Cleaning Out the Attic

Because of some concerns having to do with the structure of our house . . . namely, the weight of the book collection being upstairs and the added weight of Christmas decorations in the attic above . . . we're cleaning out the attic. These bins are just the decorations, but we still have the Christmas village, stuffed animals and "hope chest" items (more like "hope attic"!).

In case you don't hear anything else from this blog in the next few days, you'll know that we got stuck up there!

The Early Bird Catches the Worm

This year we joined the ranks of all the crazy nuts that wake up before sunrise to "hit the stores" on the day known as Black Friday. I know, you think that we really lost it. Well, actually, we've been crazy for years . . . but not quite this crazy!

The sale that caused all this was Flannel @ $1.29/yd. at JoAnn Fabrics. Ahhhhhh! You all know that wonderful saying, 'the early bird catches the worm', so we were up at 5:00am and at the store by 6:30am. By the time we left at 2:00pm (that did include a lunch break at Panera) we had bought pieces of 94 different flannels!

We're planning a bunch of baby quilts. They're great to have around in case of baby showers and/or unexpected gifts, and we only have one left in our stash from the quilt project. We also got quite a bit of flannel to make assorted nursery things for ourselves, as there were some prints we just couldn't pass up. In the end, all the day's purchases filled four medium-sized Rubbermaid Roughneck bins! Now it's on to Christmas secrets . . .

Samwise vs. Tricky Woo: Any Similarities?

"Tricky Woo". He's that fantastic dog character in the All Creatures Great and Small stories by James Herriot. He is an overweight, buff-colored Pekingese. His owner, Mrs. Pumphrey, is an elderly widow lady who spends much of her vast fortune on sweet, little Tricky. Tricky is never allowed to eat plain old dog food --- he eats dinners fit for royalty and always snacks on chocolate and bonbons. For his daily exercise Tricky mounts a large velvet pillow and is carried around by the gardener.



Elizabeth seems to see similarities between Tricky Woo and my cat, Samwise. Is that fair? Okay, so Sammy is 17lbs. and buff-colored, but he's not overweight, just a big-framed fellow. Okay, so he's sleepy for twenty hours a day and tired for the other four, but he gets up for his afternoon stretch and snack. He even walks himself to the food bowl! Okay, so he isn't the brightest tool in the shed and he eats anything on the floor that fits in his mouth --- but he never eats "people food". Okay, so I have spent a portion of our not-so-vast wealth on special toys that are only for Sammy, but he loves lying on my bed, on the five inches of memory foam and the down comforter, while you wiggle toys over his head for him to bat at with his paw.



Alright, so he's spoiled rotten, but he is the best cat in the world --- in my opinion. He waits to be the first cat allowed in our room every morning, and he's always the last one out at night. He stays in for some extra "lovin's", and is very vocal if he doesn't get enough! All in all, I don't see any resemblance between Samwise and Tricky, but . . .

Selling on eBay is . . . Fun??

It's that time of year when we're facing the idea that we're going to be closed up all Winter and Spring in the house with all the "stuff" that's around the place. So, the natural answer is to go through it and get rid of some of this excess stuff, right? That's exactly what we've been doing for the past two weeks. A lot of the stuff is just going out to the thrift store, but some of it has been going on eBay . . . you know, those old ship models that've been hanging around that nobody wants to put together, not to mention that we've decided to weed through the books and clean out the attic!

Yesterday was a big day. Mom and I spent a long time sorting through stuff, listing on eBay, packing up and taking pictures. Of course, the cats thought they would help too! They all voted this some very hard work, as shown by these pictures. Aren't they great helpers?!





At least Beatrice fell asleep on the job (right in the middle of calculating the shipping weight of a package on our very technologically-advanced baby scale), but the rest all had the nerve to get in their beds and baskets! They're cute company though, you gotta admit.
If you want to check out our eBay stuff just CLICK HERE.