The Sale is OVER!!!

This weekend was the last weekend for the moving/estate sale for my in-laws. It is really, finally over-whew!!! Their sale ran for four weeks, and they got rid of a LOT of stuff. This weekend was really slow, it really wasn't worth opening on Saturday after not much action on Friday. So we packed it all up in boxes and bags and a lady from Habitat for Humanity was going to come today to see what she could take for them. We have names and numbers of 3 others who will take it off their hands as well.

I ended up coming home early on Saturday, rather than Sunday. On Thursday, I noticed I was having the symptoms of an ear infection, so I stopped at Urgent Care before I headed north. The whole appointment was really weird...when you go in for ear pain/possible ear infection (I've gotten these all my life, so I'm pretty good at discerning when I'm getting one), and the doctor pokes your belly-like the doughboy and asks if your belly hurts-then pokes your calf and asks if your calf hurts...it's kind of weird!

I got a prescription for antibiotics, and headed north. I wasn't feeling all that great, and it was raining like crazy, so I decided to stop at the halfway point at one of my favorite antique malls. I had Lucy with me, waiting in the car while I shopped, and another 2 hours of driving, so I was going through pretty quickly.

I got about 1/3 of the way through when an older gentleman, a worker, came up to me and said, "You're going through here pretty fast." He had a suspicious look on his face when he said it, almost as if he thought I was going to try to grab something and run for it. I laughed and told him about the dog and the drive ahead of me.

He asked me to tell him what my three favorite antique malls were...not to put me on the spot-he said. I told him LAO, Knightsbridge, and this one. He'd never heard of LAO or Knightsbridge. Then he asked what I collect. I keep laughing to myself when I saw his face after I started listing things...vintage Pyrex, vintage Fiesta, vintage tablecloths, aprons, quilts, hankies, yardsticks, kitchenware...he just kind of nodded and wandered off. I guess I passed the test, because I never saw him again while I finished my quick shopping trip.

I just chalked it up to another weird experience in my weird day. No hard feelings against the mall, or the employee. I won't name the mall because I really do like it a lot and I don't want you to get a bad impression over something so trivial.

I got to my in-laws a couple of hours later, and spent a nice evening chatting and visiting with them. The next day it was frigid! Everything that got soaked in the rain on Thursday, was covered in ice Friday morning! I put out the signs and hoped for lots of traffic from the Craigslist and Facebook ads. It was painfully slow! I shoveled wet leaves and pine needles off their driveway to stay warm-yes shoveled!

We closed the sale at three and went to the Lodge in Lewiston for their Friday fish fry, a neighbor joined us, and we were treated to a gorgeous rainbow over the lake. It came and went several times, as the rain and sun came and went. I got a few shots that I think are awesome!

On Saturday, we decided to just pack it all up, and since my ear was getting worse, and my SIL suggested I go home, I did. I drove in and out of rain, sleet and sunny skies, but made it home just fine. Later, around bed time, my ear pain flew off the charts, so today after church, I went to the emergency room at U of M.

The doctor there said it looks like a small perforation and he gave me a prescription for some heavy duty pain meds, and said I could take Ibuprofen with it, if I needed it. I'm glad he said that! I did need both-isn't that crazy!?! Right now, I'm not feeling very much pain, but still a lot of pressure in my ear. He said the antibiotics should do the trick in a couple more days, but if not, I'm to see my regular doctor.

I'm hoping it will be all cleared up by next Friday, when I head north again to help pack their boxes into a rented trailer and their truck for the drive to Florida. My SIL says it is forecasted to snow up there next weekend!!! I'm so not ready for that!!!

How was your weekend? I'm thinking I'm not going to know what to do with myself in a couple of weeks when I'm not running either north or south to help with estate sales!!!

This is what was left to be boxed and bagged up...

Got a good chuckle over this one...Lots of first aid...4 little sample tubes...$3!!!

 Out of a million and a half c-clamps, only one lonely little guy is left...

Here are some other random shots from the weekend...

 Here's proof! Mr. I don't like dogs, does have a soft spot---notice the right hand sneaking in a little petting... :)

 Rewarded with some beautiful sunshine after clearing the leaves, acorns and pine needles from the driveway!

 Lewiston Lodge-great lake views from the dining room, Fun, family atmosphere, great food!

 The rolls are fresh, and delicious-the sweet butter has walnuts.

 I skipped the fried fish and got a turkey bacon wrap-could only eat half after eating all those fries!

They were all decked out for Halloween-when I told her to pose with him, he started growling and vibrating.

 I just can't get enough of the rainbow shots!

 Had a little chuckle when this came up on the GPS...

 Yes, it really is a road!

 Took a longer route home so I could drive through Luzerne. My grandparents had a cabin there, then lived there from 1980's until about 7 years ago when a forest fire went through and destroyed their home. My parents also had a cabin there when I was growing up-LOTS of fun memories!!!

Ma Deeter's-used to be one of 4 landmarks in town, along with a gas station (that is gone now), a party store and a hardware store.

Snowbirds no more-off to warm, sunny Florida!

All set for October--part 2

I really love that the owners of our antique mall have a wonderful system that you can log into every night after 8 pm to view your sales for the day. You don't have to keep driving up there to see what has sold or worse yet wait a month to find out you sold a big piece of furniture and have had a gaping hole and glassware all over the floor for three weeks.

I found out on Saturday that I had sold a table and two chairs, so Sunday after church, I loaded up a couple of dressers from the barn and took them over. I didn't paint them, I bought them and took them over as-is. I really like them both, but we don't have room and we don't need any more dressers.

So, here is what it looked like when I left Sunday afternoon...

As you can see, other than the table and chairs, not much has changed since Dealer Day...a few smalls have sold, but not much. Sometimes I wonder if store sales are such a good thing after all. Usually it is slow for a while after the sale, and during the sale, you end up losing money because of the discount...plus I think all of the gorgeous weather has been keeping people away.

When we were there on Sunday some neighboring dealers were talking to us about how slow their sales have been. I think they are about ready to do a rain dance to get more shoppers in to the mall!

How are your sales doing this month? Hope you are having a better month than I am!!

Bumper Crop!!!

When we bought our house, the yard was wide open and for the most part pretty tree-less. There were a few pine trees in the front along the road and in the back a few apple trees, but that was about it. We've added all kinds of maple trees that we dug from my parent's property before they moved north and hundred of pine trees that we planted as seedlings over the years.

The pine trees are growing like weeds and we have been giving them away to anyone who wants to come dig them up, and now the apple trees are over loaded with apples! On Sunday we picked close to a bushel of red and yellow delicious apples.

Our oldest son was on a health kick last year and bought himself a pretty expensive juicer, among other things. He was really faithful about using all of his gadgets and appliances until a few months ago when he got really busy with work and school, now they just sit in the cupboard most of the time.

So we decided to make our own cider with the apples from our trees and his juicer! We mixed the apples 50/50 and after juicing them, I filtered them three times through cheesecloth. YUM! We got three gallons of cider and it is just as good as anything you can buy in the store!

We froze a bunch of it, and hopefully we'll be able to get one more batch of it picked and made before we get a big frost!

 Foamy!

 Sticky, mess!

YUM!!!