Christmas music already?

On Saturday morning, as we pulled out for our yard sale run, I  switched on the local Top 40 radio station, and was surprised to hear “O Holy Night.”   Duc, who doesn’t celebrate Christmas, was instantly hooked, though, and wanted to hear Christmas music all morning.  He even started listening to it on YouTube as he did his work on Saturday night.

I guess the station, the first in the area to switch to all Christmas music all the time, is doing its part to get everyone in the early holiday shopping mood.

I didn’t buy much on Saturday, though, so the music clearly didn’t have its desired effect on me, but I was more than pleased to hear my phone “cha ching” several times throughout the morning.  A customer bought five of my copy-paper sized boxes of children’s books.  Since the books were on clearance, so to speak, it wasn’t a large sale (only $135), but the boxes weighed 168 pounds total (21 to 34 pounds each), and it wasn’t fun to manhandle the heavy boxes to get them ready to go.  Even with Media Mail, the customer paid close to $70 in shipping.

Books are heavy, especially five large boxes of them

Ella usually takes my large boxes to the post office, but I think I’ll help her with this load today.

We went to the auction again on Saturday night, and finally got the answer to what would happen if you held an auction and no one showed up.  Actually, about 12 people, including me and Ella, were there.  However, since the main seller was hawking food items (tomatoes, cucumbers, boxes of crackers), it didn’t take long for the auction to close up shop for night since no one was bidding. 

Ella did buy a large plastic storage bench for our porch, not thinking about how we would get it home.  Thankfully, it fit in the back of the pickup truck, but I had to leave the tailgate down, and the glass door up. Oh, did I mention that I had to ride in the back, holding on to the bench, and for dear life, for the high-speed trip home?  My last words to Ella before she got behind the wheel were to drive slowly.  I don’t think she heard me.

Sunday morning dawned much too early, and we were up and gone by 8 a.m. to the 50 percent off sale at a local charity consignment event.  I found some interesting items, including a bag of black and white film for $2. Expired film is near the top of my list of defunct technology that still sells surprisingly well on EBay.

The rest of Sunday was spent packing my weekend sales, including the aforementioned heavy boxes of kids books. I also sold and packed two Cabbage Patch Kids mini dolls, which makes four for the week.  I bought a whole bunch of them at Kmart last year for $.49 each, and they have sat gathering dust until now.  I don’t know what goosed customers’ interest in these ugly little dolls, but they make great stocking stuffers if you want one.

Cabbage Patch Kid, anyone?

I also sold and packed several of the military patches and stickers that I picked up at the estate sale last weekend.  One in particular, the Fightin' Fifty-Fifth patch, sold within minutes of listing it for $9.99 with free shipping.  As Homer Simpson would say, “D’oh!”   Me thinks I listed it way too low.  Still, I made a profit on it, which is all that matters.

Apparently, I underestimated the demand for this patch

Looking ahead, it sounds counterproductive, but I hope there aren’t any worthwhile sales this weekend.  With Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday, and all points in between barreling down upon us, I need to spend some quality time with my computer and inventory.