Catching my Breath

Holy Cow! What a weekend that turned out to be!

Thursday saw us getting all things ready for the garage sale. Just when I thought I had it all, BB unearthed more things and was like "I thought you said you were done"...GRRRRRRR...

All in all, it was ok...tiring, and crazy wicked hot on Friday, but worth it.

We sold about 2/3 of the stuff that was out there. More importantly, we are NOT bringing it back in the house...for more than a week anyway. I have called an agency that will come and pick it up. All I have to do is put a sign on it, and have it on my curb by 8 am the morning we leave for Oregon. They will leave me a receipt and that is that! Hallelujah!

To top it all off, we SOLD THE PIANO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now, before you freak out...let me explain...growing up, my mother purchased a studio upright piano. It is shorter than what you think of in those cowboy movies where the man with the armbands and bowler hat plays honky-tonk & ragtime while burlesque girls dance and cowboys shoot each other up after being accused of cheating at poker. It is the piano on which I learned to play. It was a fixture in my house and my life, and my mother attempted at one point to convince me to let my brother PreacherMan have it for his children. I believe my response was a bark of laughter, and the polite "Ummmm...no" for which I have become known in my family. Needless to say...I was devastated to learn that the movers did something and actually caused the pin block to start pulling from the frame, causing it to not keep tune in the upper register. Basically, that means, it is broken and will cost $350 to fix. It is fixable, but not too high on our priority list at the moment.

BB, in an effort to be valiant, and thinking it would cost more to fix said piano than it was worth, or for close to the price of a new one, had secretly been on the lookout for a cheap or free piano. Last summer, he found one. The family of a woman who had passed away not too far from here was cleaning out the family homestead. The children and grandchildren had all learned to play on this amazingly gorgeous upright, walnut piano, and not one of them wanted it. They were, in fact, going to throw it away. BB simply had to haul it home and got it for free. He thought we could refinish it, and replace the one we had. I was on board until the piano man came and inspected them both and said "Do you know how to disassemble a piano?" I was like...uhhhh..no...what does that have to do with anything? Apparently you cannot refinish a piano without knowing how to take it apart and put it back together again...and BB refused to pain the darn thing. Then we found out we were having Tiny Princess, and I decided that refinishing a piano was NOT something I needed to be doing. We attempted several times to sell it in various ways to no avail. We pulled it out for the sale, and on Saturday morning a neighbor came by and said "We have friends that are looking for one!" BB and I were like "Oh, let them know about this one!" thinking "right...that's what the last 12 people have said to us" Much to our surprise, about 20 minutes later, a lady and teenager came tearing into the cul-de-sac, jumped out of their car, zipped up the driveway and said "Is the piano still for sale?!?!?! Our friend just called us and told us you only wanted $50 for it!" We said yes, and she whipped out her cash right then and there. Her daughter, son-in-law and family members came back that night to pick it up. They were so grateful and thankful, I was actually embarrassed...I am glad that it went to a family that will love it and play it, and take care of it...they might actually call it George!

I am even more glad that it is out of my garage! I have things that didn't sell, but they will be gone shortly. I was able to purchase 2 loungers for my deck...you remember the kind that tri-f0lded? back in the day, they had the tubular vinyl "woven" around the frame, and you could fold yourself into a little triangle and pretend you were either Buck Rogers, or in a fighter of some sort from Star Wars (can you tell I had brothers?!?!?) and if you weren't careful enough, you could get seriously stuck in them? Well, that is what these are, only they actually have fabric! They have this nifty sun-resistant meshy fabric that breathes, so you don't get stuck...I am SO excited!

In fact, so excited that I'm taking my iced tea, the newspaper, and a book, and am going to sit out there while the children nap!

Toodles!