::30 days:: Scrapped!

Ugh!  It seems like anything that could go wrong with this project, can and will go wrong!

First, the internet was down for 11 days.

Then, the power was out.

Now, my pictures won't load. Server invalid or something.

So, I'm just about ready to scrap this whole 30 days project and try it again some other time, perhaps when I'm not so busy running here and there, trying to get school supplies and juggling the booth and kids.

Did I mention that Andrew got a job?  Yes!!  He started working last week and while I am beyond thrilled for him and us that he is working again, I sure do miss those 'do-as-we-please' kind of days. It's back to working around a schedule, but I am *not* complaining!  It's been so long since he was out of work and filling out hundreds of job applications, going on countless interviews, and not getting even a single offer. So many times we've held our breath, hoping that finally, this would be the "one," only to get those hopes dashed on the rocks.  Eventually, I just told Andrew, "don't even tell me what job you've applied for, just let me know when there's an interview."

And of course, as soon as the money starts trickling in, along comes something to take it away. Haven't even got his first paycheck yet, and the roof has started leaking.  All these storms have not been kind to our house and while we knew about 2 small leaks, we now have several big ones.  Big enough to make the ceiling in the sun room fall down and several stains in the dining room.  -sigh-  A call to the insurance co. and a roofer recommended.  If the roofer agrees that it's storm damage, then we'll only have to pay the deductible, but if not, and this is what I am afraid of, then we'll have to foot the whole bill. Fingers crossed that the roofer will find it to be storm damaged. *crossing legs, fingers, toes... my it's going to be hard to walk!*

Counting my blessings, though, it's nothing really major or life-threatening.  We're warm and dry and Andrew was up there with the roofing repair kit trying to slap on some kind of temporary fix for the next round of storms headed our way.

The booth has been doing well.  It's a lot of fun.  It's also a lot of work, cleaning and tagging things, but I'm doing what I love to do, and it's something we have both dreamed of doing for a long time. Today, we passed the lease mark, in other words, after I take out the amount for the rent, the rest is profit!  More than 2 weeks left in the month, so I'm excited to see how much more we'll make!

Peter has just about kicked the pull-ups to the curb!!  He pretty much only uses them at night-time.  Several nights of bed-wetting in a row convinced me to get one last package of night-time pull-ups, but I think it will be the last pack I'll ever have to buy! Yay!!  *happy dance*  It's so weird to go out with all the kids in tow and hear Peter pipe up and say he needs to pee.  I'm so used to just having to take the girls to the restroom, but I am so proud of him.

The garden is going well this year.  We got behind on the weeding after we opened the booth, but the size of the tomatoes this year has me amazed!  That cow manure we spread did wonders!  I've never had such big peppers and tomatoes before!!

The corn on the other hand, still disappoints! foo!  I planted two patches, two different kinds, at different times and both failed.  The first looked like it was doing well, but then there was a dry spell and it seemed to have stunted the growth.  Very few of the corn grew bigger than 2 or 3 inches, so I ended up giving it all to the chickens.  The second patch looked gorgeous, still does!  Lush and green, but a recent check revealed no corn!  It's all stalks and leaves with no cobs?  Wha...?  That does it!  I'm officially giving up on growing corn! I'll just support our local farmers and buy their yummy corn instead.

It's raining again, so I better fetch the buckets and check the leaky spots. Until then.. :o)

::30 Days:: 11

Mmmm!  There's that banana bread I made the other night.  So good!

Going to the booth tomorrow, so I've been busy cleaning and pricing things, going on line looking up prices, and checking out the 516 Antiques facebook page.

While I've been occupied with "booth business", the kids have been playing together. I love when they include Peter instead of chasing him away.  It sure helps that Peter isn't just grabbing things anymore. He's figuring out how to play along nicely and then everyone gets to have fun and mama doesn't come stomping in growling at people!

All packed up and ready to go! It's been a pretty busy week, so I don't have as much to take into the booth tomorrow, but these totes are loaded to the brim, so it's enough for this time. Looking forward to checking out the booth and restocking more goodies!



::30 Days:: 9

Finally! Our internet is restored and we are go!

Seems silly to catch up on missed days, so let's just pick up where I left off and pretend the gap between days does not exist, shall we?

So without further ado....

When I walk to the mailbox, I keep an eye out for those wild grapes.  Still green? Birds gobbling them up? Ripe yet? A couple weeks ago, the vines were loaded with grapes, they're dwindling down and I hope there will be enough to pick in the next couple of weeks. Still too early to pick, so fingers crossed the birds don't get what's left!

The last two jars of 2011's wild grape juice concentrate from the freezer. I tried to make it last, making it every now and then. Good stuff! Let's hope I can make at least 10 pints this summer.

Kids and books, it happens.  Put the two together and there's going to be rips, scribbled on pages, broken spines and books dropped in liquid, or food spilled on them. I recently went through our books and pulled out all the damaged ones, too far gone to repair or donate. Waiting for Andrew to make a trash run and throw them away, but in the meantime, the kids are having a blast drawing silly faces on the books, adding captions and mustaches, glasses and zits, and completely changing stories around. The first time I let them do this, I got two hours of quiet! TWO HOURS! Why didn't I think of this before?!?  Letting them draw on these old books is guaranteed leave-mama-alone-time! I just may keep those books around a little while longer!

Made 3 loaves of banana bread tonight. I love when the house smells all banana bread-y and I look forward to eating a slice after it's cold and sat in the fridge overnight. I know what I'm having for a snack tomorrow!



::30 Days:: 8

What I saw when I woke up this morning: Peter's black eye. The skin glue did it's job, and at bath time, it came off and I could see I didn't need to add any more. As of bedtime, the colors of the bruise deepened to a pale dark blue/purple.

Today was a long, long, long day.

I went back to the booth and added more stuff, looks better, don't it?

I was pleased to see a few items sold! Yay!!

After finding homes in the booth for everything, I went all the way to the big town in the opposite direction and ran errands with my Mom. It was a grand effort, but it was just too much to do all in one day.  By the time we got home past 5 pm, I was exhausted. Won't be doing that again!

I'm glad I had the sense to pick up frozen pizza and then Andrew cooked 'em on the grill. Fast, easy, and delicious! Bonus points for not heating up the house with a hot oven!

I've been busy setting up a facebook page for our new booth, while eating leftover chinese from my lunch out today. Find my booth on Facebook: 516 Antiques.  Like it, too! :o)

::30 Days:: 6

Today was a big day!  We loaded up the truck and I went down to the antique mall and started setting up the booth. This is the mall where our booth is. It's in downtown Berkley Springs, West Virginia.

Here it is! Yipes, it's huge!! 

All those boxes and it hardly looks filled!

It's 10x10 but it seems so much larger!! I got to tag more things, stat!

Here's that white shelf I painted and I love how it looks with all the stuff on it!

Makes me wish I had more shelves like it.

After I got home. I went straight to work painting another shelf. This particular shelf used to be Mom and Dad's and they kept their record player on top with all their records on the bottom shelves. Memories!  But it was dark brown, too, so it had to be painted.  Took 3 coats and it's done! I'm going to try and make it back to the booth on Monday with another full load of stuff and fill up that huge space!!

I *should* be working on more stuff, cleaning and pricing, but I'm absolutely pooped! I deserve some TV time where I just relax and watch '27 Dresses' on dvd. Tomorrow, I'll get back on the ball and work like a maniac to get more stuff packed and ready to go, tomorrow!



::30 Days:: 5

Still working on inventory for our antique booth, but we need something to put them on, so I tackled painting this old, brown, boring shelf. Looked like rain, so I dragged it into the sun room to paint.

Between coats.

I'm amazed the kids managed to keep their fingers off it while drying!

The kids cooked dinner tonight. Spaghetti! Something they can do on their own without me fussing behind them and I can go off and do what needs doing.

The onions have been drying out in the pole barn for more than 2 weeks now, time to start bringing them in. Started on the yellow onions and filled the bag more than halfway and stopped when Gretchen complained the bag was getting too heavy for her to hold any longer. Can't wait to get the final weight on the total onion harvest! I'm hoping to get all the onions trimmed and bagged by the end of the weekend.

Finished! Looks pretty good! Took 3 coats to cover the brown. Normally I don't like when wood furniture is painted, but this is one instance where the shelf looks sooooo much better painted than it did with that dark brown stain! Seeing as how it will be displaying my wares in the booth, I wanted my items to pop out of the white shelves and not disappear into the shadows of the formerly dark shelves.



Bath night and bedtime reading.

Sweet dreams!



::30 Days:: 4

Hummingbirds have been humming around the flowers outside the back door lately.

This morning there were two of them. Pretty green ones.

Impossible to get a shot through the screen and I'm afraid that if I tried to open the sliding door, they'd fly away. But I'm content with this shot of the girls watching.

 Still plugging away at cleaning, tagging and packing up inventory for our booth.

Didn't do as much today, it was just too hot and I was plain old cranky!

I did about 25 items today.

"C'mon kids, let's go into the pool," says I!

Ahh, I feel that crankiness melt away once I slip into the cool waters.

Just what the doctor ordered!

We stayed in the pool long past supper-time, so I needed to make a dinner that was quick and easy-- tacos! It always helps having pre-cooked meat packed away in the freezer to cut down on cooking time.  My secret ingredient? Oatmeal! Helps to stretch out the meat between the 6 of us and adds a bit more fiber. Not really a secret anymore, since all the girls know I add oatmeal, as they help cook meals with me, but they always whisper, "time to add the secret ingredient" when they help!

Yummy yummy in the tummy!

Pay no mind to the Christmas wreath on the door! It usually hides behind the curtain and comes out for the holidays.  I've always meant to put it away, but I keep forgetting and until I saw this picture, I realized that I never really notice it anymore.  It sort of disappeared into the background! By the time I finally get around to putting it away, it's going to be Christmas again!! 



::30 Days:: 3

We recently put a deposit on a booth in an Antique Mall. The booth opens August 1st, though we are allowed to go in now and start setting up shelves and what-not.

Of course, now that we are committed to a booth, we have the fun job of going through our "inventory", cleaning everything, and deciding on prices.

Early start today, continuing to bring stuff up from the basement to clean and put prices on things.

In the future, I want to try and do 25 items per day, but for our initial set up, we'll need quite a few things to fill up a 10x10 booth! I'm thinking... 300 items to start? More?

Better get cracking!

Popcorn for dinner because...

...I'm still doing this!

Whew! I did more than 50 items today.

Looked up certain things on the internet for reference prices, dug through boxes in the basement, washed off the dust and dirt, priced and packed into clean boxes for transport. I have 87 items ready to go, just over 200 more to do over the next few days!

::30 Days:: 2

We've been cleaning out the basement and in the process, finding "lost" things.

Found the replacement lamp socket and wiring I bought ages ago for a different lamp.

First thing this morning, I re-wired a thrift-store lamp.

Love the lamp! It was a bargain at the thrift store.

I also love that the kids see Mama doing handy-woman stuff, with tools and everything!

 It works!!

Then the rest of the day, the kids kept switching on the lamp, turning on the big lamp, then the small inner lamp inside the green globe, then they both turn on, then off again. Over and over! It'll be a miracle if that lamp makes it a year in this house!  I hope so, I really like it.

This is what happens when you leave your beads out and your nosy little 4-year old brother gets into them-- a big mess on the floor!

They had a choice: sweep and put in the trash = no more jewelry kits

OR

pick each bead up and future jewlery kits will be given.

They chose to pick up all the beads, but not without grumbling.

Lesson learned by the girls, I hope.

Found the old ViewMasters and reels and the kids had fun with them.

Evelyn took over reading the bedtime story tonight. One of the ViewMaster reels was a very, very condensed story of Rumpelstiltskin, so they pulled out the longer version to read.



::30 Days:: 1

The only picture I took today:

We've been playing with the old Spirograph set lately.

Any one remember those?

I had a set when I was a kid and it used to occupy my time for hours.

Probably got rid of it when we moved.

I found this set at yard sale, almost complete.