. We didn't get to everything in the garage or the basement...just ran out of time. And my sister wasn't able to join in the garage sale this year, either...but my mom and grandma did hang out and help with set-up, clean-up, and helping with customers. The girls helped out too and they also put some of their stuff in the garage sale to make a little extra money. Originally I told them they could only put stuff in there that they'd bought themselves...but I ended up being pretty lax on that since they did stick around and help. However, Saturday was rough. Ashlyn had to work and Aubry was kinda whiney (we were ALL tired and cranky) and she and I tend to butt heads at that point...so it made for a longer day. :P 

Saturday afternoon we started closing down around noon. We decided to start separating out a few things that I wanted to save for one last garage sale...and things that we just want to get rid of. Pretty much everything that was marked less than $1 we put out along the sidewalk and listed it as free. While we were separating things out, we still had customers coming and looking through both the free and the marked items. After we were all closed up, I left the free items out all weekend as well as today...and we've had a lot of people stop by and either pick through boxes and grab a few things or just take whole boxes full of stuff. I'm SO glad we thought to do that...because I'm NOT bringing any of it back in my house. Now I have more room to sort through the rest of the stuff in the house...and in a year or two we'll have one last huge garage sale to get rid of everything else (and hopefully it'll work out for my sister to join in next time too). And then...I'll be DONE with garage sales! :P They're always much better in theory than when it comes time to actually doing it. They're a LOT of work...and I'm still so TIRED and sore today. Ultimately, I'm glad we did it though. :)

It's already May?!

I can't believe it's already May and the school year is almost over again. Next year...our last child will be a SENIOR! It's so crazy to think that this stage of our parenting journey will officially be over after next year. Honestly, I'm looking forward to it. Don't get me wrong...we had a good run and it's been very rewarding raising my kids. They're good kids and we've had a lot of fun experiences...but raising teenagers is also exhausting. LOL. 

Ashlyn had prom last weekend! She went with some friends and had a good time. My mom, grandma, and sister came over and we all hung out, had lunch, and my sister did Ashlyn's make-up. Then we went to take pictures at the park down the road and over at my grandparents' house. Ashlyn was super excited for her surprise...prom pictures with the pony car. ;) Johnny chauffeured Ashlyn and her friend to dinner, the dance, and then back to another friend's house after the dance for a couple hours before picking her back up to bring her home. 

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The weekend before prom we had pictures with my mom, her mom, my sister, her 2 daughters, and my 2 daughters. They were four generation photos as well as pictures with our 3rd birthday dresses that my mom sewed for all of us. We love our photographer. She has been taking pictures of the little girls since Aubry was 4 months old. We need to call her again soon to set up Ashlyn's senior pictures now! 

This weekend I'm planning to work on garage sale stuff...then next weekend is the citywide garage sale. Hopefully it doesn't rain. It's been raining a lot the last several days. There were actually tornados in the area (about 10 miles away from us) the day before Ashlyn had prom. If it does end up raining next weekend...I think I'll just wait and have the garage sale next year. Garage sales are already a lot of work...I don't want to deal with rain on top of it. But regardless of when...we definitely WILL have a garage sale at some point! We have so much stuff to get rid of! I have 10+ plastic bins of clothes alone that we need to get rid of...plus some furniture, lots of housewares, stuff in the garage, etc. 

I finally got my POD shop up and running! You can find it over at RedBubble. I have about 25 designs so far and there are shirts and stickers available for every design. For some designs there are other products available including travel cups, notebooks, aprons, phone and iPad cases, clocks, bags, blankets, etc. In the future I plan to also have another POD website for printed stationary like wedding and party invitations as well as a few other products. I'm also still toying with the idea of selling physical products on Etsy...but that'll be down the road as well. Today I'm working on my Etsy design shop...reworking a few designs and updating the SEO on my listings. I try to go through my listings every couple of months to update tags, descriptions, etc. to make sure that I'm using what works and getting found in searches, etc. 

Now...back to work! :) 

Hello April!

It's going to be a busy month! This weekend my mom, grandma, and Aubry came over to hang out for awhile and to have Cheez-It chicken fried steak for dinner. I hadn't made it for awhile and mom and grandma had never tried it before.  They really liked it. :) And then Easter is in a couple weeks. We're also getting ready for some 4th generation pictures with my mom and grandma later in the month. We have to coordinate outfits and everything for that. Plus Ashlyn also has prom at the end of the month. We already have her dress and scheduled her hair and nail appointments. Plus on top of all that we have to get ready for the garage sale next month! I'm both looking forward to and dreading the garage sale. :P I'll be happy to get rid of lots of stuff but garage sales are SO MUCH WORK. 

I've also been busy with CandiMaker stuff. I had some behind the scenes organizing that I wanted to get done. My spreadsheets are now more organized. I had them all in one workbook but I separated out all my spreadsheets related specifically to taxes and each tax year will have it's own workbook. I like having it all organized and completed throughout the year so I don't have to scramble at tax time to get it all ready. 

My Etsy shop is doing well lately. :) I have officially hit 50 sales as of Sunday! I think that's pretty good since I haven't done much in the way of promoting or paid advertising. From my first sale in September through the end of December I only had a total of 10 sales. Then by the end of February I had 19 sales. And then March things just really took off! It's basically the one bestselling design that made the difference. Since that's more of a seasonal design, I hope to have some new bestselling designs soon! :) It's still so exciting every time I see that I have a sale. And Johnny always tells me how proud he is of me. I'm really lucky to have such a supportive husband. :) Running your own business is a lot of hard work, and if your significant other doesn't encourage you -- or worse, criticizes you -- it makes that work even harder. 

I have a transcription file that I need to get as well. So I'll be working on that this week in addition to getting some more designs done and uploaded to my Etsy shop. 

I haven't really made any new recipes lately. I did make a regular recipe in a new way last night though! I used the air fryer to make cheeseburgers and tater tots for dinner last night. They were yummy! With the tater tots the air fryer instructions are on the bag already. But for the hamburgers I used fresh 1/2 lb hamburger patties and air fried them them at 375 degrees F on one side for 6 minutes then flipped them and cooked them on the other side for another 6 minutes, flipped them again and added cheese, then cooked them for another minute. Oh and I just use the McCormick Grill Mates Hamburger seasoning and added some smoked paprika to season the hamburgers. We're having leftovers for dinner tonight even though it would normally be taco Tuesday. :P I love leftovers! It's one less night where I have to figure out what to make. ;) 

I hope everyone is having a good week so far! 

Hello Weekend!

I mean...it won't be much of a weekend since I have to work. :P 

Next week I may take a break to clean up the office a bit and get some spring cleaning projects done around the house. I need to make some headway in the basement and really start making progress getting stuff ready for the garage sale that we're going to have in May. I'm ready to get rid of all this extra stuff we have all over the place! Hopefully the weather will be nice during the citywide garage sales. With Kansas weather...who knows what it will be like. :P But...regardless of the weather we are DEFINITELY having a garage sale this year! We keep adding to our "garage sale stuff" pile(s) and then never having a garage sale. :P  

In other news...Nova had to go to the vet this week. We're not sure how...but she got a scratch on her eye. I wouldn't be surprised if it was from her and Bozley playing. They play so rough! But it's just a superficial scratch and they gave us some eye drops and meds to take care of it. And luckily eye injuries heal pretty quickly. That first night she was really trying to paw at it (and would grind her teeth when she was doing it!) but she seems to be doing a lot better now. She still squints her eye off and on and it waters every once in awhile, but she isn't pawing at it like she was. Bozley was NOT happy while she was gone! He was either laying down making growly noises or walking back and forth to the door whining. They do not like to be apart! He was super excited when she got home. It was cute. :) 

The dogs also got a bath this week! It figures...the day after they got a bath it rained/snowed. :P Nova didn't even like when Bozley was in the bathroom without her. She was whining at the door even though Ashlyn was trying to play with her as a distraction. LOL. The dogs have definitely bonded, that's for sure. We need to get them into the groomer again but we'll have to wait a little bit for some bigger paychecks. 

Well...I better get back to work! Hope everyone has a good weekend! 

Daaaaaang!

I can't believe it's February already! I feel like I say that all the time...but every time I finally get around to posting it seems like it hasn't been as long as it actually has. It's kinda like how I blinked and all of the sudden my youngest kid will be graduating from high school next year. :P 

I've been pretty busy lately with business things. It's more behind-the-scenes stuff that I've been focused on the last couple weeks. I don't remember how I stumbled upon a group on Facebook regarding Frivolous Trademarks. I didn't realize just how many applications (and even actual registrations) have been filed to basically just keep other businesses from using very common phrases like "My first Easter" and even "Merry Christmas" as well as titles from songs (and not by the people who had originally written or even performed the songs) and even "DOGS." Seriously?! The newest one I saw was someone in China actually submitting an application for "USPS" for postage stamps (USPS already has a registered trademark for that...which isn't surprising at all). I'm pretty active in the "Stop Frivolous Trademarks" FB group and try to keep up on anything new happening. 

I have also been working on revamping my Etsy shop and listings. There's a few things I want to improve on so I've been working on that. But I'm only giving myself until Sunday night to keep focusing on behind-the-scenes work and then I'm getting back to creating designs. I have one Easter design in my shop already, but I want to get a few more up as well. 

I've also gotten our taxes done. I'd already had most of it completed, I was just waiting on a few more documents that finally arrived. I'm always glad to get that out of the way. :P I've been doing my own taxes since I was 16 years old. My mom taught me how to do them on paper and would check them for me each year that I was doing them on paper. Eventually I started filing them online with Turbo Tax...and have ever since. I also teach my kids how to do them on paper that first year they have to file (but then show them how to do it on Turbo Tax to actually file their taxes). I think it's an important thing to learn! 

At the end of January I also had Ashlyn bring up all the bags of clothes downstairs and I had gone through all my old clothes in my closet and they were all piled in my office. I'm not completely done but I filled all 10 of the 18-gallon plastic tote bins that I got for Christmas. They're a good size for clothes...they hold a lot of clothes but they're not too heavy to carry once they're filled. I still need about 5-6 more bins for more men's clothes, dresses, bras and swimsuits, and then coats and jackets. I have all the clothes sorted by type and/or size so it should be easy to set them up for the garage sale. I thought about putting stickers on them as I was sorting them, but I've had issues before with a sticky residue being on the clothes if stickers are on them for a long time...so I decided to just wait for that part until closer to the end of April. And now without all the clothes in the way, I can go through all the rest of the stuff in the basement and get it more organized. While I was going through all the clothes, I actually found a lot of things that have since migrated to my closet. ;) There were a lot of clothes that the girls had either outgrown or didn't want and since I'd gotten rid of all the clothes I'd outgrown, now I have a closet full of clothes again. ;) I went through and washed all the clothes and then I got them all put away. I hate the putting away part. :P 

Well...I better get back to work! 

The year is almost over already!

I hope everyone has had a very merry Christmas! Our Christmas was a little more low-key than we'd originally planned. We went to my sisters on the 12th to celebrate Christmas with my parents and my mom's mom. I got a bunch of plastic storage bins (which is what I asked for) because we have a ton of stuff in the basement that I want to sort and move out to the garage so we can actually make the basement a usable space again. :P Most of what is down there is garage sale stuff. My 2022 resolution is to finally have a garage sale! We've just been setting aside stuff for years but then never actually having the garage sale. So...my mission this year is to actually have the garage sale. :P Johnny got a really neat hatchet tool and some storage straps. The girls got gift cards, fuzzy socks, a neat pen, etc. 

I haven't been feeling well (migraines, horrible nausea, and sciatica) so I haven't had a whole lot of energy. We were supposed to go to the annual pizza party with my mom's dad's side of the family last week but I was super dizzy and nauseous all week so Johnny and I stayed home. Ashlyn tagged along with my mom and sister though and they had a good time (Aubry had to work). Then shortly after that, my sister and her family came down with Covid. Ashlyn already gone to XH's parents' house but I had her get tested before she went to the Christmas party down there just as a precaution. She tested negative and hasn't shown any symptoms since. But my grandparents went ahead and brought all of our gifts from them over to our house on Christmas Eve so Johnny and I stayed home over the weekend and lounged with the dogs. The girls came over Christmas Day to open their gifts and then eat dinner with us.  

Johnny is back at work today after a nice three-day weekend. He'll have a three-day weekend over New Years too...so we're looking forward to that. There hasn't been much transcription work available lately but I've been working on CandiMaker stuff off and on when I've felt up to it. Other than that...we've just been hanging out and enjoying the peace and quiet. :) 

First post of July!

I just realized that I hadn't posted in July at all yet!

I've been pretty busy with stuff around the house. We were able rent a dumpster for a week so we could get some stuff cleared out of the garage and backyard. Johnny's truck broke down 5-6 years ago, so we haven't been able to haul anything for awhile. That meant we had a LOT of stuff to get rid of from years of pool work, house guests in and out, etc. It was really, really hot all week...but Ashlyn helped me a lot during the day. We would go out for a little while and then come back in for a short break before going back out. The frequent breaks definitely made a difference. But then once it got way too hot in the afternoon, we stopped and waited for it to cool down a little before going back out in the evening and working until 9pm or 10pm. But we were able to get it filled before they picked it up! We still have some stuff in the backyard that will need to be hauled off as well as some things in the garage that were prohibited in the dumpster (chemicals and paint, cement and rocks, etc.). But I'm SO happy about the progress we've made. Now we actually have room in the garage to sort through the remaining stuff to find what still needs to be gotten rid of, what all is going in the garage sale, and then organize everything we actually want to keep out there.

Originally I was going to get the garage cleaned out so we could have a garage sale during the citywide sales...but it is just way too hot. They usually don't have the sales this late in the summer...but with the stay-at-home orders and everything, they rescheduled for the last half of July. After working out in the garage in this heat...I don't think we'll be having the garage sale yet. I'm especially cautious of having a garage sale right now because the Covid-19 numbers are rising in our area again. So...I just don't really want to mess with a garage sale right now. But we'll definitely be having one within the next year or so! We have accumulated so much stuff over the years...so we have a LOT to get rid of. My sister, mom, and grandma will be joining the garage sale as well...so it is sure to be a huge one! But...not the right time for one at the moment.

We had a nice 4th of July at home. We usually go over to my grandparents' house, but with Covid-19 concerns, they didn't have their usual get-together this year. Since Johnny and I haven't been feeling real well, we decided to stay home. Johnny grilled some chicken, burgers, and hot dogs for dinner and we watched Hobbs & Shaw with Ashlyn while we ate (Aubry had her own plans this year, so she wasn't home). Then we watched some fireworks from our backyard. One of the houses behind us had a pretty good show going on!

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Johnny's video of someone's fireworks as seen from our backyard. #happy4thofjuly

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Last night I made Cheez-It Chicken Fried Steak for dinner...but I decided to bake it in the oven instead of fry it. It turned out pretty well. I probably won't do it that way again next time, but they still tasted delicious. :) 

Today we're just planning to have a relaxing day at home. We slept in (my Fitbit says I actually got 8 hours and 26 minutes of sleep!) and haven't done a whole lot yet today. I'm going to have Johnny change the filter for the air conditioner. I found a replacement on Amazon since I haven't been able to find one at the store (it's a large accordion style one). I think he also wants to get the surround sound hooked back up. And I'm going to reorganize the kitchen counter too. I found something smaller to better organize our leftover condiment packets from when we get fast food so that it takes up less room on the counter. Hopefully it'll work well! It's actually meant to be a tea organizer, but I think it'll serve our purpose. I also got this microwave shelf that I'm actually going to use for the pressure cooker and crockpot...so they take up less space on the counter too. Plus it matches the spice racks, paper towel holder, napkin holder, fruit bowl, trivet, mail/key holder, and curtain rods that we already have in the "black scroll" kind of design. I got the bowl, paper towel holder, and trivet when I got married the first time in 2003...and have collected more items since then. I just love that look. :) I also have some candle holder wall decor that matches...but I haven't figured out where to put them yet. Sometime we need to get some more spray paint to finish the last two patio chairs too. I keep forgetting about that. :P

But...that's about all we've been up to lately. :)