Totally Exhausted!

Wow - I feel like I have been barely able to keep my head above water this past week. And it's not going to be any different this coming week.

A brief rundown:


Re: my building ... It's coming along slowly but surely. I'm getting a little discouraged. I honestly had no idea there was so much work to go into it before I could move in. The electricity is all hooked up and tested. It's fully insulated. The drywall is almost done. The drywall is on the ceiling and almost all the walls. It will still need taped, mudded, and painted before I can move in. I had really hoped to have all of that done by last weekend so that I could get moved last week, and then get my daughter's room (my current eBay room) painted and move her in before she starts school Tuesday. We got close. But my husband is back to day shift tomorrow, and then evening classes starting tomorrow evening for 4 nights a week. Which leaves him a grand total of 2 days to be home each week. I'm disappointed that it didn't happen on my timeline, but I do greatly appreciate how hard my husband has been working on it. My brother-in-law used to do drywall for a living, so I'm contemplating just hiring him to finish it off this week. I dunno ...

We had a yard sale the last 2 days. Those are always exhausting. And I don't know if it's too late in the summer for people to be out yard saling, or what was going on. But it was the most disappointing yard sale I've ever had. I made significantly more on eBay during those 2 days than I did at the sale. With eBay being as slow as it has been lately, that's really saying a lot.

Although that last sentence isn't very fair. My eBay sales are back up to about 80% of where they were last year, after such a hugely significant drop over the last several months. My bills have increased over the summer too, so even with increased sales, I STILL feel like I am spinning my wheels and getting nowhere. But it's encouraging to see lots of packages going out the door every morning.


I sold some "new" ink cartridges for my mother-in-law last week. I got a message overnight last night saying that they weren't new, and that they were defective and printed mostly magenta. Unfortunately, I already paid my mother-in-law for the sale, so I'll be losing out big time on those. Lesson learned. :(

Remember when I mentioned that microwave turntables sell in bunches for me? Yesterday, I got an offer on one (I countered and never heard back), PLUS I sold two others. All in one day. That used up almost all of my packing peanuts, so hopefully I don't sell anymore until I can get some more packing peanuts.

I had one buyer buy 3 different lots of school books the other day. She bought a lot of 16 Newbery books, a lot of 5 PA K12 cyber school textbooks, and the history curriculum that I used with my 4th grader last year. Our 2 younger kids will be using a different curriculum throughout their school years, so we didn't need those history books anymore, as much as I loved them. She paid $75 + shipping for all of them and paid immediately. That was a very encouraging sale during an otherwise BAD day. :)

Other than that, none of my other sales really stand out. They have been nice and steady, ranging from $10-$50. Lots of variety, but nothing with an interesting story behind it.

I have an enormous mess in my house, so I need to go into yard-sale-recovery mode for the rest of the afternoon. We also have a church picnic this evening that I need to make a dessert for. My daughter is at my parents' house for a sleepover, so I'll have to stop out and pick her up this afternoon. I'm playing the piano at church tomorrow, so I need to find a song for prelude. My to-do list is very long for today. Guess I'd better sign off...