Suzanne Calling

My day started at 4:30. I got up, got out the door, ran an errand to Wal Mart-then picked up my friend Allen and loaded up the van with his belongings that he was selling at the swap meet. Too damn early for my day off, in my opinion. We stuck around until just before noon, he had a financially successful effort. Brought him back home, unloaded his stuff, then came back to my house to prepare for a study session I was to lead. Well, there have been some conflicts between the old roster of the student organization and us setting the students up in the new one. After spending a lot of time on it Friday, we thought it was resolved. It wasn't. So I spent the hour before the session scrambling to enroll the participants so they could log into the session. The session went very well. But, from there, my energy was zapped and I hardly got any of the work done for my classes I had planned for today. Can I have a do-over on my Sunday?

Last week, when we woke at 5am, it was 31 degrees. We reset the alarm and at 6am, it was 30 degrees-so we decided to skip it. Today, it was 39 at 6am, and we got there at 7am, which is normally pretty late to get going. That said, we got a prime location and probably saw most of foot traffic, based on where customers parked and entered. This was about half of what we had two weeks ago. It wasn't a bad return for five hours work. We completely emptied four boxes of stuff out of storage, consolidated down what we do have, and will probably pull more stuff out of the garage and storage this week. We have a Russian family that will come look for us next week, because we have more of an item they wanted, we just didn't bring it all with us. We've even decided that we're going to buy another table to put stuff out, because we'll earn it back in about an hour's time out there selling. It's kind of nice to put some money in our pockets AND clear out...

A few months ago, I participated in my first Swap Meet at the local Drive In. I did very well, almost netting $200 in five hours. This wasn't bad, but I brought home more stuff than I had wanted to do. So, this time, I went in a little more prepared, and I figured I would share what I'd learned. 1. Save your bags. The first time around, many people who purchased items from me asked for bags. Whoops! I didn't bring any. Since then, any grocery bag or decent bag from shopping has been saved in a tub in the garage. It was so much nicer to have bags at the ready-and the customers were happier. 2. Have your supplies ready. I have a little tin with price labels, a sharpie marker, tape, and fluorescent colored index cards. About half of my stuff was already priced, but I tended to price as I went, and it was nice to have them in one easy to find place. Also, I had two tables for my things, but next time, I'll have two tarps to put things on-they'll be goin...

With a overflowing garage and storage unit that don't seem to be emptying themselves of Jane and Mom's stuff, I decided to finally participate in the Swap Meet this weekend. The vendor fee ($14) is reasonable and I figured it wouldn't be hard to make that back-and then some. I was right about that part. For the uninitiated, a Swap Meet is a mix of vendors you'd find at a flea market and people like me, capitalizing on the number of people there to sell items you'd find at a yard sale. Now, I've been to swap meets where it was geared towards one thing, but this one is pretty much whatever you want to bring. The nearest vendors to me were a guy selling tools, electronics and DVDs (He had a stereo to sell, and he had it playing the whole time he was there) and two women with ten tables who looked like they do this every week, with all manner of crystal ware and home items. Then there was me, in the middle, with a bunch of Disney crap. I didn't real...

From the moment I saw the signs, I knew that I'd make the jump to DSLR. Glorious neon, lovingly maintained. That the sign belonged to a business that is very rare to find in the 21st century just made it even more appealing. When we moved over here, we noticed many local businesses with signs created with tubes of the inert gas. It was obvious that these are at least 40 years old by the quantity of bends in them. Last I'd checked, back around 1990, neon was going for $500 a bend. So, I left class tonight and made way over to US Highway 92. These are the first of many that I know I'll be taking of these signs.