Friday, August 24, 2007

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY!!

The yard sale had so many positive things I'm trying hard to remember them all!! First off, I did not slave away for hours upon hours. I spent about 2 and a half hours putting tags on in assorted piles on tables and called it done. I tried to price it so cheap, I would buy it again (even though I wouldn't). I got up this morning a little after I wanted to, but at 6:ish it was still a little dark for my taste so I snoozed a bit longer. I would say I still got signs hung and sale started by 7:ish. First sale was a leaf blower that hubby reluctantly decided to sell, probably cause we haven't used it since he started mowing the leaves. But he did and I am so proud. If only he would sell all the things he hasn't used in 6 years...

The kids had cookies and drinks to sell and I got the brilliant idea that they should work in shifts so I did not have to experience fighting. They had to do school when they weren't working. We got school done and I got one-on-one time with all three. many. times. chatty. chatty. times. Hubby is gigging tonight and it is a good thing, because for the first time EVAH, I'm out of words-spoken, that is! They each made $6 from their work including the Mom tip. I got lots of EXCELLENT feedback from strangers about my homemade snickerdoodles which beats the crap out of what I got from the family. ("They smell like throw-up."...WHAT? That is cinnamon!!!Whose kid are you anyway? "Chatter chatter chatter.", oh yeah, mine.)

Lilly learned money today. It took her ten seconds and she mastered who is who in the coin world. We've been teaching it for a long time, but today-it clicked. My other two were in public school for coins/money and it took them FOREVER to master money. We were doing real money at home and I blame it 100% on the fact that they used PICTURES at school. Give me a break. Whose bright idea was it to photocopy coins and test children on them. When we brought them home, our remedial money class was this: Count it correctly and you get to keep it. Less than a hour folks, less than an hour. Counting back change is taking longer, but I will only accept full mastery of that skill. Most kids(and a lot of grown-ups too!) have no idea how much change they should get back. How sad is that? The girls said at school, kids would keep their dollar bills but give change away or *GASP*, throw it away because it was too much trouble to keep up with. All I can say is, in this family we will stop to pick up a penny...'nuff said.

One person stole from me...that I know of. It has never happened to me before so I was a little shocked. She stuffed a necklace in with a bracelet and tried to pass them off that way. Busted. She tried to convince me a shirt was stained-it wasn't, so hard to pull that off outside! Busted. Then she paid me in all quarters and tried to not pay enough. Busted. She did get the price tag swap by me though. I did not catch that one till later when some crappy shoes had a $1(I distinctly remembered pricing them at 25 cents) on them and then I remembered some really good shoes bought by her having a quarter on them. What kind of scuz steals stuff at yard sales? Be nice to me and I will give it to you. She needs to take her bleachblonde heavy-smokin' grandma butt somewhere else because if you lie, steal or act rude, I will put it in the trash first. That is some Christ-likeness I have there!! It is sort of turning the other cheek, heehee.

All in all it was a good day. We made about $50, shut her down about one. We still have our Saturday left. I boxed up two boxes of "good" stuff for the keepers sale and hauled off 3 trash bags and two boxes to the salvation army. It was hot, but our hill is shady and there was a breeze all day so it was nice. Best of all though, the broken computer desk( heavy piece of crap) is gone. They knew it was beyond repair but figured they could use the parts for other things. A little voice told me the little pick-up pulling the trailer would be interested and yet again, the voices in my head served me well. I am a happy momma. I've had a long soak in a bubble bath and I am clothed in Land's End cotton and kicked back for some serious nothing time. ( :




2 comments:

Jacinda said...

You know Gracie is a "public schooler" and we're happy there, but I'll agree with you about the photocopied pictures of the coins! LOL It is so hard to tell which coins are which when they're pictures!

The other day I gave her some change I'd found and asked her to count it. It ws 3 quarters. She stumbled around on it. I told her I knew her teacher last year had taught her this and she knew how much it was. She still stumbled around.

Finally, I told her that if she couldn't count it she couldn't keep it and from here on, that was the rule. I tell you what, "25, 50, 75" came out of her mouth so quickly!

UGH! I knew she knew it. Only when I threatened her did she prove it!

On an aside....I bought a really nice "Melissa & Doug" set of play money to help her last year and it helped her a lot when we worked with it.

Julie Anne said...

laughing my head off over here about the bleach-blonde grandma...not funny what she did, but your description of her sure is. And I can picture your face while dealing with her.

"Chatty.Chatty.Chatty." Is pretty much how every day goes 'round here. Too bad we live too far for our chatty girls to chat it up together!