Yard Sale Craziness

So I haven't posted this past week because I have been so busy preparing for the yard sale we had this past weekend.
I told my neighbor and friend that we were planning a yard sale and she decided to join me out there and have one too. She said her huge attic was completely full. Well,we got permission from the guy who owns the two building and tiny church at the end of our road on the main road. He is actually the guy who owns the building that mother's company rents in another city. He's a really nice guy. So anyway, James and I get up at 5am and start moving things to the end of the road. After the 4 hours or more it took to get it all set up I was ready to call it quits! LOL there was just so much to set up and out. I probably had twice the amount of clothes I had last year and that's saying something because last year I had 4 tables worth and this year I only had one huge table and two smaller ones to work with. I really needed more tables! James helped me before work then left. He came back because he asked his boss if they needed him and he was told it was fine for him to come back home.

Well, by the time he got back I still wasn't even close to being done with all the set up. So I told him to set some things out and gave him specific instructions on how to do it. HMMM! He maybe listened to the first sentence and thought he knew what to do. well of course he didn't have I had to fix it and re instruct him about 3 times and finally when I told him to set out the homemade wheat bread I made for the sale I told him there were there 4 loaves that were different from all the rest and to set them on a separate shelf. When I look over at them I see they are all mixed and I tell him a little exasperatedly that he yet again did it wrong. Now the first few times it wasn't so bad because it was just the clothes and it was easily fixed but this time it was bad because I didn't have the different bread marked in any way! So after telling him it wasn't right he got frustrated and stormed off. I had a customer there at that point but thankfully he was over settling up with my neighbor and didn't pay James any attention.

He decided to come back after 30 mins of cool down time at the house. He apologized and we finished all the set up. It was pretty slow at first but after 10am we had a lot of people stopping and also a lot that passed us and turned around to come back. I sold a lot of the bulk stuff the first day and sold a few clothes. I was surprised I didn't sell more clothes because last year I mostly only had clothes and toys. James went back up to the house for a little while when things slowed down and when he came back he told me my mother had called. The people who rent the building the tiny church was in were complaining about us being in front of their building. I was SO mad. I mean I had permission to be there and there weren't even in there on Friday and Saturdays. I was told I didn't have to move Friday but Saturday I had to set up to the right of their building. I could be out there just not in front of their church! The problem was my neighbor was beside us with all her stuff there. That was the biggest drama on Friday.

Saturday we get up at 5:30(because it was all still set up on the tables and I didn't have to do much prep. It turned out to be more prep than I expected but a lot less than the day before. I made sure none of my stuff was in front of their church and was doing good.I was enjoying talking to the customers and helping find anything they asked for. I had several people that were surprised at the low prices I had on thing. For example, I had a toddler bed with a mattress and all for $10. I know that seems low but I didn't need it and I priced everything to go. I needed to get as much clutter out as I could.

At about 11:30 the preacher man for that church shows up and tells me we are going to have to move. They were going to have a service and needed all the parking space there was! ERRRR!!! I called my mother and she called the owner. He told us that if they are not in there we didn't have to go anywhere but if they were having a service we had to move over to where they could park. My problem with this is there was a whole other side of their church to park on. So I moved over just barely and said they can get their cars in and that was good enough. Well he gets mad and has one of the teens move his car right up next to one of my tables as close as he could and still be able to squeeze out of the car door. All the while shouting, "They are going to learn to respect me!!" To top it off they had a total of 7 cars that all but 2 fit right in front of the building and the two that didn't parked on the opposite side from us, which was closer to the door anyhow! So there really was no need for him to be so incredibly rude. I am so baffled at all this because I really think he only called a service because we were out there. The only time I have ever seen anyone at that church on a Saturday was when they had a yard sale! He just really didn't show what I think a christian attitude should be.

Well all in all the yard sale was a success. We made a little over $350 and got a lot of the junk out of my house. Now my daughters' closet will be able to be use for clothes instead of piles and piles of boxes and bags of clothes. I now will be able to catch up on bills (from since James had his surgeries). I didn't sale much bread. I made 9 big loafs and 7 small ones. I sold 3 small ones! I really thought people would love to get fresh homemade whole wheat bread but I guess not. Now we have a lot of bread. LOL I got a little burned in the sun so if I ever have one again I will be getting me a great big floppy hat.

Poison Control: Kids Eat the Strangest Things

So today I read a blog post about a mom who had to check with poison control to see if dry wall was dangerous when the child ate it. It reminded me of something Chyenne did when she was around 1 year old.

At that age we called her our little goat. She would eat anything. I have pages in my journal that say "Chewed on by our little goat aka Chyenne." So one day she was playing in the living room and we were in the process or adding trim and cleaning up the dry wall mud that had fallen between the wall and the floor (there was about an inch between where it all fell while the work was being done). She decided that the dried mud looked tasty. I pick her up and see she is 'foaming at the mouth' and I am freaking out. I am searching around to figure out what she had eaten and finally my eyes land on the crack. I am like "oh my gosh! She ate the sheet rock stuff!!" I hand her to my husband and run to the phone and call the poison control. The lady patiently tells me that she will be okay and to just give her extra water.

Chyenne is the only one of my four children I have ever had to call poison control for. My oldest is almost 6 and youngest is 2 months old. Well Chyenne(3) decided a month or so ago to drink the whole bottle of gas drops which she pulled out of the diaper bag I left in the living room after changing a diaper. I am in the kitchen cleaning or something and I hear a wet rubbery squeaking. I look over into the kitchen and see she is chewing on something. I made her bring it to me. She brings me the dropper part and I start to realize what it was. I jump over the gate and grab up the now empty bottle and freak. I called poison control just knowing she was going to die of an over dose on simethicone (gas drops). I step in the next room to be able to hear the operator on the phone. She tells me yet again Chy will be okay again just to give her extra water. I go back in the room wit the kids and Chyenne has spit up/puked a little of the drops. My guess on that is that her stomach just couldn't handle the sudden amount of the drops.

I just hope I never have to rush one of them to the ER because they somehow got into something more dangerous. I know I am hoping against hope there. Kids will be kids!

Lazy Mondays, Preschool, & Lemon vehicals

For some reason Mondays are my worst days for house work. I don't ever want to do anything on Mondays. I guess its the fact that its the first day after the weekend and I am still recovering from having everyone home all weekend. I love the week days when Hannah is at school, James is at work, and my mother is at work as well. I only have my 3 youngest at home. They are great. Chyenne & Jordan play great together most days and Adam is a great baby.
Now don't get me wrong, I love my family and love spending time with them. It's just that when everyone is home it gets pretty crazy and loud(mostly James LOL). So by Monday I am glad for the quiet and I just soak it up on and lounge around playing on the net, reading, or watching TV.

Our van, that we just bought in April, has stopped working yet again. This time we cant take it back to the dealer and say fix it even though i know they never really fixed it. They just did something to get it by for a month or two so we would have to fix it later on. So now, I can't go anywhere. Even if I took James to work and my mom put Hannah on the bus it wouldn't work because then Hannah would get home after school and I wouldn't have anywhere for everyone to sit in the car to go back to get James. So I can't go anywhere with out some one else taking us or getting James from work. Hmmmm. House arrest again! Not that I would be going all the time all over the place but it is a good thing to be able to take the kids to the doctor when they need to go. Adam has gotten his siblings cold and is really congested but I have no way of taking him to the doctor. Or take the kids to the play group that just started back up. We dont have the money to get it fixed so I dont know what we are going to do. I just hope something happens that we all need to go somewhere at the same time!

Yesterday was our first successful home preschool day. We are learning about the ocean this month. Yesterday we sang songs and counted, colored, cut out, and pasted seashells. The kids had a blast doing it. I also think they loved having some structured "play." That's all it was to them was playtime. I made sure not to focus on "teaching" them and focus on playing with them and enjoying the time we were spending together. Today we will be "making" a sand pail and adding sand and shells to it.
I ordered these lessons that we are doing from Home Preschool Program. If it wasn't so costly I would be ordering their programs each month because I think they are great. They provide everything from the lesson plans to the crafts and supplies to the music. About the only thing you have to get is the snacks!

2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour 2008

On Monday, my mother and I saw a commercial to announce that Reba McEntire & Kelly Clarkson are coming to Birmingham. We were both like we want to go to that sooooooo bad!! They are my two favorite singers! I have loved Reba's music since I was little and have liked Kelly since Miss Independent and LOVED her since her breakaway album. The fact that they are coming together has me bouncing off the walls!



I don't have any money to spare and neither does my mom. James had to have 2 surgeries back to back last month and we are still trying to catch up on the bills because he was out of work so long. I want to go so bad that I started calculating the money we had to see if I could possibly find an extra $100. Of course, as anyone who struggles financially knows, there is no wiggle room in a very tight budget. I knew we didn’t have it so I started trying to think of ways to get money another way. I tried everyday to win them on the radio but of course every time I called I got the busy signal. I tried to think of ways to make money fast. I looked for anything I had around here I could sell. My husband, who knew how much I really wanted to go, was even willing to give me one of his video games. When I bulked at this one he said something along the lines of,” I know how much you really want to go and you never ever do or buy anything for yourself. You always sacrifice your wants for me or the family and you don’t think twice about it. Its time you have something for yourself." Now of course I bawled at that but unfortunately the games weren't worth enough to pay for the tickets.

So I decided my last resort was to ask my dad (my mother and father were never married and I don't ask my dad for money or anything hardly ever. The last time I asked him for something was when our car had a flat tire and we didn’t have any money to get it fixed. I hate asking him for money because we don’t see each other often and it feels like I am using him. He wasn't around a lot when I was a kid but in recent years he's been great and my kids and I love him to death but we just don't get to see him a lot because we live a good distance apart. But as I said I REALLY wanted to go to this concert. So I asked if he would give me the money for my birthday (October 3rd). I was sooooooooo excited when he said he would! Excited may be an understatement.



So I had the money and I was going to be able to get the tickets! Now I had to go wait in line to get them. Mom and I thought it was a good possibility that there were going to be a lot of people in line for tickets because Reba hasn’t been to Birmingham in 10 years. So she suggested I go up there about 4or5am but I didn’t want to wait that long so I got there (accompanied by the best hubby in the world) at like 3:30am. James thought I was crazy for wanting to go that early and his predictions came true when we got there and no one was in line. We were there for like an hour and a half before the first people got there. I was first in line. The sad thing was when the tickets went on sale at 10am there were only four people there! But I don’t care because I got front row tickets!!! I expected to get okay maybe even good tickets but I never guessed I would get front row!

Now all I got to do is wait for these 61 days to pass. Oh, how slow time goes by when you are waiting for something.

Monster Mushrooms

Well this past week we have had a lot of mushrooms come up in our nieghborhood. There have been some pretty ginornous ones. I first spotted them in my nirghbors yard where I thought a larger white soft ball was there but upon closer inspection it was a huge round mushroom. Two days later it had flattened out completely on top and looked like a large saucer. There are several in my yard too. There are ones that look like pancakes and one that looks like a ladybug half pipe. LOL I can just picture a ladybug on a skateboard doing tricks on it! I'm crazy I know.



There are some normal sized ones too but most of them are huge. I found one this morning that was decaying. It was covered in fruit flies and looked pretty nasty in a cool kida way.

Homeschool Freebie of the Day website

I discovered this wonderful site a little while back. Its a site dedicated to homeschooling families. They have free things for download to help out in teach you children. There are also things for you. I have gotten things like ways to cut your children's hair at home, great stories for the children, great craft ideas, and so much more! I have subscribed to the newsletter and there's even more in there! They put in "subscriber exclusives" in each email. There are the freebies on the site listed, the exclusive freebies, and a "deal of the week" in there sometimes where you get a special discount on some other resource they have tracked down. These are really great! I once got 20 ebooks for $8 when they were originally $50 and they were all very useful!!
I haven't seen anything on this site I didn't like. Check it out here!

Enjoy!

No baby, just crazy

I took a test and nope I'm not pregnant just crazy! LOL as usual.

Going Crazy or Baby?

So, the past week I have had to get up at least a minimum of 2 times a night to pee. I also today decided I wanted to have a handful of raisins as a snack. Then after eating about 2 I decided I wanted some chocolate chips with them. As I was warming my lunch, I also decided that a little peanut butter with them would be good(which I have never fixed or eaten before). I mixed them up with some and started to eat it and decided it still needed something. So, I went back to the kitchen and got some oats and mixed into it. Started to eat this and decided a dash of cinnamon would be the perfect addition. LoL!
All these additions were added like 2 mns apart from each other. After doing all this I realized I was craving this! Another thing going on with me right now is my mind is cloudy and I've been clumsy. What does frequent urination, cravings, mindlessness, and being clumsy sound like to you?
Well to me it sounds like me when I am pregnant. Now, my youngest is 2 months and I have an IUD! If I am pregnant this is a total shock, a welcome one, but none-the-less a shock!
I remember last time I had an IUD my period stopped but it stopped after like 3 months. This time I had my period on August 1st and still haven't started this month. So, I will have to get a test and make sure.