Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Why didn’t you write a blog today?

Ella asked me this on Monday, and my reply was that I didn’t have anything to write about. Oh, I can write about almost anything, but I have a hard time putting pen to paper, figuratively, when I don’t think it’s germane to the spirit of this column and/or at least moderately interesting to all three of my loyal readers.

To help alleviate my writer’s block, so to speak, Ella suggested a couple of interesting weekend topics that might make good reading, so here goes.

We attended a book sale/flea market on Saturday, and I got five boxes of good sellable books.  While I perused the stacks of books, Ella swept into the flea market area looking for quality stuff.  An annoying volunteer was keeping up a running narration on a loud speaker, and mentioned that several of the Star Wars items from the flea market had already been snatched up.  I figured it had to be Ella in possession of the Force-related items, and I was right.  Good girl.

After that sale, we attended another fall-festival type event, and I had my first ever professional massage that lasted a whole seven minutes.  A massage therapist, complete with chair and table, was among the vendors, and was offering her services for $1 per minute.  Since my fall in August, I have been suffering from self-diagnosed sciatica (a royal pain in my butt that extends down my left leg to my ankle), and I was already hurting from bending and stooping at the book sale.

Somehow, though, she convinced me to hop up on the table, and she proceeded to perform a compression massage on my back and leg.  Despite believing that her healing hands would put me in the hospital, and being somewhat embarrassed that she was working me over in full view of everyone else at the festival, some of whom made comments as they walked by, it didn’t hurt (much), and actually felt pretty good.  When I finally stood up, the pain in my leg was gone.  I gladly paid her the $7, complimented her on her technique, and walked around, without limping, for the rest of the festival.

Unfortunately, when I got back in the truck, and sat on an apparent pressure point, the pain returned.  Oh, well, back to popping Ibuprofen.

The other topic that Ella suggested was mentioning our brushes with wildlife after the auction on Saturday night.  On the way home, we saw a fox cross the street onto our land.  We’ve seen deer, squirrels, turtles, chipmunks, and snakes, but this was the first fox.   We left the boxes acquired at the auction in the truck until yesterday, when Ella decided to unload them.  Late in the morning, I received a frantic call from her regarding a small rodent in one of the boxes.   She wasn’t going to touch any more of the boxes until I came home and eliminated the pest.  So, on my lunch hour, I went home only to find no mouse in the box.  I suppose the little guy is now snake food in our woods.

Since it’s Wednesday, I guess it’s time to start thinking about the weekend.  Two large sales are on the calendar for Saturday, with one starting at 7 a.m., and one starting at 8 a.m.  I figure we can spend 30 minutes at the first sale, which will give us just enough time to drive to the other one.  The 8 a.m. sale has a preview party, with barbecue dinner, on Friday night, but I have a hard time paying $25 each for the privilege of shopping early, even with the lure of pulled pork.

I would talk about sales, but I don’t like talking about non-existent things.

I will throw out one BOLO, though.  I sold a book, Magnificent Marriage: 10 Beacons Show the Way to Marriage Happiness, for $41 in August.  I just received a message from the customer asking for another copy.  There are only two copies on Amazon right now, and both are selling for $600.  Over on Alibris, the cheapest copy is $95.  Ebay has it for $99.  So, if you see it, grab it.

Have a great rest of the week, and a productive weekend.

10 comments:

  1. I don't blame Ella for not wanting to finish the unpacking. I had a rodent/thrifting experience once, too. It was last year, when we purchased a storage unit at auction. We got everything home and unloaded in the yard and started sorting it. We found two mice in the process, but thankfully both were already dead. Hope your sciatica pain goes a way soon. Best of luck at your sales this weekend- pork or no pork :)

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    1. We usually find roaches, both dead and alive, in boxes that we acquire. I even found a live roach in a book one time.

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  2. Maybe your doctor can get you a script for some physical/massage therapy. Hey if it worked for a little while, maybe a weekly or bi-weekly treatment will help even more.
    A mouse in a box is surely startling, but bugs freak me out more, especially the big southern roaches. One went crawling across my dining room floor yesterday. I think I saw a license plate on it. Hubby came to my rescue just like you did for Ella. I'm glad she gave you some topic suggestions. I always enjoy your posts, whatever the subject, and I'm sure that more than 3 readers enjoy them as well. :-)

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    1. Thanks for the kind words. The big roaches are always a concern, especially given the inventory from suspect sources that comes into our house. I always make a point of unpacking boxes outside just for that reason. Otherwise, I think "Fred," our resident lizard, and his family that run around the outside of our house feast on the creepy critters before they enter our humble abode.

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  3. I just wanted to pop in and say that although I very rarely comment, I do follow your blog (via Feedly), and you are one of my very favorite blogs to read (out of about 200)!

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    1. Thank you. How do you find time to do anything else with 200 blogs to read?

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    2. Haha, the nice thing about Feedly is that it will let you group blogs and sort accordingly, so I can prioritize reading the blogs I really enjoy!

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  4. I hope so, too. Thanks for your comments.

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