I'm Baaaaaaaack!

It's true.
I actually feel like writing again, which is always a good sign. I haven't had much time or energy to post anything until today.
I was your basic "bump on a log" for most of the week. I didn't feel like doing anything productive at all. Even the bare minimum was draining, and I was an enormous grouch.
But I'm back now, and have a long post to catch you up.

The highlight of my week was the two-part Oprah show about compulsive hoarders. This woman and her husband had a 3,000 sq. ft. house and once they decluttered it they filled 15 commercial dumpsters with trash (that's 75 tons) and then filled an 11,000 sq. ft. warehouse with the saleable goods and held a 4 day rummage sale. They made $13,000 dollars!
Now, I do save things that I probably don't need to, and we do have way too much clutter, but I have to admit I felt a little better about the mess in my house after that episode.
And, I got quite a few good tips about decluttering.

Ominous music begins to build ...

And then Friday rolled around. We'd been talking about it for weeks, but the Oprah show was the catalyst.

My mother-in-law came over early, and then she and I and my hubby dove into the spider-infested dungeon that was our garage. Our neighbor and my fellow blogger Anne even came over and pitched in. Anne tried to prevent me from keeping the unnecessary items (Ha! I'm nothing if not sentimental.) and tried to stop me from spending a half hour cleaning out one box. I just couldn't help myself. I kept finding things I hadn't seen for years and had forgotten all about. I even found notes my best friend in high school and I had passed back and forth.

Needless to say, by the time we quit at 8 p.m., we were exhausted. So what relaxing activity did we have planned for the next day?

Why, a yard sale ... of course !

(Did you detect the sarcasm? Was it obvious?)

We woke up at the crack of early (beastly 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday), dragged out all of the boxes and furniture and random pieces of junk and stuff, and spread it all across our yard and the yard of the house next door. (Which is empty, thankfully. We needed the space.) Anne donated some items and our friend Rose brought an SUV filled with stuff she wanted to sell. My mom made the signs and then she, my mom-in-law and Anne helped all day.

As strange as it may sound, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. We did have the usual idiots who offered ridiculous amounts of money for some things. One guy told my husband he'd give him $350 for the Toyota pickup we had for sale.

Dude.
Seriously?
I could sell the BUMPER for that.
Bite me.

Other than those occasional hiccups in the day, it was good. The weather was beautiful - around 80 - and all the kids played really well together (our 2, Anne's 1 and Rose's 3) and they even made some money selling lemonade.

Did I forget to mention I tripped (don't laugh) over the stereo speakers that were mine when I was in junior high school? Yep, I hurt my back again. Only this time I twisted it the opposite direction. So, theoretically speaking - I should have twisted it back into it's proper shape, right?
Nope.
I sat in a chair with an icepack on my back for most of the day, just handling the money.

At 3:30 we called it a day and sent everyone home.
At 4:30 we were trying to keep our eyes open.

One kid was ready for bed too, but one kid was still pinging with energy. Seven year old boys are so strange. We had time for everyone to get a shower (except the seven year old, go figure) and eat, and then we all went to bed at 8, with much protesting from the seven year old.

Me: Payton, you don't have to go right to sleep. You can stay up and watch t.v. I just want to go to bed!

That's some first-class parenting, huh?

I was asleep before 10:00 ... ME... Ms. Insomnia !!!

This morning we woke up at 6 and heard the wind whipping and howling outside.
So, we did the only smart thing.
We called Anne and Rose and my mom and Kirk's mom and cancelled the second day of the yard sale.
Yay!!

Then, Kirk and Katie drove around to take down the signs - which the wind had already done - and then went to the store for maple and chocolate bars.
Double yay!!

Me?
I rolled over and went back to sleep for a few hours.