Not sleepy yet.....

but I should be!
Did a lot today, for me anyway.
We're cleaning out the garage, and doing the downsizing thing... yuk!

I don't mind getting rid of clothing, kitchen things, dishes and that sort of stuff, but it breaks my heart to put books in a bin for the half-price bookstore.... for what you get for them you might as well give them away, but either solution goes against every fiber in my body! I LOVE BOOKS! Been collecting them for about 40 years now. Gave up a ton of them when we moved from Iowa to Arizona, and we're really running out of room, so we're going to do it again. So I'm keeping a couple of authors I REALLY like (Dick Francis, Tony Hillerman, Charlotte McLeod,  Max Brand) and my reference books, and hope to replace some of them, some day.

We went thru clothes boxes..... Mostly  mine. My cancer was a built in weight control, according to the doctor, and ever since the cancer got smaller, my weight went up, with the result, that I now am 2 sizes bigger than I was 2 years ago...... My business suits, jeans, t-shirts, dress-shirts... nothing fits any longer.... so it all went... I think I have 2 pairs of jeans and 10 t-shirts left.... but lots of room in the dresser :-)

In a tie with the books.... The hardest part of the last few days was the Teddybears! LOVE those little guys. Been collecting them since I came to America, and Mike gave me the first one after our first dinner here. Most of them we got for a specific reason, from a friend as a gift, or on a trip, so they all had special memories attached. We gave all but a couple to the Childrens Hospital here in Cedar Rapids... They have a good home, but it was hard.... Isn't it strange what tugs on you .........

Now mind you, most of this "work" is done with me sitting on a chair in the middle of things, and Mike moving boxes, unpacking and repacking. However, I'm bushed like I would have been after a hard day working in the stables, years ago..... Dearly hoping that will get better!  The reason this is done in the garage, and not where you would normally find these things, (in the house) is that when we moved here, I was so sick, I literally couldn't walk, and Mike had to do everything, so we decided to put everything but the bare necessities in the garage, and "get to it later".......... Riiiiiight! That was a year and a half ago.

We're going to put a lot of things on CraigsList, but we're finding out that people want lots of stuff, but they mostly want it for free. Now I agree, free is good, but you don't have to get nasty if people are asking money for things... Do you?  I looked thru the "wanted" part of the site, and emailed a couple of people... never heard back from them. In itself not a big deal, but if you ask, and somebody offers... the polite thing is to let them know you're not interested.....or atleast, that's what I thought... THAN I made the mistake of calling..... WOW. I know times have changed, and the normal niceties aren't observed so much anymore, but JEEZ!!  This lady blew me away! I called, asked if she was still looking, and said we were selling what she was looking for.... so far so good. Than she asked what we wanted.  I named our price, and got a tirade, on that she was not about to pay good money for something that should be free, because it wasn't worth anything to anybody anyway, and she would be able to find it easily somewhere else and to not bother calling again........ and she hung up on me.

Now, don't get me wrong, but if it's worth nothing to anybody... why did she want it? Since when is it perfectly acceptable to give someone an earful who is trying to help you out? Where not asking much, we did our figuring, what did we pay for it, how old is it, what would it reasonably be selling for, and than we take 10% off..... seemed fair to us. And with Mike off work, every little bit helps...... And than, there's my favorite: the bartering.... If we wanted 20$ for a $50 dollar item, we'd ask for $20..... drives me nuts! LOL

As you will learn, there's a couple of things, that "get my dander up", so to speak... courtesy (or lack thereof) is definitely one of those things.... I've read on some of the blogs I follow of people going off on designers, because it's not the style they like to see... but hey, if it's a freebie, and you don't like it, don't pick it up! If you paid for it, and don't like it, don't blame the designer, but look at it before you hit the "confirm purchase"button.... It seems that it's easier to be rude these days, than to use common sense. Common courtesy seems to be a dying art as well, as Mike found out the other day. He's a gentleman, short and sweet (the saying, not Mike LOL), so he sees this "lady" coming up to a door he has opened to let me thru, and he keeps it open for her. I thought that was nice of him.... obviously I was the only one that had that thought. She stopped in the middle of the doorway, turned on him and starts yelling at him, that she is very capable of opening the door for herself, and she doesn't need some chauvinistic pig to do it for her!

I just about came unglued!  I just looked at her and told her to go take a flying leap off a cliff, get that chip off her shoulder and go see a shrink! I was soooo mad!  Mike just kinda looked at me funny.... I have no idea of anybody was around, but I really didn't care. He didn't mean anything by it, he didn't make any comments, he was just being nice.... no need to turn that around like that?

It's just something that gets to me.... We're all busy, we're all stressed, we all have more things to do in a day, than we have time to do in a week, and more things to handle than we are able to, but is that an excuse to just forget about anybody else? Let me know what you think? Obviously, I was either born a couple of decades too late, or I need an attitude adjustment LOL

Stepping off the soapbox, and will try and get some sleep. Have a date with a paint-can and a friend tomorrow..... Read," Mike will probably do most of the painting, while Ruth and I talk while trying to get one wall done" LOL

"Night!