Good evening Mister and Missus America, and all the ships at sea ...
... The Find has been lean lately, but the Earn has been insane. I just billed more than 60 hours for a two-week period - that might not sound like much to people with real jobs, but when you work in all the driving between homes, paperwork, outside-the-class work, and cleanup it's more like 100, and it's the third pay period that's been like that. I'm not used to it, especially not this late in the year. I might just make it to last year's gross yet ... but I'm not sure I'll be perky enough to enjoy it.
... I spent Friday sorting through my jewelry, separating what I love from what'll get my kisser on
Hoarders. I spent Saturday morning driving 150 miles, in expectation of seeing my gold guy to trade or even scrap out the ounce or two I'd been hanging onto (in a scary way). I spent Saturday afternoon passing sign after sign with "yard sale" all over them, things I'd missed while on what turned out to be a fool's errand - in my guy's state, the police are cracking down so hard on suspected thieves that they've made it nearly impossible for even a licensed dealer to buy gold from an average Jane like me. (And since the commodity's spot price fell fifty or sixty dollars an ounce in the two days previously, he just probably decided it wouldn't be worth the paperwork. I can't blame him.)
... My eBay yard sale is sort of picking up speed. I'd vowed to double the number of listings every week until Thanksgiving but reckoned without the sheer volume of work I'm getting, the sheer mass of crap in my office making it difficult to photograph and pack things, and the sheer frustration of writing up every little item (including maker's marks). I didn't know I had this much silver and costume jewelry, nor did I realize one of my end dates was Halloween. I'm not taking this week off, but I'm only listing a few things - maybe my first gold, because falling prices notwithstanding, in a head-to-head match up my yellow stuff will beat Jack o' Lantern's glowing eyes hand's down.
... I've gone another year without pulling out my bicycle. It's a cruiser, which the Big Lug says is silly on the hills our neighborhood, but I really want to ride something I can brake by backpedalling instead of squeezing until my hands scream. I even put a basket on it so I could carry groceries back from nearby stores. Yet in the two ... okay almost three years I've had it, I haven't even scuffed the new-tread spaghetti off the tires. Another thing I need to either use or sell or donate, I guess.
... Speaking of which, I hired my daughter to do some cleaning on Sunday - she needed the money, I needed the help, and I am shedding all kinds of excess this week. So when I started to the curb with a dresser I've had by the front door for months, and she asked why I wasn't putting it on Craigslist in a flash-sale, I said she could keep the money if she could sell it. Three hours later (while I was at a tutorial) she was $50 up, and I have both a bigger-feeling living room and a new perspective of Craigslist.
... And the Great Purge continues.
