13th Magnolia Soap Box Derby

This years derby was very WET

There were lots of crashes in the side right in front of the house. Some poor unsuspecting woman with her dog was hit but the flying barrier during a crash on that side where hay bails and barriers went flying. She was thrown to the ground. Scary for her!

Liz had the fire pit turned on. It wasn’t as warm as I thought it would be but it was nice. 

I didn’t last the whole time as it was wet and cold!!  

Weekend adventures

(This posted late so this was a little over a week ago that this should have gone out!). So Barbara’s were out running the road and we saw the coolest thing.  It had me wishing for a dash cam at that point!!  This guy was sitting in the middle of the road  we thought it was a black squirrel until he started to run!!!  He slunk as he ran so I quickly turned in my camera and started clicking to see if I could get a shot of him!

Then he climbed in this branch. Then took off through the trees. He then climbed a tree!  

Barbara looked up and apparently there is a mink farm in Cordell. Who knew?  Not me!!

We made up a story about him being an escapee. . 

Helping Liz..

Butch and I went to help (supervise) Liz put up her cat climbing tree in her house. 

Looking for the stud still. Trying to figure out if she can move part of it over. 

You may have a problem if…

You may have a problem if… you to an estate sale and make a deal with the reseller to purchase the while LOT of Department 56 Heritage and Dickens houses and accessories!  Yep, the seats are all the way folded in the back and it’s full from side to side three foot deep AND two bins in the back of the truck as well!!  67 items total after inventory. Yep. I’m still listing them this week and this was purchased two weekends ago!

…and because you buy so much stuff (crap!) that you are selling you have to purchase bubble wrap to wrap said stuff to ship and you go to a store where they have a 750 (SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY FEET) of bubble wrap at a little more than you just paid for 250 feet, so you buy it!

It’s comical and I just had to share!!

Other than that Butch asked how it’s all going after all this was not the original plan for me to buy/sell but the big bit. The original plan was to cull out the things that have been inherited and accumulated throughout the years. Honestly. I have a LOT of inventory right now so I need to chill on buying.  (and yet I went today as well. Yeah, I don’t learn!)

The bottom line is o have lost on TWO items. The mini tea sets amd one other item that if I aggregate that loss over that day’s purchase it may not really BE a loss. So right now my issue is inventory. 

Now I have to think about what’s been re-donated. I haven’t looked at those. They are a loss as well so I should look at those as well. Nawh we won’t tell Butch about those. BUT those aren’t often either. Oh and a few broken items. 

Updates from the nuthouse (was the little house)

Goodness gracious - there is liable to be a revolt at our house.  Butch is ready to give up on renting the little house out as the first rental, if you were unaware, was cancelled due to a water leak.

WHY was there a water leak?  Well, there was a leak at the toilet that the housekeep may, or may not have made worse by turning the water off at the source.  The pipes in the house are apparently brittle and there were some issues with the actual pipe at the bib splitting or breaking off completely - I have no idea as I was kept out of the loop on that one.  The plumber was only in touch with Butch during that fiasco. 

SO... a cancelled rental the DAY BEFORE they were to check in due to 1) water leak that we thought was just a toilet 2) turned into a massive leak that was the entire bathroom and into the hall and beyond that entailed a water mitigation crew and thousands of dollars.

THEN the firt renters were in for 10 days... all seemed to be well.  There was 5 adults instead of 4 - OK, fine.  We roll with it.  They get in, get
out on time all seems to be well until the cleaning lady goes in to clean and the dishwasher is full of dirty dishes and the sink is backed up - thank
goodness it wasn't overflowing (at that time).  THEN they attempt to fix it with drain-o.  Nope didn't work.  They let it sit overnight.  Nope.  Have a renter coming in at 4pm.  We delayed them to get a handiman in to take a look at the P-trap.  Nope not the issue, so then we have to get a plumber.  

The maids in the meantime have started to try to do it their way and managed to get the whole thing to overflow and go everywhere - I have no clue what is going on but the picture was of water everywhere ... yeah. 

SO now I'm down to calling the management company back to tell them to cancel the renter incoming SAME DAY.  Yeah, tell me I don't feel crappy about that snafu.  SO.. Now we have a wet house AGAIN and the plumber coming out again tomorrow.  All because the prior renter did something that clogged the lines.  They will get this bill, thank you very much.  What a goat rope.

I have just blocked the house until the 2nd of next month when the NEXT people are coming in AND called for a quote from a full service company that will charge a bit more BUT will deal with the juggle of time/and service people.  I think in the long run it will be worth it as it will still rent out and we'll not have to worry about the juggle of getting things fixed when they go wrong from where-ever we are in the world.  That's the goal right?  Make it a passive income and start having it pay for it'self.  BUT the call tomorrow will tell if we're ready to just turn it over to someone else to fully control the unit and let it all roll off our backs and understand that the only thing we need to worry about is paying the taxes
and ensuring we are licensed and insured to handle this.  I like that idea so much better.

Gotta start somewhere.  Apparently I started in the wrong spot and went with the not-so-self-sufficent rental option.  Good news?  It's renting and for way more than I would ever ask for it. 

Easter fatality.

I bought a tree at Christmas for the express purpose of putting my painted eggs on it. It worked out GREAT. 

Until I dropped one. Note the lack of shell in the bottom :(. Booooo!

Presidents’ Day weekend

My trip started at work  all day  I took the 745 flight out and slept most of the trip out  it was NOT enough  by the time I got my rental and got in the road it was 10:30… I hit a nice Jeep Cherokee. I did a self evaluation at Mesquite.  I still felt good  I kept going  wow that next 1/2 hour/45 minutes did me in  I got out and walked around the car  1:30am UTAH time so 4:30am MY time  nope  not happening  I hit a hotel room.  It’s only money, right?  The bed was great I slept like a log and got up at 8am for breakfast and got back in the road  

Snow on the mountains surrounding St. George. COLD weather. I got there right between storms. Lucky me!!

AND look who came down!  Such fun!!  It was great to see Sandi and Suzie and Aunt Tuny! I expected Robert and Janet so it’s always good to see them!

Sisters!

They LOVE ice cream!  I was on a diet and didn’t get any but it was a great variety!!

I have NO idea what she is smelling  but it was probably yummy!

I took very few photos we had such fun playing games late into the night, running around shopping and visiting and just enjoying the time!

Sunset on the way home!

Little house woes

Remember how I said we had renters?  Yep jinxed myself. We had a water leak two days before the first renter was to come in. There was water everywhere. Sigh. The housekeeper found it. We got a plumber out there but it was all into the hall and under walls.

Out come the water mitigation folks. They dry the place out, the plumber puts holes in walls. He was asked to check the rest and fix them all. He did. 

Butch went down this week to patch holes in hopes THIS time we aren’t doing a last minute cancellation again!!

Little house. And it begins

We had one reservation for the little house months ago that failed. It was a weird one - 1 adult 7 infants. Just shy if Octomom status. They cancelled during the open cancellation window. So no harm no foul. 

I am VERY hopeful that the next two work out…

Yes the last one is us, so non paying. BUT two reservations are still in the books. Here’s hoping the little house can start paying for herself. 

It’s always a rush to rent out to others but honestly when Butch broke a fish item and I said “meh, OK. Good to know” and moved on it showed me that it’s time to start renting out to the public. Here’s hoping the short term rental insurance the company provides will cover all that could happen to the place. 

And it begins….

Medical updates

I was called last year for a virtual 2nd opinion with Cleveland Clinic. I thought about it and thought about it and came to the conclusion that if I would GO anywhere it would be Mayo. So I called Mayo. I got their information on Telehealth appointments and decided to go for it. I had that call last Monday. 

I’m OK with the talk I had with the doc. He stated that the odds of me having a recurrence isn’t zero but at this stage it’s closer to 1% so about the same as normal person on the street. 

Scans will beget more scans and more questions than answers. One small thing isn’t cancer necessarily. 

So what does this mean?

I’m paranoid and I need to move past it. My odds of cancer again are no more than yours (I still scoff at that).

I will have a scan on schedule with my local oncologist as pre scheduled. We will let it go unless there is a spot that is a twin to the first. Two in a row is not a coincidence. But if it’s a new spot that’s not huge, we walk away and assume it’s my body being it’s lovely complex self. 

Sell it all!!

Of the four fiddle leafs (and one cane) I purchased pots for them all. $100. Two bags of soil $30. THEN sold two trees for $150. So I’m up three pots and $20. Bonus!  

What else have I been doing? Typing moms person history into the computer. I’m up to my birth in the story!  So only 58 more years to go!

I’ve been selling glass on eBay. Made some good profit. Some things I have bought aren’t so great. Some are. I need to gather all my info for taxes to see if I’m breaking even or not. 

Glass samples:

Errands and diving

Got up determined to be productive. I got up stripped my bed, started laundry. Did my laundry and the sheets. 

I then got dressed to go out. Why? Because I’m frustrated with Etsy and not being able to list craft stuff to sell it. Sigh. Maybe on Monday I’ll get it fixed with their help desk??

So off I went. 

I went to Goodwill, Lowes, Waffle House, it was noon,  then I went diving in lots of areas around town. 

At Lowes I picked up salt for the pool, drip trays, and potting soil;  The plants that I picked up before Christmas got some much needed soil. I had enough to full pot TWO and partially pot one. One remains. I need to go back to Lowes and get another bag of potting soil. But not tonight.

The corn plant is fully topped off.  The Fiddle behind him was actually potted at Christmas as he lost his pot and his pathos was looking a bit dingy. I got it potted in time to save 75% of the pathos. So all is well. He’s been hanging out here for a few weeks now. I need to get Butch to move the extra chairs in the living room else where so the corn plant can go there. 

I drove all over town. I got Alldees (don’t mention their real name so they don’t start locking bins). I got three bags of potatoes, a bag of spring onions two partial bags of onions two packages of zucchini’s. And 9 eggs. They were in there for two broken eggs that I dropped back in the dumpster. These have been washed and tested for their “health”. None float. There were so many more potatoes and other things buried in there but I’m not to the point of jumping in and really sifting for things. My grabber lacks some grip so some of the potato’s stayed simply because I can’t get them out. There were lots of heads of lettuce but honestly we wouldn’t eat them in time. So they all stayed. 

I found a box of dishes (looked like it was from a garage sale left overs?) Won’t mention the other bags in there that appeared to be catheter bags. What the actual heck?  I sanitized everything after that dumpster!!

I also found a bag from JC P full of clothes. I need to go through that one. I just grabbed it and left.  It was in a bin of garbage where there was lots of popcorn from the movie theatre. Part of me thought about packing BUT that would really be semi-yuckie as it’s a butter mix oil used to pop it!  

The JC P haul of young kid clothing. 

Wonder if they would fit and be enjoyed my Nicks kids?  All brand new. 

So. Four hours later I’m home, pots are planted as much as they can be and I’m laying on a completely unmade bed because that was not done before I went out!  Remember. Stripped but not remade. 

So blogging and having a snack and enjoying some downtime and debating if I should put my pants back on and getting some soil. (The answer was nope!!)

Oh, yeah, I got a car wash and went to the baby Walmart to grab some sodas because someone in the house is incapable of leaving said house. Sigh. Yesterday I got sucked into the vortex of sleeping and doing nothing all day. :( I started to take pictures of things to sell on Etsy. Then when I found out my account is still locked I got frustrated and quit doing anything and watched movies and slept. I did need the sleep as I was fighting a headache and yuckie feelings. I thought maybe it was Covid. I took a test. The answer was negative. So I was just done with everything and just slept and rested. I feel better now.

I still need a few plant dollies to let me move them around as needed as the pots are BIG. I will need to start a few more pathos for the top of the rest of the pots as well as I really like the way they look in the pots. 

So productive day. 

Happy New Year!

Headed to Florida and Sally’s to see her for New Years. While doing a car swap Butch says “did you see the cat?”  Uh, what cat?

IN the closed florist shop. My kind of store!!

I drove through sunshine and happiness. Crashed out for an hour and woke up to this. Yuck!!

You can see the rain in the distance over the car. Just dumping out of the clouds!  Glad I wasn’t driving!

BUT it makes for pretty greenery!!

Our spring blooming Camilla is just starting to bloom!

Lots of buds!

Our New Years was thrilling (actually just the way I like them!). Stewbys for dinner and bed before midnight!

Shrimp, hush puppies, and grits. Can’t be beat!

We had fog quite a few days while we were there. We ate well with ours of sausage and gravy for breakfast and great meals at night. Nice way to ring in the new year!

All-dees diving

I really HATE how wasteful our society is. 

I left about a bushel of bananas in the dumpster that were perfectly fine for banana bread  

Here is what I pulled out

Kids shirt - long sleeved pink

Dog elf feet ears

Partial package of girls socks

Two red-green washcloths 

A Mario brothers watch ban

Complete box of boys u does size 4

Package if TP sealed until I picked it woth my grabber :)

Box of granola bars. 

     (A few may be missing j haven’t fully opened it) 

A box of Lannxe cheese and peanut butter crackers 

     (all sealed)

A jar of peanuts (sealed)

A box of baggies (needed those!!)

Four grinding spices (you’ll see these later)

Single taco season package 

Under the taco is a package of died cranberries 

Bag of toast type charcuterie snacks

Four easy max type mac-n-cheese

Two sealed bottles extra virgin olive oil

1 flavor additive for water

Bag of lentils

Big of split pea 

Two round woven placemats

Three onions

Sealed jar of apple cider vinegar 

     (has floaters - need to see if that’s a big no no)

Can of corn

Details on the grinders. The middle one is duplicated to make four total. I tried the pepper one tonight. It’s pretty good. 

And chocolate. 

Every single thing in this hail was unexpired and sealed. 

Sad day! Moms returned to Utah

Mom is back home in Utah. 

I took her to her plane seat - found out after I was not supposed to. Oh well I blame the dingaling at the counter. I asked if I could wheel her down she said yes. She checked her boarding pass and never asked for mine (because I didn’t have one!) so I walked her all the way to her seat as she couldn’t quite get her sea legs after sitting and being beat up by her walker. It rode in her lap and I actually honked her once while getting situated to move out of traffic at the scanner. What a mad house that airport was with missed flights for some for days with southwest and just lots of flyers. It was crazy!!  Going OUT was much nicer. I tried to get to where I could take a picture of her plane. Nope. Too crowded and too many folks not happy. Oh well. I just blew mom a kiss and exited quickly!!

What we saw on the way to the airport

Yes that’s a swimming pool driving the Freeway!

We did stay in a hotel out by the airport so that was nice. No super rush in the morning BUT they weren’t serving breakfast yet and didn’t have grab and go meals. They offered mom a danish out of the fridge and I’m glad we got it as there was NO time to stop on the way into her flight. We had maybe 10 minute wait once we got to the gate before they were boarding. It took an hour and fifteen minutes to get up to the gate to check in. THEN a I found out the wheel chair request was across the way and it was an hour wait. Well that was too close so I had my escort pass and drove her in. That was nice. Then it was super crowded at the first shuttle entry so I walked us to the T gates to catch it. Much nicer. Got right in. Got yo D gates and of course it was D1!  All the way at the end. I didn’t even see any sandwich grab and go places open in the way!  Sad!!

BUT even though I was sort of in trouble and we cut it to within 10 minutes (even getting there 2 hours early!) it was a fairly painless effort. Now not sure mom would say that as the walker was a pain in the rump!  Maybe we should just borrow or buy her a little zip walked for when she’s down again?  Yeah!!

The hotel and shuttle was the way to go for sure!!

In the way home I went down Highway 41 and stopped at all the goodwills I could find. I even tried a Salvation Army store but they were closed!  Bummer. I stopped at three (if you count the closed one) before I found some goodies. Some LE Smith Amber Atterbury scroll canisters. Believe it or not this wasn’t until MACON. Yep. All those stops nada. Then Macon I found five. So I nabbed them all. I should double my money on those or more. 

Then I got the South Macon store and found the Hull vase on the left side. I had picked up a similar Hull case for $.50 at an estate sale and found that even damaged they can bring in $10. So for $2.06 after taxes why not. 

Then the Warner Robins store. JACKPOT   The moon and star covered candy dish on the right. It will more than triple its value I’m sure. I bought a purple compote (mush more desired color) for $3.95 and sold it for $70. So I’m hoping my $9 investment pays off by at least triple. 

I also took a chance on the resin geisha and man figurines as they seem to be worth something. That was not quite my area but we shall try them. They looked good on what is selling on eBay. 

The last thing is the the glasses and vase in the front they are vintage Murano. The glasses are undamaged so I really bought the set for them. They retail for upwards of $45 for a set so here’s hoping the chips on the vase don’t turn  folks off. We shall see. 

And last bit not least the cute glass urchin for me. $.99

So I dealt with my sadness by shopping. 

Moms probably super happy to be out if our dysfunctional house!  Hope we didn’t chase HER off!!

Now to plan my trip out to see her in March/April!

Christmas

Angie came over to spend Christmas Eve with us and have dinner. She brought her cat Lela. Such a soft pretty cat but still skittish around a new environment. 

She and mom LOVED the fire ;)

Christmas Eve Angela and mom and I went out to see Christmas lights. There was a video you can see on face book of the best display. 



This was #2 and 3

Christmas morning was really Christmas afternoon. 

Butch got His boat!  Hahaha

Angela had a good reaction to safety goggles that went with her new drill. 

Alex and Liz 

Mommy

Lela of course joined in on the wrapping paper fun!

The aftermath!

What isn’t pictured is our great dinner of brisket. Butch started it at midnight the night prior and we ate at 3 or 4. 

Brisket, potato salad, deviled eggs, Mac and cheese, sautéed asparagus. Non traditional but oh so good!

We wrapped up the night with games. We all played push the dummy then Alex, mom, Liz and Angela and I played boggle. Them Liz, Alex, Angela and I played her new game of Hocus Pocus Yahtzee. I haven’t played Yahtzee in forever.!  Fun night. 

A little drama over a missing cat when dad took the garbage to the garage and left the door open behind him and we opened the garage, but she was lounging somewhere hidden and came out in time to head off major panic. Thank goodness!!