Hi there! Remember me? Former regular blogger, now full time eBay seller and watchdog over grandma’s computer?

I’m home sick today {{cough cough}} It’s the first day off I’ve had in six or seven weeks. I’ve kind of lost track of time, as the days of driving over to grandma’s house and spending all day, every day, teaching a woman in her 80’s how to use a computer, and photographing and describing her vast collection of Depression Glass, have all sort of run together into one big melted blob of cheese.

Cheese?

Yes, grandma likes cheese. I like cheese too, but we have something with cheese every day for lunch. I should have very strong bones and a stopped-up colon in a few months. But my colon will survive, which is more than I can say for other parts of me.

My back may never be right after my escape the other day. Grandma is driving some now, as the medicine she takes for her Parkinson’s has stabilized the shaking, and she needed a prescription refill. She doesn’t have a spare front door key, because they always came and went through the garage. But since grandpa passed away, she had a spare door opener.

So she left to go to the drugstore, and left me the old garage door remote control to use in case she didn’t return in time to be there when I had to go pick daughter up from school. The time came, and I used the wall-mounted opener inside the garage to open the door. When I got outside, I pressed the button on the hand held remote she gave me, to lower the door.

Nothing happened.

I pressed the button again. I pressed it several times with increasing urgency.

Nothing.

I went back inside and pressed the wall-mounted button. The door closed.

I pressed it again and the door went up

I checked my watch and realized I had to get going or Daughter would be left at the altar…errr… parking lot. So I did what any mother would do. I wished I had a stunt double.

But no magic person appeared, so I did the next best thing, I did the stunt myself. I hit the button and made a dash for the door as it started its descent. I did a diving roll, a la Indiana Jones, and made it to the driveway before the door closed all the way. I was quite proud of myself. I was also quite sore, as I am not a world class adventurer. I am a middle-aged mom with a history of broken bones. Nothing was broken but I was breathing hard from the excitement of the mad dash, and my back and hips ached from the drop and roll.

(This is starting to sound pornographic with all this urgency, arising, and heaving breasts - LOL)

I made it to the school in time to pick up the girl. I returned to grandma’s house and found her at the computer. I hoped she was heeding my warnings not to click on any links in any e-mail (I told her that e-mail links could be viruses and if she clicked on one she might get a virus on her computer. She didn’t really understand that, so I told her that if she clicked on a link, Howie Mandel would die and she’d never get to see Deal or No Deal again.)

:)

Don’t know when I’ll get a chance to post again, or visit any of your blogs. I miss you, and wish you well.

TUESDAY NIGHT UPDATE: many Tuesday evenings find me at Open Mike Night at Successful Blog. It is a lovely venue filled with wonderful bloggers who discuss a wide range of topics, eat virtual Klondike bars and frolic in the meadow. OK, so we don’t really frolic, but we do have some fascinating discussions. And this evening, Timothy Johnson, blogger extraordinaire of Carpe Factum, was wondering why his Technorati ranking seems to go up and down like a roller coaster. In the spirit of sharing (which Liz Strauss promotes) I am sharing Timothy’s blog with you. Stop by, read and enjoy. Cheers!

Categories: Family, E-Bay, Humor

It’s over!

Well, not really, we still have a lot of unsold goods and not-so-goods to pack up, but the doors to sell hell are closed.

It was hot. If you ever wanted to r-e-a-l-l-y get to know your family, (and I can’t imagine why you would want to - trust me) spend several days in a double-car oven, working at a garage sale with them, while all manner of humanity wanders by, pawing through tools and treasures.

The tools sold well. The treasures…not so much. There isn’t a lot of demand for fur coats in June. And everyone seemed to be able to live without a Rockwell collector plate.

The massive depression glass collection displayed in my previous post has been trimmed a bit, but as groovy so succinctly noted, few people are interested in one more thing to have to dust. I see an eBay store in grandma’s future.

The Campbell’s Soup cups and glassware that Peter noticed in the photos, didn’t draw any takers. Perhaps we should have included actual soup.

On the last day of the sale, I dragged myself out of bed at 4 AM and sat on the toilet, rubbing my eyes and face. I felt severe stubble around my eyebrows, and realized I hadn’t plucked in days. I pulled open the makeup drawer and got out my trusty tweezers and magnifying mirror. Raising the mirror to eye level, I attempted to focus my bleary vision. In the mirrored reflection I saw not only my eyebrow stubble, but something slithering.

I spun around (not easy to do when you’re sitting on a toilet) and saw a small snake retreating behind the faucet. Apparently the lack of human activity in the house and the excessive outdoor temperature had driven the little bugger indoors. I can speak rationally about this now, but when I first spotted it, all I did was scream.

A screaming woman trying to exit the bathroom with her panties around her ankles, after flinging tweezers at a snake at four o’clock in the morning is a sight to behold, I was later told by my amused husband.

The snake was equally terrified.

Husband (my hero!) threw a towel over the terrified snake, carried it outside and released it. Since we live out in the country, this has happened a couple of other times in the 20-odd years we’ve lived here, but I will never get used to it.

But it made leaving to go haul two tons of stuff out onto a driveway, a whole lot easier.

Categories: Family, E-Bay, Humor

My darling mother-in-law loves jigsaw puzzles.

She works big ones, little ones, round ones too.

Sorry, starting to sound a little too Dr. Seuss there……

Actually, it is from a series of roadside signs that I made to promote our pumpkin sales.

When the pumpkin patch is open, I have a series of small billboards, placed every fifty feet or so along the road in front of the farm, in the manner of the old Burma Shave shaving cream signage.

{{All the young whippersnappers out there are scratching their Gen-X heads in confusion LOL}}

My pumpkin signs read:

Big ones, little ones,
White ones too,
We have the perfect
Pumpkin for you!

Pretty lame, huh? LOL!

Back to darling mother-in-law and her pile o’ puzzles.

She regularly gives me a batch of jigsaw puzzles that she has finished, and lets me sell them at online auctions.{subliminal message please go look please go look lol}

She said, “Now I GUARANTEE that all of the pieces are here for these, and that they are in fine shape.

I promise, ’cause I am a good Christian woman and I don’t swear”.

Then she giggles like only an adorable grandmother can giggle.

I decided to be clever (which can sometimes get me in b-i-g trouble LOL) so I spiced up the listings with a little song parody about my darling mother-in-law having so many jigsaw puzzles
(to the Beverly Hillbillies theme, “The Ballad of Jed Clampett”).

The Ballad of Puz Rampant
Come and listen to my story of my dear mother-in-law,
A sweet puzzler, she has lots of them, jigsaw,
And then one day, she was puttin’ one away,
But the closet was so full, that the box just wouldn’t stay!

Hmmmm, she said, “Gotta go! Selling spree!”

Well the first thing you know, she told me of her issue,
And she said, “Help! What is there to do?”
I said, “Don’t you worry, our solution is E-Bay,
We will put them up for sale, and let buyers bid away!”"

Great, they are,
All the pieces! Guarantee!

Well now it’s time for you to come and gaze at what we’ve got,
You won’t be disappointed when you look at what you’ve bought.
They’re all a pretty picture, and the pieces are all there,
We promise - ’cause she’s so sweet that she doesn’t ever swear!

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

Even lamer huh? (And you thought it wasn’t possible - pshaw! LOL!)

I keep selling them and she keeps giving me more - LOL

The last batch was a whopper, so we have a very tall stack of them in here now.

Since the boxes are all different sizes, and I have to pull them out to write the descriptions and take photos, or wrap them when they are sold, the stack has become somewhat discombobulated (isn’t that a great word? LOL)

I fear it could injure one of us if it collapses from the vibrations of Bo Jangles getting too intense on his dance pad LOL!

I am going to attempt to sneak up on it {shhhh} so I can pull another one out to list.

If you don’t hear from me in a week, please call in Hercule Puzz-oit {snicker}

Categories: Family, E-Bay, Humor