Who You Gonna Call?

I am a student by love, a teacher by nature ... and a moralizer by accident. Did I ever tell you that one of my nicknames as a kid was "Judge"? I'll bet you've figured it out by now, huh?

I really hated that nickname (almost as much as I hated "Knockers" in high school). Seriously, I don't know what comes over me - the teacher, the know-it-all, and the ranter conspire, and, suddenly, I'm sermonizing where I meant to relate, and seething when I meant to share. I love my life, and I love sharing the learning, the finding, the fun with you.

I think I'm scared - of success, or failure, I don't know. I've never taken on something this big, or this complex. It's overwhelming sometimes. That, I guess, is why I fall back on the lecture - I feel more in control that way.

Wait - a lecture as therapy? For fear? What a bonehead! No, and no! There's only one cure for what ails me!

Grab the Proton pack, Venkman - Preachy Bunny is toast.

Flipping Stuff

Memorial Day weekend isn't prime time for yard sales around here - everyone scrambles from town like antelopes in a lion pen - but some people persist in thinking "maybe ... nah, not my yard sale." Well, big surprise, sales were few and customers were fewer.

There was a church-sponsored yard sale and a neighborhood sale (in which everyone has their own, but with all kinds of civic-association paid-for signs), both in one of our most affluent areas, a smattering of sales within walking distance of my house (which started too late for me to make it to both the sales and my class), plus a couple of estate sales on Friday that I didn't go to because I was sick (broke my heart). But nothing was standout, amazing, or prime. Why? Is it a chicken or egg dilemma - which comes first, no sales or no customers - or is it because ... well, sad, but true ... because rich people are such complete boneheads when it comes to yard sales?

Okay, so maybe a bit of both. And, to be fair, it's not just the moneyed who don't have a clue. But the ignorance sure seems to collect in certain zip codes like plastic in the oceans. Here's a news flash for anyone considering selling goods - yard sales, flea markets, and rummage sales aren't antique shops! You can't price things at market value then let them sit until demand shifts or some impulse-driven sucker with loads of cash buys it! This isn't a stock portfolio, either - you bought that horrid pin to wear, not as an investment, and now you expect to sell it ten years later (and ten years out of style) at a profit - or even at a profitable loss? Ain't gonna happen.

Most of us who go to these things are not wealthy. We come for bargains - either to find something practical at 80-90% off its retail value, or to stumble upon a gem of a deal that we can hold, resell, or put in a place of honor. Maybe some of us even want to unearth a beauty in solid wood or metal or ceramic because we want finally to own something that's not total, machine-made, black-not-green, falls-to-pieces-in-a-year crap.

Honestly, I'm not biased, just experienced - few of my best finds were from sales in affluent neighborhoods (curbside, maybe, but not sales). Rummage sales are different (perhaps because church people have the strangest idea that everything needs to be sold for whatever they can get). Precious little rummaging this year, though - only seven sales, and four were on a single day and so competed (cried crocodile tears, I did).

Maybe this dearth has less to do with being rich than with new tax laws that changed the way we handle donations - because we must now provide a basis for all real property donations, and what we originally paid for it is zero, we cannot take a schedule A deduction on it. (Weird that we can sell Aunt Caroline's hideous lamp in a garage sale - either real-time or online - without getting caught in the tax man's web, but we can't give it away!)

So, here's a little lesson for anyone who wants to have a garage sale: the key word is "sale." In general, while you might pull aside a small stack of "collectibles," things too emotionally or (in your delusional mind) financially precious to sell to the hoi polloi, suck it up for the rest of the stuff. Sell it for less. A lot less. And be prepared to bargain like a bazaar vendor. If you have firm prices on everything, you will get a lot of walk-aways, but no sales. If you want to make a profit, buy bonds.

If you don't want the face time, try online - occasional bouts of selling are fine with the IRS as long as you don't do too much of it. (What their definition of "too much" is will, of course, depend on the phases of the moon or whoever is sitting at the desk your file crosses.)

Oh, and by the way, don't panic or second-guess yourself if your stuff sells right away to "pickers" (a half-hour before you're even due to start). I found a pair of sterling silver candlesticks, priced at $2 (on each bag), and when she gave me $3 back for my fiver, I asked her if that was right - the sticker didn't say "pair" - but she shot back with a frantic "yes - why, do you know something that I don't know?" I said that I just thought it was per stick, but I could tell she was going to think about it all day. (No, they weren't Revere or antique or intensely decorated or anything - a plain pair of Duchin, which really are that cheap. I have that meddling Mother Hen angel, remember?)

Ah, well. I don't despair. Some of you really do know how to do this. I didn't pick up much else besides the candlesticks (just a bag of vintage buttons and jewelry for $1) but the stuff I saw in those booths was priced as it should be. The rest ... well, this isn't flipping houses, guys, and I won't forget it when my sale happens. My Extravaganza is to clear the house and make enough money for a new driveway (if I can), but despite my $5 mil goal, what I don't sell by noon will probably go for free.

After all, I'm not rich ... but I have more crap than I'll ever need.

I can share.

The World, Recreated, Again

Earlier this week, news outlets reported that scientists all over the world watched in ecstatic intellectual pleasure (last January, mind you) as, for the first time, cameras in a high-powered telescope caught ... the Universe's version of a big, gloppy sneeze. Piece by infinitesimal piece, the supernova's dust (snot) streaked through space at mind-blowing speeds. And these intrepid men and women watched, looping it (I'll bet) endlessly, yet still waxing rhapsodic about the event five months later, when reporters finally noticed Something Big had happened (last January).

I don't understand the fascination of the scientists who are probably still glued to their screens as little star-bits (to them) crawl from one place to another, and I certainly don't understand mainstream media's skewed Laws of Importance, but I do understand the star.

She began like every other cosmic ball of gas, just hydrogen and helium and basic space junk. But then something - either random chance in creation or a nearby partner over long periods of time - gave her too much heavier star-stuff. Most stars (like our sun) will just get old and shrivel up, turning into a White Dwarf. Not this gal, though; she uses up all her nuclear fuel and contracts into herself until she reaches critical mass and blows, with no option but to spray a good part of herself into the giant Cosmic Hanky. Then she sinks back with a sigh, a smaller, denser, and completely new entity - maybe a neutron star, maybe a (not to put too fine a point on the analogy) great black hole, but she is ... different.

Real life as metaphor for real life. Yeah, you guessed it - last Tuesday's post was the shrink-wrap pulling everything in toward ... well, let's just say my husband is a freaking saint. The pressure I put on myself when I have a new passion always takes its toll, but I didn't realize just how much of one until this week. I have such big plans - for this site, for my fiction and my teaching, for this amazing journey I'm on, for our lives - but the only way to do anything is one step at a time. Progress, not perfection. Routine, not religion.

Sparkle, not blind.

I am and I will be trying new things this year - a lot of new things - and I need to use my energy to relate these new adventures to you, not form a new cluster of celestial boogers. Look for more pictures, more links to quirky or amazing sites, more books to read, more fun ways to get cash into pockets. But don't look for a dazzling flash of light in the sky - these events only happen once every hundred years or so. At least, the Big Lug and I hope they do.

Oh, and by the way - the pint of Haagen Dazs did have something to do with it.

Just not enough to get me off the hook, darn it.

Spending Money

My job is and always has been seasonal. In the last two months, I have made close to a quarter of my yearly income (and have the stress marks to prove it). August through October I make about half the total. Long ago I knew I had to find a way to even out the bumps and dips, so I put the family on a diet - a money diet. Indiscriminate spending (and shopping-as-drug-of-choice) during flush times was killing our finances during lean times. We learned - we had to learn - to stay on a loosely structured but necessary budget. And at the heart of this diet was our allowances.

Once the kids grew up (more or less) and moved out (more or less), the Big Lug and I stayed on our allowances (more or less). He buys his collections and books, eats out for himself once in awhile. I buy my collections and books, eat out a bit too often. We have two exceptions: one, twice a month we go on "dates" in which we not only go out together and play kissy face, but we are allowed to buy each other things without subtracting from our own accounts; and two, we don't count funds spent on each of our remaining vices (tobacco for him, Starbucks coffee for me). Basically, we treat ourselves like six-year olds, but they system works, and works well.

Until recently.

You've heard it a million times - "You have to spend money to make money." I've always thought this aphorism was total crap. They (whoever "they" are) meant that we have to purchase stocks and bonds and gold, plant it somewhere, then wait until it grows big, fat, juicy profits.

But it's not spending if you put it into sources that have the potential to raise your bottom line - it's just shifting from one account to another, really. If you don't sprout dividends then it still isn't spending; it's just losing. By my reckoning, the only time you really are spending money is if what you purchase has no potential to increase your assets.

So money I spend on this quest shouldn't have to come out of my allowance, right?

I don't mean the shifts - in the past two months, I've paid off the car, opened a shiny new IRA, and increased our giving to church and charity (more on that another day). These didn't come out of my personal funds. And I don't mean the staples - the shower rod and the tile and the wood to make cabinet doors are all about sweat equity, and will not come out of my account as long as the Big Lug thinks we're just sprucing up.

I mean, what about the treasures?

The hunting was pretty good last weekend. I found a biscuit jar for $30. that will sell for $50-100 at a collector's auction (Labor Day). I bought a picture for my husband's man cave ($8. - yes, it's the dogs playing poker, in triptych), an electric miter saw ($10. - for the cabinet doors), a small stool ($3. - for the grandkids), a stroller ($5. - for the walks I need to take when I watch my grandkids), and some (marked) bangle bracelets and a Wade figurine I need to research ($.75 - yes, 75 cents total for all). Mostly necessities. Until I bought the rocks.

You heard me. I bought rocks. In fact, my entire allowance went to rocks. Citrine and tourmaline and calcite and fluorite and ruby and sapphire and topaz and zircon and tiger's eye and chrysoberyl and garnet and God knows what else (pictures when I can get the Big Lug to stop teleworking!). I'm also sending a check to my local rock-hound club, even though I work most of the days they do their "field trips." I need to learn.

But this is investing, right? I mean, it's not shuttling cash to the elves, but this is knowledge - knowledge I need in order to recognize it when I see it, right? So I don't have to count it, right?

Why am I doing, asking you? I already know the answer. I love the man, and I will not taint his gift.

It's only money, after all.

And well spent, at that.

... Or Is It a Tumble Down the Stairs?

A riddle. What has no eyes, one “i”, seven “ays”, and sucks?

This week.

“Calm before the storm” I said last time. “Keep meddling” I said last time. What the hell was I thinking? I know this routine! My kids know this routine! Even the crickets in the basement know this routine! Every time I know I’m doing well, every time I know the path is smooth, the potholes gone – especially when I brag about it! – suddenly, from nowhere, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer moves, the Sword of Damocles slips, the … the … the Dominoes of Death (shut up, I’m on a roll) tilt and rock. Every stinking time I get comfortable, life flings itself into the toilet and sets the auto-flush.

What happened? Let’s start with “the routine.”

You know by now I need a system. I have actually been called “Rut Girl” from time to time in years past. I missed the impulsive, unexpected girl I was, however, and so I’ve been working hard to revive her from her long, Snow-White-like sleep – in chunks, so as to maintain balance. Rut Girl has been … decentralized. But she serves a purpose. The way my attention span shortens and lengthens with the fall of a dust mote, the way my focus careens from shoulder to median to beyond the horizon, my basic personality demands a well-worn groove just to maintain the day-to-day. I have routines. I need routines. Routines are my friends. They keep me balanced, and prevent me from losing track of gravity and so spinning off the planet with the centrifugal force of my own personality.

Every day, I write in my notebook (“morning pages,” Julia Cameron calls them in her wonderful book, The Artist’s Way). Then I head to the computer, where I answer emails and grade essays (for my tutorials and classes), enter all my daily contests, and surf in search of info on investments, rocks and gems, cooking (old passion, new possibilities), and local sales. I work on these posts or read others’ blogs, too. Afterward, I will take care of household things (checkbooks balanced, bills paid, picking up done, dishes, dinner, all the minutiae of every life) and work on special projects (yard work, pulling for the Extravaganza). Then I go to my paying job, and see students from 2 to 10 hours, six days a week. In between, I hunt for treasures, I relax with a book or magazine, I sort junk drawers as therapy (okay, also built up as therapy).

So what happened? This ..............................

And this.

I have to fill in that clay-lined hole (apparently I promised the Big Lug I wouldn’t tear into his lawn). And I found out just how ugly my front stoop really was.

We pulled lots of crap for the basement (pictures of the pile when I actually care), but there’s so much more there than I had imagined that I was overwhelmed. (Plus, that saw-laden tumble was just the beginning - I sucked in a dust ball that was spiked with something abrasive that gave me a sick headache all week). There's not enough stuff in the universe to fix this driveway!

Also, I went to Weight Watchers this week and gained nearly half a pound (that pint of Haagen Dazs had nothing to do with it!), got all cranky and weepy (that pint of Haagen Dazs had nothing to do with it), and – and! – home sales in my neighborhood are down nearly 40 percent from just 18 months ago, and 20 percent from the first of the year – not to mention the stock markets are down, too. Bottom line is that I feel like I’ve been doing everything right and nothing is following suit.

It’s not fair.

Maybe it’s menopause, maybe it’s biorhythms or the cycles of the stars … or some giant celestial chess game.

Or maybe it’s a blessing in disguise. Maybe it’s the step back toward the edges I need right now, a new view in order to gain perspective from inside the whirling center of the ever-increasing pace of this quest.

Nah. Sometimes things just suck.

Pass the Kleenex.

The Calm Before the Storm

My guardian angel is a Royal Pain. My schedule has been insane for a few weeks, so (I believe) for the past two weekends she has clobbered my plans - once with a touch of a stomach bug that kept me from yard sales, and once with rain that kept the yard sales from me - to make sure I get at least a little bit of rest, as if I can't take care of myself. We might even get rain again this Saturday! Geez, can't the Mother Hen leave it alone?

Whether I like it or not, then, the next few weeks are all about room-making. We're getting down to the wire for the yard sale, and, as usual, I've waited months to begin the process. I mean, I've pulled things as I've found them, but the 30 or so items are just a drop in the bucket - and some are sitting on the bed in the guest room, some in the basement, some in my office ... there's no central location, no rhyme or reason, no organization! And the Big Lug won't get to the sorting of his stuff until he darned well feels like it. Today has to be the day to start the tagging and crating. I will create the capacious "free" box, as well - yes, even things I know I can sell, because no one can eat Tupperware, and the dime I'd earn isn't worth the barrage of guilt I'd catch from Mama Angel.

Plus - okay - the weekend was good despite the weather. My daughter and I bonded. Over the jewelry, of all things. She caught a "sterling" mark on a pair of earrings I'd dismissed as something I should use for spare parts - I bought them for a dollar at a rummage sale because I liked the stone (which she thinks is diopside, not synthetic, as I'd thought). She realized it sparkles differently than another pair I'd bought that day for the stone (which is now obviously glass) and she spotted the metal as a "single" instead of a fusion or plate (which is why she searched until she found the badly scratched "sterling" imprint). She also said the "gramma" earrings were probably calcite - I looked it up, and I think she's right! I've never doubted how smart she is, and I knew she'd liked rocks as a kid, but I had no idea she was so passionate, or so informed, about this. I also didn't realize how much I've been focusing on the negatives instead of on the positives. More effort from the Great Busybody Herself.

And then there was that little incident when I hit the brakes without knowing why - just as a car backed like a rocket into the air I would have occupied. And when I tripped over the bag of concrete in the basement but caught myself on a partition (yes, it had saws hanging on it, but a few scratches are better than a broken wrist). And the falling drinking glass I caught instinctively ... and the random call that led to a client ...

You just keep on meddling, Lady. I won't complain.

Much, anyway.

Enough With Philosophy!

All right, I admit it - the last five posts have not been just about sharing my thoughts on fun money. The past few weeks have been a very busy time for me, and I'm wiped out. Obviously, my serious side rules when things get stressful and time is tight.

Why so crazed? The way I earn my bread-and-butter is by helping kids get ready for anything involving math, reading or grammar. For those of you who don't remember, April and May (sometimes into June) are prime months for the alphabet soup of tests - SSATs, APs, SATs, ACTs, IBs, state exams (different soup for each state) and finals. It's not just me guiding them through the maze of answers, either - everyone I see needs sleep and cessation from mental pain, so much of my job involves staying calm and soothing and patient no matter how crazy I feel, too.

"What's the square root of 4?" I ask. "B," he responds. Beat. Beat. Ah. "No, Jake, that's the answer we needed four questions ago. We're in math now."

It's tough to do anything outside of my job in the spring but my property starts looking like a Chia yard if I don't go out at least every other day and battle back the weeds. Add in my bouncing Bunny attention span, and Jake's not the only one who's got Delayed Brain Syndrome. Ever laughed at a joke someone told you an hour ago because you finally got it? I laughed at one a day late because I finally heard it.

So, this week is pictures. Not as many as I'd hoped - I had my middle kid, the artist, take some but the Big Lug hurt his back working a DIY (more on that) so he came home from work early and surprised the poor boy before he could finish. Now that I know what I'm doing, however, there will be more pictures. (Here's the gorgeous Panelled Wheat creamer I told you about!)

And this is why we're having a yard sale, at least in part. As you can see, our basement is on overload (I refuse to show you the closets). It's been hard to let things go, not just for me but for my husband, too. But we have a purpose - the driveway is in need of repair. I was hoping that what we couldn't part with for donations we might be able to unload to earn money for the new concrete (and new layout so we can park both cars). My goal is to reduce our crap by half. So far, it's still like pulling teeth. Maybe if I put several of these pictures on the bathroom mirror, both of us will feel the pain and just give in.

I also bought a blacklight this week. No, I'm not having a 60's flashback (okay, maybe a small one). No, I found out that lumienescence is one way to tell what gemstone is what, and I was curious about some of my finds (can't get it to photograph yet). Anyway, as a test, I hit my ruby earrings (a gift from the Big Lug) with that UV magic. They were supposed to be bright carmine red, and boy were they! Then I tested a few other things. I found out I do indeed have a whole bunch of turquoise (no surprise), that my orange "gramma" earrings are not topaz (maybe wurtzite?), and that a bracelet I thought was set with fire opals has something less interesting instead (no idea what it is, though). This is a picture of that silver and turquoise set (except the ring) I found a week or so ago. (Very serious Bunny!)

I spoke with my brother, the geologist, and found out that many states have maps that indicate places in which gems and minerals have been found. I didn't find one online for my state yet, but I'll continue to dig. By sheer seridipity I found out that microscopic garnets live in a stream about five miles from my house. I'm thinking of rigging up a mesh kitchen strainer and going wading next week. Maybe they have big sisters that will come home with me.

Oh, the DIY project? It involved some PVC pipe, a sewer injector, and lots of poo. It wasn't funny, it was just gross. But we worked together well for the first time since college, and the stupid, disgusting thing works without spitting back in the hole, and it's even (now) practically silent - which actually makes me nervous because I can't hear it when it's doing its job, so I keep thinking it's broken.

But, hey, it's Friday! Don't hang around here! Get a newspaper and plan your hunt!

That's where I'm headed.

Money, Money Everywhere - Part 5 by '21

A couple of weeks ago, thunderstorms moved across the country pouring tons of water onto homes and farms everywhere, including here. One minute we were sleeping peacefully, the next our basement water alarm sent us scrambling down the stairs. Three hours later, the maple-tree windmills were out of the gutters, the storm drain in the outer stairwell was finally unclogged, and the pump was working at its usual frenetic pace. It could have been worse. But it reminded us that while we talk about fixing things around here, we haven't been very good about doing it. To build this place to asset-worthy status, we have to earn it. And we've let it slide, big time.

Earning money is hard, isn't it? We think only of our jobs when we think "earn it," but there are more ways to earn money than there are stars in the sky. Employment is one way, of course, the primary way we pay our bills - as well as give our elves something to work their magic on. It can be more than that, and should be, but isn’t always. I am paid as a teacher and a tutor, and because I was born to do it, I love what I do – even my writing (past and present) is instructive. A job can be a way to mark time (as with most people) or it can be a calling (as with me) but since the way we recognize and utilize our talents is our biggest asset, choosing a career in an area in which we are "naturals" should be a priority. If we love what we do, it doesn't feel as much like work - and it usually means more money, too.

However, if work it must be, why not make it work that gets you rebates or discounts? My boys love electronic games, so for two years I worked at our local video store, where I received five free rentals each week. I actually made more in rental savings than I made in my part-time wages. Because of the house's shabby condition, I recently looked into working at Home Depot to get discounts on the mountain of drywall and lumber and tools we will need to fix it, but the hours conflicted with prime tutoring time.

Earning can also be learning. As I’ve already stated, I don’t believe in luck but in being able to recognize when a good opportunity comes my way. So I read (books on antiques, investing, and gemstones - seriously, I want to find rubies! – on writing, real estate, and even just books for inspiration), and I take classes (writing, DIY) and watch the Discovery and Travel channels every chance I get. Honestly, I love to learn as much as I love to teach.

Earning is also paying dues. I’ve screwed up a lot, with money, with jobs, with people, you name it. The attempts to make up for those mistakes have resulted in wisdom, and in doing things right, and well. I am very, very good at what I do, and I’m paid accordingly, which, in turn, keeps me on my toes and working even harder to be worthy of the trust … and keeps the income flowing.

I’ve also decided to have a yard sale. Okay, an "Extravaganza!" My addiction to the second-hand has been piling up, just a bit. It’s time to clear the house – stuff my friends didn’t want, things I’ve shrunk out of, my own decorating mistakes that I just can’t seem to part with, and even some of my high-end collectibles (which I will sell on eBay if they don’t sell here). I’ve enlisted my kids, my friends, and I’m even thinking of hiring a couple of strong local backs to help load things. (Anyone who says a yard sale is an easy way to make money hasn’t seen my house!)

Hmm, a huge yard sale and eBay, the Big Lug and I strapping on our tool belts and hitting the DIY trail, trips to hunt antiques and to rock hound, contests and lottery entries and bingo, writing the Great American Novel, and me, wandering the investment maze all alone …

It’s going to be an interesting few years, isn’t it?