SURPRISE!

Cost of this awesome antiqued blue entertainment center... $112! (NO, I can't tell you where I got it, then I'd have to Kill You.)

Cost of Husband and Dad moving said entertainment center into house and upstairs... One Homemade Feast of an Italian Dinner




Look on Husband's face when he discovers his 30th Birthday Present lurking inside... PRICELESS!

Happy 30th Kenny! See, sometimes moving furniture for me is not so bad.

What's a Henway?

About 10 pounds. Chuckle, Chuckle, Snort, Snort...

What's a Fenway... ticket to the Neil Diamond concert worth? Or rather, 4 of them? I don't know, YOU tell ME! I got a little carried away with a sudden offer to buy tickets, and My Husband thinks Crackling Rose is some newfangled Duraflame log so I doubt he'll want to go.

Seat location: section 14-107, row KK, seats 1-4

Tiptoe Through the Tulips

and then Thrash the Living Daylights out of them! I remember now why I don't buy fresh flowers. I thought it was just because I'm too cheap but then splurged this week for a hint of spring on the table. No sooner had I set them out than my resident mobsters The Felini Brothers showed up to put a hit on them; I think the orders came straight from Don Corleone. I can't complain though - we put these two cats on the roster shortly after buying our house from a woman who showed us all the places she regularly scattered mouse poison including - her SILVERWARE drawer! Gross. Now Spring is producing some critters who obviously haven't heard about the gangsters that live here. Turns out the tulips were the 2nd casualty of the day... just be glad I didn't take a picture of the 1st!

Come on in, the Water's Fine!

I called my husband at work today and told him since it was such a nice day, I decided to open the pool. "REALLY!" he exclaimed; "Are you sure you're up for all that work by yourself?" My first thought was Um, it's really NOT all that much work but before I could respond he continued: "I mean honestly, I've been dreading it. You know the cover fell in, right? So it's full of pine needles. You're going to have to climb in to get them out, it might be really cold, but you can use my wetsuit." OH. RIGHT. THAT POOL... I didn't have the heart to tell him that's not the one I was talking about. (Note to Self: Schedule Professional Pool Opening.)

Tales From The Crypt

Well my garage USED to be where bad furniture went to die but right now, I'm nursing some pieces back to life with transfusions of fresh paint... and these puppies are about to be whelped just in time for the 20% off STOREWIDE SALE this weekend!! I never mark 'up' to mark 'down' for a sale so swoop in and get these at 20% off the always-budget-friendly Salvage Chic prices!! They're sure to go fast, don't say I didn't warn ya...

A True Kodak Moment

Here's something you don't see every day; Yard Sale Buddy handing money over to ME, for something he sold at his Yard Sale! This sharpening stone has been festering in his yard since we got it as part of a clean-out last July. We did have the stand it's supposed to sit on, but it fell apart quickly after we got it. Normally when he sells something I own an interest in, I tell him to keep the money for the Dunkin Fund; but this Saturday was exceptionally slow at the shop due to the influx of Yard Sales in the neghborhood. Yard Sale Buddy had a banner weekend because a kindly neighbor had put a Yard Sale ad on Craigslist for him; I was sick and tired of him calling to say "I sold my wagon wheels... I sold that mailbox... I've got people all over my yard throwing money at me..." So when he called with yet another list of sold items and I heard "And not only that, I sold that wheel we got from XXXXX for $40 so I have $20 for you", I immediately called Channel 4,5 and 7 news and requested a film crew. Unfortunately Chet Curtis & his colleagues were tied up with what they called "Real" News so I was stuck taking this photo myself. But hey, 20 bucks... as my dad would say, 'It's better than a stick in the eye!"

A Watched Pot Never Boils

and apparently, Watched Trash never gets Picked! That seemed to be the way it went yesterday when my mom and I tackled that Big Grey Elephant in the yard no one wanted to talk about... My Garage. I had great intentions of doing it "Clean Sweep" style with piles of keep/sell/donate but then we figured it was easier to haul it all out first and address the items later. Now it is really unfortunate that my detached garage is way in back of the house, because soon the driveway was full of what could have been The Best Impromptu Yard Sale Ever. And WOW, I could see the walls of my garage! There was no way I was going to fill it back up with all these well-intentioned projects that I am never going to get around to; that's what got me in this mess in the first place.

I started out slowly by placing a select group of especially needy furniture on the curb. A piece or two got picked up when I wasn't looking so I filled in the holes with more stuff and then the thought of getting rid of it all was so liberating, I went totally haywire and loaded the whole sidewalk up with wall-to-wall furniture. We decided to go out to lunch because it was around that time and it would also be convenient for us not to be home if the police came knocking like they did that one time my yardsale obstructed traffic. And as for Watched Trash never getting Picked, the REVERSE is totally true too! By the time we got back, all of our Unwatched Trash was GONE! Nothing to do but load that sidewalk up again. I think I burned 1/4 tank of gas just driving stuff up and down the driveway all day.

Now CHECK OUT my garage!! I was so excited I called my Husband and when he answered asked "Is this the Owner of the Cleanest Garage in Halifax?"
Long Pause and then his response: "You DEFINITELY have the Wrong Number." Boy was he surprised when he got home.






OK, so I DID keep just a FEW 'Projects'...


And there's still a small pile of stuff in the middle of the floor to deal with, but I ran out of patience... not to mention DAYLIGHT

The Little Drummer Chick

Look What I stole from Mack, Pa-Rumpa-Pum-Pum...



I thought flowers would look Wicked Cute in this Old Drum...

I brought it home because you need a special tool to get drum heads off, and Kenny has one, Rumpa-Pum-Pum, Rumpa-Pum-Pum...



of course he took one look at it and wanted to keep it so now Mack gets $15 and I have No Drum, I have No Drum....

Here's what it might have looked like if I wasn't so DUMB!
Next time I will just sneak the tool out of the house.