Tale of a Shooting Star…

Wow, I guess I neglected to mention trying my hand at selling on eBay for the first time the other week. I have to admit, they kinda bribed me into doing it. They offered three free listings (including the Gallery extra, for a total of $0.60 per item) for first time sellers. So, I figured, what the heck, I have nothing to lose! I listed a pair of earrings, which didn’t sell, didn’t even get a single hit, but that doesn’t surprise me terribly because the jewelry market on eBay is totally flooded. I listed a highly collectible Longaberger cross stitch ornament kit, which has gone for upwards of $20, but only sold for my opening price of $5.95, but I wasn’t terribly disappointed because I had gotten it for free. 🙂 And finally, I listed a matching, handmade kit of needlework tools – a two-piece dololly, two large marking pins and two small marking pins. And it sold well! I listed it for $9.95 and it ended at nearly $18.00. Not too shabby.

So, I was sitting here tonight, looking at my pile of old stitching stuff that I’ve been trying to trade for a while and decided that I pretty much had nothing to lose in listing a couple of things. They’ve already been long paid for, so if they manage to sell, anything I get is just gravy. I listed two older booklets and an older kit and will see how things do. Selling in threes seems to work so far, so if sometime this week I get at least one bid on at least one item I just listed, maybe I’ll list three more. If I don’t add too many “extras” into the listing, it’s not terribly expensive, so I might as well sell it to someone who will make use of it, right?

We got some more snow last night, an inch or so. Enough that Terry went out again with the snowblower to make sure the driveway was clear. Those bad (in a good way) neighbors of ours across the street where kind enough to snowblow our driveway after Terry left yesterday morning, once they had finished their own, just for good measure. They were so quick that I heard something while I was in the shower and by the time I got out, they were nearly done. It’s nice to have good neighbors.

And that made me realize that no matter how bad some of our neighbors may seem, we actually have it pretty good. We have the wonderful guys across the street, the quiet couple around our age with the two little ones to our left and the family to the right. As much as they seem to be nouveau riche rednecks, they really have been better over the past year than previously. With the exception of the golf ball they drove through the siding on the side of our shed facing them. And the couple other assorted golf balls of theirs that Terry has encountered while mowing the grass through the year. But that’s a relatively minor grumble. No rumbling of a cherry picker for hours upon hours as they string up half a million lights and that infernal plastic Santa and reindeer taking flight between the trees for Christmas. In fact, I don’t think they had any lights on at all this year. Perhaps that fine that we assume went along with the arrest for threatening the detective down the road hit a little harder than we thought. Oh, and there’s the gaping huge hole in their backyard that was probably intended to be the start of a swimming pool last spring. But hey, at least that overgrown, weedy cesspool isn’t on our property, right?

Yep. A big part of the workbook I’m going through this year is about learning to acknowledge the blessings in life. And once you really start to look for them, you realize that we all have quite a few things to be thankful for, no matter what our current situation. That’s proving to be a real eye-opener for me and is helping me to change my attitude.

Oh what a beautiful morning… NOT! 😉 It is not looking very nice out there in the world today. Gray, dreary, presumably cold, raining. Blech!

Oh well, it’s actually a good thing, since everything I need to do this weekend requires me to be parked in front of a computer, pretty much. How exciting! I hope that others out there in the ether have a more promising weekend than I! 🙂

Here’s a recounting of the past few days from our little furbaby’s point of view:

Woofy Christmas, everyone! The past several days have been quite a whirlwind around our house. It started with Mommy and Daddy taking the two days before Christmas Eve off from work. I was all excited because this usually means more playtime and attention for me! Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead, they spent Wednesday and most of Thursday running around the house, stirring up dust, making banging noises on the walls, spraying smelly stuff all over the place and using those loud machines on the carpet that scare me. After all of this, I was ready for a nap, but instead the doorbell rang and in came Grandma, Grandpa and Aunt Ginny! They also brought with them their tiny little furball, Celeste, who doesn’t like to play with me. 🙁 I was excited and overwhelmed by all of the people and all of the presents they brought for under the Christmas tree! Mommy and Grandma stayed up really late that night while Daddy and I went to sleep.

On Christmas Eve, Mommy spent most of the day in the kitchen with her mixer and popping things in and out of the oven a lot. Grandpa helped by running lots of water and clanking dishes together while Daddy spent a lot of time in the basement making noise. I just sat in the living room with my head on my paws, watching Mommy walk back and forth from the oven to the island to the the refrigerator. Whew! She and Daddy looked really tired by the time they were done.

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Well, we’re not quite ready for company, but we have to be by tomorrow afternoon… or else it’s too late! 😉

The lights are on the tree and it’s ready for ornaments. The presents (all of the ones I bought and wrapped, at least) are waiting to be piled underneath, the spare bedroom is spotless and ready to go. Just need to clean up the music room, but Terry has to wrap his gifts first. Still finishing up the main bathroom. Terry finished painting the trim, so it can be installed tomorrow. Then we just need to cleanup, install the door and hang a little stitched bellpull over the toilet.

Everything else will be what it’ll be. 🙂