National Garbage Sale Day

My favorite time of year is coming next weekend, nope not fall or Chanukah, but neighborhood garage sale time! It comes twice a year, one in the spring and one in the fall. We have have had 3 so far and make an average of about $1,000 each time.  Our neighbors across the street walk over and say "holy sh*t, where exactly does all that stuff come from?" Answer: I have no idea! It's a ton of clothes and toys and when I actually bought nice clothes for myself people would line up and fight over my stuff. Last year I set up a dressing room so people can try on my clothes. HA! It was so fun. I love busting out a fanny pack filled with change and haggle the customers. Albert never allowed me to squirrel away "my Miller trinkets and trash" but every so often an old box of koozies or last years NASCAR hats would wind up in the garage. Since it's illegal to sell them we would get a bull horn and run a red light special " FOR 10 MINUTES ONLY, BUY SOMETHING AND GET A FREE HAT!" Now, that's how you get the people going.

The girls set up a little lemonade stand and I get to teach them about profit/loss and ROI.......
It goes like this: figure out how many customers you anticipate per hour X the # of hours you plan on keeping the lemonade stand open. Then make a list of your supplies and the cost, they also want to sell bottle waters. Now there's the moneymaker. From there you can figure out how much lemonade powder and cups you need. You can also factor in how much you think your time is worth. Now set a price per cup.  Do you have any money for the supplies? No. Okay, I will lend it to you and you can pay be back from the profits. I won't charge interest since you will only borrow the $$ for about 2 days. A seven year old and three year old completely understand what I'm talking about.

They charge .50 cents a cup and that gets you lemonade and a free sample bag of Pirate's Booty compliments of Aunt Steph. It's also good to run a promotional item at your sales. So typically people give them $1 and say they're cute and move on. At the end of the day they make about $50 and after paying me back my $6 for supplies they need to split the rest.  About an hour after we close up our garage sale we MUST hit the toy store because $22 in their "poggy bank" means nothing. We head to the store and without fail they want something that cost more than $22, and we give in because they worked so hard and we're tired and I have a wad of ones in my purse that for some reason when you spend ones it doesn't feel like you're spending money.  It usually cost me another $20 bucks!
That's the last time I invest in a franchised lemonade stand! Business Fail.

Albert and I play this little game, we each put something totally random out and whoever sells their item first wins King/Queen of the garage sale. Last year he found a questionable comforter from his college days that probably hadn't been washed since then and an old pillow (you can see it in the top left picture at the bottom of the driveway). My item was this awful suede coat with some lamb fur lined on the inside. He thought the coat was still cool  because he bought it at Wilson's leather............15 years ago We had put it out at the last 2 garage sales and it DIDN'T SELL and each time he toted it back in his closet. So this past spring sale I made that my feature item.  The rules are you have to stick to your price and promote it until it sells. I added a tie to it (as a free giveaway with purchase), don't mess with a marketer and hung it separately with a special sign. I was sure to win! About 10 minutes into the garage sale an older woman walks up and no kidding, asks how much the comforter and pillow are??? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?! Have you not seen the weird white stains on it??? Well Albert wore the crown, she paid $6 for the pillow and comforter.  The suede lamb coat sold at the end when we were slashing prices.

So next Saturday is the big fall neighborhood garage sale and since we are moving we are cleaning out every single nook and selling what we don't need or anything that won't fit in the "new decor".  We haven't picked our "featured item" yet but I plan on winning this year.

I love garbage sale day!

Sticking to my resolution

So you know how you make a New Year's resolution and you stick to it for like 2 weeks, well I am a few days into my resolution about blogging more and I have already posted 2 posts. You're Welcome.
My Stoonks started gymnastics last week and for whatever cute reason she calls it Massachusetts.  She learned the word from her teacher that was taking a trip there and now everything is Mass-a-ju-jets. It's cute. Yesterday she worked on the balance beam and some pole exercises. My sister asked me if Avery will be flat chested and not get her period until she's 30 like other gymnasts.  Um, from 2 lessons where for half the time they jump on a trampoline, I don't think so Steph!

She really is a natural athlete. Her form and her persistancy really are apparent at gymnastics. I really want her to be athletic. That's the one thing I wish my parents forced me to be. I am hoping she get Albert's athleticism.....but with my smarts =)

You wanna see something cute. She came home from school last week and showed me a picture she drew of "her mommy". She said she used a black crayon because I have black hair. I don't remember wearing a purple dress with yellow sleeves paired with green leggings but ok. I really think the face looks like me, especially the big round Mike Tyson-like nose.  This is a framer.

I hope next week they ask her to color "her daddy". Then we each can have one framed for our nightstands.

My New Year's Resolution

It's September so I figured it was time to make and keep a resolution. I will blog more. I will blog more because I want to make sure I am capturing the moments in Avery's life that I swear I will never forget but know someday I will. If you ask my mom the cute things I did when I was three I swear she just makes them up, because she doesn't remember.  So I promise to carry my camera more, blog more and then print out the posts for Avery. So you better become a follower of this if you're as nosy as I am and need to know what's going on. Just stalk me, like I do to Kelle Hampton. If you don't know about Kelle then click on the link and catch up.  Then you may be able to join our stalker fan club that Marissa and I created. To become a member you have to read at least 40 posts to catch up then check her site every 2 days for new posts. Then google Isle of Capri and become familiar with the location....more to come on that.

My friend introduced me to picnik, which is not a new thing but new to me. So now I am having fun with my pictures, which tells a better story than words.

This is Avery's concentration tongue. Whenever she is really into something her tongue comes out. I used to do the exact same thing so at least she got something from me. She continues to play school each and everyday. She takes what she learns from her school and brings it into her playroom. Her kids in her fake class are all named by her. We have: Big Baby, Purple Baby, Little Woody, Olivia, Patrick (which is a girl doll), the infamous Jack and Nolan (which are also girls minus pants), Meerkat, Old Swim Baby, New Swim Baby, Old Teddy Bear, New Teddy Bear, Tangled, Rudolph, Tiny Eyes, Tiny Eyes' brother, Meredith, Callie, Little Riley, Little Avery,  Dora and of course Baby Daddy.  She loves reading to them and if you see in the background of this picture she gives them all jobs.  The reason why Daddy's name is sideways is because he got in trouble and got a warning. One more time and he loses his job. Today he was light helper.  She will stop what she's doing and yell "Tiny Eyes, that is NOT ok! that's it you get a warning."  When I ask what Tiny Eyes did to receive a warning she tells me that he "pushed Baby Daddy and that's not good choices." Funny, I didn't see Tiny Eyes moves his little plastic body, but ok.

I mean, this is just funny. Teddy Bear was napping with his eye cover! When Olivia gets in trouble she yells "Olivia, get in yours box, OLIVIA, your ear is hanging out, get your ear in your box and you can come out when you make right choices." Poor Olivia, I checked on her the next day and she was still in her box, lid closed and in time out. I wonder what she did to deserve 2 days of box time??
Legs crossed and foot shaking is her new thing. 

My girl is funny. Funny to the point where I LOL everytime she opens her mouth. She has talked for a constant 6 days straight. I will hear Albert from the other room asking "is she still talking?" YEP!  She's a big girl and I'm so proud of this next move she made:
"MOMMY! I need a mag-a-zune". 
Um ok, here ya go I just picked up the latest People Magazine, I guess you can read it first but don't do the crossword puzzle, that's mommy's favorite.
I hear banging, I walk out from her room to see this site

That's just funny stuff!!! It looks like I staged this just so she seems funny, but I don't. This is all her. She gets up tells me she did a dinosaur poop, waves bye bye dinosaur and flushes.  She tells me she went poop poop so she gets "3 monies". I give her 3 quarters for her "poggey bank" and she's as happy as can be.

After a long day of play, we read stories and say thank you to each other for all the fun things we did. it's my favorite part. An hour later I check on her and without fail she is sleeping some sort of craziness. The other night I peeked in and she wasn't in her bed. I had a split second of a Jon Benet situation, but then looked down. Oh, ok if you're more comfortable like that, it's fine with me.

 

I love my little Stoonks.