Why I Won't Answer My Phone

I refuse to answer the phone for the next two days.  Poor Trixie.  She becomes agitated whenever the phone rings.  She'll look at the phone, then run to me, then look at the phone and so on and so on until it stops.  She's been suffering quite a bit lately.  I've tried to explain to her that it will only get worse, but her English isn't very good.

You probably know why I'm not answering.  Robo calls.  Ugh!  They are in full force.  I don't know which candidates are the worst offenders as I never listen long enough before hanging up.  But, I do know they disrupt my dinner preparations.  I'm not much of a cook, and if I am disturbed in the middle of meal preparations, odds are good I'll forget a key ingredient or burn something.  I've yet to go to the powder room without the ring-a-ding-ding of the phone and Trixie's frantic barking in the background.  The late night ones scare the heck out of me.  Everybody knows that calls after 9:00 are bad news.  It infuriates me that political callers do not have to adhere to the Do Not Call List.  But then, why should I be surprised?  It's simply another case of our government making a law that they do not have to obey.

I probably should stop watching TV too.  But, I can't.  I need my daily General Hospital fix.

This has been a most contentious campaign.  While I have not unfriended anyone from my Facebook page recently, I have unfriended people in the past due to politics.  Case in point is my brother.  He and I were friends for less than a week.  I posted something political and he responded by calling me a socialist idiot. Click!  I deleted that moron from my social network life.  It was freeing!  Yes, I still have to face him when I go home to PA, but in person we know enough not to discuss politics.

I was unfriended by someone.  It took me a while to realize, but when I did, I contacted her and  asked if I had offended/upset her.  Here's part of her reply:

Honestly, I just am making a point to stay non-controversial, avoid political comment and generally reduce as much negativity as possible. I did not intend to hurt your feelings so I quietly blocked you.

Ha Ha  She's calling me a negative influence on her life and my feelings aren't supposed to be hurt?  She offered to consider unblocking me after the election, but I told her in my own little negative manner to bite me.

Anybody who knows me knows that I am a dedicated Democrat.  I appreciate my Republican friends trying to change my mind, but there is such a thing as lost causes.  I still love my Republican friends, and I hope they will continue to care about me...even if they have to wait until after the election to show me the love.  If it makes them any happier, I have completed the sample ballot I will take to the polls, and I am voting in the local election for a Republican who strikes me as the best person for the job.  I'll even do a write-in vote for the first time in my life.

I don't care who you vote for, sorta.  Just get out there tomorrow and vote your conscience.  This is a close and critical election.  We Americans are lucky that our votes actually count and can make a difference. 


        

Faith/Religion: Something I've Been Told Never to Discuss

I went to church today, something I do whenever I'm in Maryland on a Sunday.  Today, the pastor had a lot to say, but what I was left pondering was faith.

I guess I am she of little faith.  So many Christians seem so secure in their religion.  Why, some of them even hear God talking directly to them.  How do they do that?  How do they know they hear God directing their lives and not their own inner voices telling them what to do?  They say, in response to my question, it's faith.

I have a good friend who is an atheist, not an agnostic, a real honest non-believing atheist.  She has had it with religious people, and she often fills her Facebook page with examples of why.  There are an awful lot of Christians out there doing very unChristian things.  A minister wouldn't marry a couple who were long-time members of  his church.  No, they weren't gay; they're an interracial couple.  Bet you didn't think that kind of thing was happening anymore.  Zealots claim it is their God directing them to do some of the ugliest things in the name of religion. A pastor in Florida is proud of burning the Koran, a religious book he doesn't happen to agree with. The murderer of an abortion doctor feels he's done God's work by killing that doctor and saving babies. Did he miss the part of the Bible that says thou shall not kill? People have beaten gays bloody in the name of religion ("God hates f_gs"). And those protesters (who shall remain nameless in my blog) who try to ruin the funerals of our deceased service people believe that God has told them to do that.  Those are big examples, and some may say those fringe groups don't represent the masses.

However, it would be just as easy to give you many examples of regular people distorting (or conveniently forgetting) the Bible to excuse their bad conduct.  Remember that trip I took with all those seniors?  You know, the ones who smugly touted their Christianity and their belief that all Jews are doomed to hell?  We had to sit as groups of four at one of the restaurants we visited.  The table in front of me had four women who were seated together.  Well, there were four there for awhile until three of them got up to go to the bathroom and never came back.  Three white women left a single black woman to dine alone.  I was incredulous at that blatantly unChristian act... and furious.  With the blessings of my table, I joined the other lady for lunch and made a new friend.  And don't get me started on the love the sinner hate the sin baloney.  Worry about your own damn sins. I do; I worry about everything.

But humans are imperfect! They make mistakes! They can't be perfect, only God is perfect!  Well then, those same imperfect people need to stop dictating to others what they can and cannot do in the name of God.

Two years ago, I left my church of thirty years.  I had weathered many rectors, some good and some bad.  But never had any of them caused me enough pain to want to leave.  When contention during an email exchange with my ex-rector and vestry left me reeling, I quit.  I was broken hearted to leave.  And I was broken hearted by the responses of people I had considered family.  One told me I had unresolved hostilities towards the man;  I thought I was providing concrete examples of what he had done.  Another had called me, supporting what I had said, and then backpedaled faster than a clown in a circus when push came to shove during the email salvo.  At the funeral of a friend from the church, I was visibly snubbed and ignored by a woman who'd always been warm and friendly to me.  My faith took a beating like never before.  I went to church to learn and love, and this is what it came down to?  So, who needs church?  Who needs religion if this is what it boils down to?

Well, I do. 

I had something happen to me in my life that was so removed from anything I could ever begin to explain or understand.  My dad was in the hospital.  I had returned to Maryland, but got the call the next day to get home now.  The next night my family and some friends were sitting on the deck talking about everything we were experiencing.  My mom casually mentioned that my dad had said the strangest thing that day.  He told her to ask me if I got the book about dogs that was in a box inside my front door. I turned pale.  I always enter the house through the back door in my garage.  I don't always check the front door, but when I let Trixie out that night, I found a box stuck in the front door.  It was a book about training dogs that I had ordered from Amazon and forgotten all about.  How in the world had my dad known about it?  How? I defy anyone to offer me a scientific explanation for what happened.  My dad was with me, and he hadn't left his hospital bed.

Some things just happen and can't be explained.  That's where faith comes in handy.  God works in mysterious ways, or so I've been told. When my faith is shaky (which is often), I try to remember that moment and that box.  I know there is much more to life than I'll ever understand here on Earth. I hope that I can do what's asked of me to make this a better place to be.  That is, if I can recognize who's doing the asking. (If your group comes knocking on my door with my key to heaven, it may get shut in your face.) If church drama gets distracting and out of control, I'll walk off again. My life isn't always free of stress. So,when I'm down and out, I sure hope I can feel God's loving embrace. 

And frankly, I hope I have the faith to recognize it for what it is.

Hurricane Sandy

" There's a storm a comin'!"  I remember standing on the middle school stage years ago during a school production while a young lady playing Uncle Henry spoke that line.  It always made me laugh because she said it with such little expression that I used to wonder if a storm really was a comin'.  Following Facebook posts this past week had me questioning the same blase` attitude reflected by people directly in the path of Hurricane Sandy.  Didn't they know Frankenstorm was a comin'????  Who were these people drinking wine, making jokes and planning parties while I was planning my survival?  Weren't they worried?

I was worried.  And scared.  I worried about the power going out, and therefore my sump pump giving up the ghost (I purposely used a Halloween metaphor in honor of the holiday).  The last time that happened my guardian plumber Jerry took care of everything.  But dear Jerry's gone now.  Maybe his spirit would watch over me, but it couldn't pump out a basement.  And my refrigerator?  I had just gone shopping and for once had actual expensive food in there.  My car and garage were such a dilemma that I posted to FB for a solution. 

Should I put the car in the garage, but leave the door open?  When my car is filling the garage there is no way in hell I can reach the release for the door opener; so if I close the door and the power goes off, I am trapped in the house, unable to drive my car with its obligatory required-for-surviving-a-hurricane full tank of gas.  Should I just take my chances and leave the door open, inviting storm damage, looters and zombies into my abode?  (Barbara, they're coming for you.)  Should I leave the car in the driveway and take my chances that the pear tree won't fall and flatten it?  Everybody had suggestions.  I loved the one that suggested "someone" tie a long rope to the release so I could grab it.  Obviously that person hadn't read my blog about the lack of a house husband.  And if I had someone to tie the rope, then couldn't he just pop the release?  Nobody came up with the answer that I arrived at after worrying away Monday night.  It was such a simple solution, I'm embarrassed.  Park the car outside, grab the ladder, climb up a couple steps, pull the release, return the ladder, move the car back into the garage, and manually close the door.  See?  Simple, huh? Yep, I figured that out after I decided to take my chances and just close the damn door.

At 6:00 pm on Monday the wind was whipping, the rain was pounding, the trees were twisting, and the power went off.  Because I was prepared for my survival, I had every candle in my house, a camping lantern, and three flashlights at my personal ground zero and ready for use.  I pulled an Abe Lincoln and read my book by candlelight, rationing the batteries of my precious lantern for what might be my third or fourth night without power.  It was a lonely night.  I had no neighbors.  The house on the left (where the woman who used to share her generator with me had lived) was empty.  The dear old people on the right were at the daughter's house.  The guy across the street was gone or else his stinky fireplace would be polluting the neighborhood air.  It was scary.  Poor, poor lonely me.  When I put Trixie out, the drone of the generators at the houses with husbands made me feel even more pitiful.  It was a long night.   

I woke to sun breaking through the clouds on Tuesday morning.  About four inches of water covered the basement floor.  The outside of the refrigerator was still cold.  I was ok.  By three the power was back, complete with TV and internet.  The sump pump started sucking out the water.  I was saved!  I had survived!  And then I turned on the television and saw the devastation in New Jersey and New York.

How silly my worries.  How small my problem.  How humbled and thankful I am to be as safe as I am.  Whole neighborhoods were decimated by the sand and waves invading and destroying property as if the buildings were hotels on a Monopoly board. One New York community lost homes to flooding and even more terrifyingly, uncontrollable fire.  A historical ship was sunk and two crew members lost at sea.  And so on and so on.

I plan to donate to the Red Cross, Salvation Army, and any organization that can use my money to help these poor damaged people.  I urge you to consider doing the same.  It is literally the least we can do.

Worry

I'm a worrywart.  Always have been, looks like I always will be.  My mother told me that I was just like my father in that respect.  He would worry so much that he'd get up in the middle of the night to drive around the neighborhood until he relaxed enough to go to sleep.  Mom finally got him to take a pill for anxiety by pretending it was a sleeping pill.  He'd have worried endlessly had he known he had anxiety.  But, he was ok with taking a sleeping pill.  Go figure.

I don't know why I worry so much.  I can't think of any problem I ever solved by worrying about it.  And, I can't think of any situation that didn't eventually work out in a way that I could manage.  So, you would think after fifty plus years I'd have realized that worrying is pointless and I should just stop doing it!  Yeah, just stop!  Once I figure out how to just stop worrying, I hope I can figure out how to just stop eating junk.  But that's food for another blog.  (Food? Eating?  HaHa.  I'm so dang punny.)

Today's major worry is Hurricane Sandy.  The repeated calls to my house from the county disaster center have me ready to pack a bag for the nearest shelter.  The 24/7 newscasts have convinced me that I am in a lot of trouble.  I have not boarded up my windows.  I just know the hurricane winds are going to blow my front window into shards.  Poor little Trixie will be swept up in the furious winds, funneled out the hole in the window,  and blown away, never to be seen again.  I will step on glass which will infect my foot, cause gangrene, and leave me a partial amputee who's afraid to walk with crutches.  Yep, I worry too much.  I doubt I'd let the leg get gangrenous.

I don't have a generator.  Years ago when the power went out for a few days, my neighbor shared her generator with me.  The storm was over, the night was humid, and I was wide awake worrying about my silent sump pump and refrigerator.  As I lay in my bed, I could hear a voice whispering loudly, "Barbara! Get up and get out here and help me."  My neighbor was standing outside my bedroom window.  We were Lucy and Ethel in our nightgowns figuring out how to set up the generator a friend had loaned her.She saved my sorry unprepared butt, not to mention a refrigerator full of groceries.  However she has moved (just down the street, but too far for an extension chord to my house). The 24/7 newscasts have convinced me that we will be without power for days, maybe weeks. Maybe if I cook some of my freezer food on the grill I purchased for $3 at a yard sale this summer,  I won't starve.  I know I'll have plenty of water though because my basement will flood a few feet deep.

Could this Frankenstorm be the end of the world???

Maybe I need to stop reading so much.  Books deeply affect me.  A year ago, I read Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer. It taught me that life as I know it can end catastrophically due to the unpredictability of nature and our universe. Here's the review:

From School Library Journal

Grade 6-8–Pfeffer tones down the terror, but otherwise crafts a frighteningly plausible account of the local effects of a near-future worldwide catastrophe. The prospect of an asteroid hitting the Moon is just a mildly interesting news item to Pennsylvania teenager Miranda, for whom a date for the prom and the personality changes in her born-again friend, Megan, are more immediate concerns. Her priorities undergo a radical change, however, when that collision shifts the Moon into a closer orbit, causing violent earthquakes, massive tsunamis, millions of deaths, and an upsurge in volcanism. Thanks to frantic preparations by her quick-thinking mother, Miranda's family is in better shape than many as utilities and public services break down in stages, wild storms bring extremes of temperature, and outbreaks of disease turn the hospital into a dead zone. In Miranda's day-by-day journal entries, however, Pfeffer keeps nearly all of the death and explicit violence offstage, focusing instead on the stresses of spending months huddled in increasingly confined quarters, watching supplies dwindle, and wondering whether there will be any future to make the effort worthwhile. The author provides a glimmer of hope at the end, but readers will still be left stunned and thoughtful.–John Peters, New York Public Library

See? See? Oh the damage that can be caused by wild storms!  tsunamis! volcanism!  And I did not gather supplies!  I don't have a battery powered radio! I don't have batteries!  We're all gonna die!!!!

No, not really.  I'll be ok after this storm and so will you.  Maybe I'll need to have some repair work done to the house.  Maybe I'll lose a boatload of groceries.  But I'll be ok....if I could only stop worrying.

 

Renn Fest Fun? Not so much.

I dunno.  Maybe I'm getting too old or too cynical or too something.  What used to excite me and inspire me to get up early on a Saturday morning or stay out late Friday night, no longer holds the appeal.  Here, I will say it.  I HATE festivals, fairs, carnivals, or whatever you call them.  Hate them.

I already avoid the local ones.  The Darlington Apple Fest was a lot of fun when it first started: reasonably priced crafts, free parking, friends to visit with, and lots of good food.  I can't go anymore.  The crowds choke the streets making it impossible to see the booths or comfortably walk the area. I get tired really fast of being elbowed and bumped by people who won't let the words "Excuse me" escape their mouths.  I went once to the Seafood Festival when it was just starting.  I did some volunteering and still have the apron I bought (I wear it to Grace Place since there's no need for an apron in this non-cooking household). I remember sitting with friends and laughing as we ate steamed crabs.  I wouldn't go near the place now because of the crowds and the bus loads of tourists.  The Independence Day Carnival?  Haven't made it down to the park in years.  I do go to the Art Show as I can get through there in about forty minutes.  And so far, Graw Days has been fun.  But Graw Days is new; everything's fun when it's new.

I took my nieces to the Renaissance Festival in Crownsville today.  I hadn't been there in probably twenty years, but that last time was such fun.  My friend and I bought flower wreaths for our hair.  We sang with the musicians, posed with the characters, and bowed to the queen.  The jesters danced around us and kept us smiling the whole day.  I told my girls how much fun it would be,  not to be afraid of the characters who would speak olde English to us, how great the shows would be, and how we'd get to see a real sword swallower.  They must think I'm a liar.

I knew we were in trouble when the turn off to Crownsville was a traffic jam of revelers.  We had to park so far back in the lot that we couldn't even see the castle.  (And we were close compared to the miles away some overflow parkers got stuck.)  The fairies on stilts at the doorway "creeped out" the girls.  The girls were already whining and ticking me off, and we hadn't even got our tickets.

Once inside, the place was wall-to-wall people.  We struggled to get lunch and struggled to sit.  Of course the older niece didn't want anything until I'd already gone through the line and bought the food for the younger girl.  Yep, I got stuck in line again.  We were fifteen minutes into the "fun" and the older one was already pouting and asking how long we had to stay.  We indulged in a little shopping.  I looked for the flower and ribbons headpieces from yonder years, but there were none.  Reba wanted a fascinator though, a black rose.  A thirty-five dollar black rose. Which brings me to my next complaint.  Everybody was out for a buck.  Literally.  Billie wanted to play the games; soon all my dollars were gone and she hadn't won me one free beer.  The museum of horrors?  Just a joke to these kids who have seen Disney World.  We had to pay a buck each to get in.  The woman in period garb had a huge wad of bucks in her hand.  Billie was more interested in all that money than Grendel's arm.  And the elephant ride?  Eight bucks per kid, sixteen bucks per adult.  I actually saw families of four bobbling on the bored pachyderm.  Thirty-six bucks for a one minute ride!  The girls were getting off the elephant before I'd even seen them hop on.  No pictures for me.  Lines! Lines!  Everywhere!  The longest line we saw was the one leading to the ATM.  No surprise there.

We saw lots of people in costume, but no Renn Fest actors to cajole my nieces into the spirit. If there was a royal family parade, the crowds blocked us from seeing it.  The jousting?  Sigh, it was over by the time we waded through the crowd to get there. And speaking of costumes, can somebody explain to me what the costume is where the young men have about six trash bags neatly folded and hanging from the back of their pants?  And what does a panda with an umbrella have to do with the Renaissance period?  My girls wouldn't go near him (it creeped them out).  Got me to wondering who was completely hidden inside that costume, a perv?  Yes, it creeped me out too.  And don't get me started on the almost naked sagging bosoms too many women were flaunting.  Honey, if you've got a couple as big as eggplants, a thin cotton flounce on top of your corset isn't sexy. Maybe, as Honey Boo Boo says, it's smexy, but most of the looks you're getting are looks of wonder, as in I wonder when they're going to fall out and hit the ground.

After three hours of how much longer are we going to be here, we headed back to the exit.  Had delicious apple dumplings with ice cream before we left.  And we had no trouble finding the car, unlike the Renn Fest bride and groom who were disgustedly tromping up and down the aisles looking for their pick up truck.  The girls were thrilled to curl up in the back seat with their I-pods, pillows, and bag of junk food.

I dunno. Maybe I'm too old, maybe things have gotten too commercial, or maybe, just maybe, these things aren't the fun the advertisers make them out to be. No more festivals for me!

Huh? Wud ya say?

As sad as it is to admit, I have become "that person."  You know the one; the person who drives for miles with their turn signal flashing because he/she can't hear the clicking that reminds said person to turn it off.  I can't hear like I used to.  I don't know how it happened or when it happened, but if I'm honest with myself, it has happened.

Years ago at the dinner table, little Reba answered everything said to her by twisting her ear towards you and saying, "Huh?"  After she did it about five times, her mother asked her what she was doing.  She replied, "Being Pop-Pop."  We broke into laughter.  My dad kept asking what we were laughing about because he hadn't heard her.  When we told him, he was mad.  According to him, he could hear just fine.

I used to feel that way.  My hearing wasn't bad.  Other people just spoke too softly.  We all know that middle school students mumble every word they say, right?  It's not my fault I can't hear their questions and answers. Surely there is something wrong with my television.  Sometimes I can barely hear it, even though I have the volume raised to the highest level.  Can't tell you how many times I've been on the phone and had to tell the service reps to speak up, how can they expect to help people if we can't even hear them?  My car radio makes me jump when I start it for the first time in the day.  It is so loud, I immediately turn it down.  No, I can no longer hear a lot of what I need to hear.  I can hear the stuff I don't want to hear like somebody snoring in the next room, the neighbor's stereo, my sister's alarm clock(that, by the way, she sleeps through), or the cat that screeches all night.  Why is that? 

I've thought about hearing aids.  Friends of mine have invested in them.  But frankly, they often "forget" to wear them, or the background noises render them ineffective, or the batteries are dead.  I can't stand the thought of something in my ear;  it makes me itch.  I guess the next generation will have it easier.  They will most likely make the switch from ear buds to hearing aids very fluidly.  And, with the way they listen to loud music, I predict they'll be making this switch in their thirties rather than my generation's sixties.

I often pretend to hear people when I haven't a clue as to what they are saying.  Sometimes I know I've answered incorrectly because of the puzzled expression on the listener's face.  Other times I just smile and nod and hope that does for an answer.  With people I'm close to I say things like, "Dammit Dee you know I can't hear.  Speak up!"  Reading lips and cupping my hand behind my ear are two methods of compensating for my handicap.  I'm not accurate with the lip reading.  And people laugh at me when I make Dumbo ears with my hands. Sigh, I know it will only get worse.

So, I reach my sixties knowing that not only do my knees hurt, my ears are failing. The next time some rude person says, "What are you, deaf?" .... My answer will be, "Yes, you want to make something of it?"  That is, of course, if I hear them in the first place.

Yard Saling

Sandy C. started me yard saling 20+ years ago.  I'd been living in a furnished apartment and had just moved into the house she helped me buy. I had nothing.  Nothing, that is, until I started yard saling every weekend. The world was my treasure chest.

I perfected my yard saling skills over the years when I traveled the roads with my buddy, Dottie.  We used to call it home shopping; we'd go to your home and shop.  We were a perfect team as we each searched for different things.  Eventually, we went our separate ways.  Dottie began getting up at 5 or 6 in the morning; I thought 8 was early enough.  However, we continued shopping for each other and every Christmas we'd exchange a Santa Sack of newspaper wrapped yard sale gifts.  In fact, a lot of people received newspaper wrapped gifts from me, the newspaper signifying that you were about to open a true and unique treasure.  One of my favorite finds was given to my sister, Helen.  At the time, we were both Rosie O'Donnell fans.  I found a new, in the box, autographed Rosie doll.  The person selling it was a former student so I could trust that it was the real deal.  My sister couldn't believe it!

Anything you could ever want can eventually be found at a yard sale if you are persistent.  I like wine.  Yep, you can find bottles of wine at yard sales. 
I can't remember the last time I bought soap from a store. All those pretty hand milled soaps that people spend a fortune on as Christmas gifts?  They end up on the twenty-five cent table for people like me to indulge in.  My nieces have the best dress up clothes!  For months, three year old Reba practically lived in the pink tutu I found for fifty cents at a yard sale.  My house needed ceiling fans; I found great ones, new in the box, at yard sales.  I was amazed the day I found an antique Chinese bowl that someone, with no idea of its value, sold to me for $5.  I bought another antique bowl at a different yard sale for $20; but it was a fake.  You win some, you lose some.

A few years ago, I burned a hole through my kitchen table and luckily did not burn the house down.  (Story will be told in a future blog.)  I needed a new table, bad.  On my way to church one Sunday, there it was.  It was a perfect size table for 6 with a tile top and wooden chairs in great condition.   They asked a very reasonable $50 and I talked him into delivering it for another $10. I put my old table and chairs outside and someone from Freecycle snatched them up.   A win win situation.

I think everybody who yard sales is always looking for that one special find that will make them Antique Road Show stars.  I found my thing a few years ago.  At a small sale in front of a tiny, worn out house, were two framed pictures.  I was drawn to one of a woman with a cane walking her dog. It was me.  He wanted a lot for the picture, but as much as I loved it, I couldn't afford it. So, I left and saled for a few more hours.  I purposely drove past the house at the end of the day and the picture was still there.  I appealed to the guy by opening my wallet and showing him that all I had left was a twenty.  He sold me the picture.  After researching, I learned I had a signed limited edition silkscreen worth a tidy sum.  The artist is Mackenzie Thorpe and the title of this piece is Walking the Dog.  I have no idea how to create a live link on this blog, but if you copy and paste the link I've provided into your browser, you can see a bigger picture of this "rare" (their words) work of art and what it sells for.

                 http://www.monetfineart.com/walking-the-dog-686-p.asp

Now, isn't that just the best rendition of me and my dog?  (Use your imagination.)

I haven't yard saled in a while.  Now that I'm retired, I'm trying to downsize my home, not add to it.  But the crisp autumn air drew me outside.  And oh, the treasures I found!  I have wanted a Moroccan style pillow for my living room for ages.  Found it today.  I found the most gorgeous Chinese calligraphy scroll that some tourist paid a small fortune for.  It has the name of a good friend of mine; I'll soon be surprising her with it.  Found a really nice cat purse; one of you cat people reading this may find it under your tree this year.  And Helen, my dear sister, your Christmas present will be wrapped in newspaper.  However,  the best find, the most exciting find, was a beautiful bridal veil with a pearl tiara. Hope my dress-up girls don't fight too bitterly over it.

Yep, I thought I was done with yardsaling.  Ha! A true saler is never done.  I wonder what the weather is supposed to be like next Saturday?