Bits of Nothing

Brace yourself for stream-of-consciousness (if I can manage consciousness, that is).

I am looking out the window at some men who are here to trim our trees.  I don't mean they are just trimming them.  They are up in the trees cutting limbs, then cutting sections of trunk, then all the way down to a remaining stump.  A short while ago, I heard a tremendous crash and wondered aloud if they had dropped one of the trees on the house.  But no, it fell beside the house.  It was just VERY LARGE.  Anyway, I keep glancing out, expecting to see one of these guys fall from a tree.  They climb into the uppermost branches and hook themselves on with some manner of safety belt.  Of course, when they are moving from limb to limb, they are not in the safety harness.  You couldn't pay me to go up and do what they are doing.  Since they wield chain-saws, I'm not about to let the boys go outside either.

The boys have been cooped up inside all day (and it is a nice one), now because of the trimmers, earlier because John and I went to a neighboring community town hall to have a garage sale.  It is really a worthwhile venture even though we never break $200 and I always work myself up with stress and dread before the event.  Since it is right on town hall property, it gets plenty of traffic.

I really shouldn't have stressed.  We already had things boxed up and ready from our last sale.  All I did this time was clean out a closet of old shoes, boots and winter clothes.  Basically, John loaded the vehicle this morning, I gathered the money for making change and a few copied images of larger furniture we weren't able to bring but hoped to sell, and we headed off for the grand event at quarter to seven this morning.  By 12:30 we were done and home with $135 in profits (and a piece of furniture pending for another $15).

The group next to us made a killing.  Since several of them had gone in together for the space, they continually asked where they were at in profits.  They had reams and reams of adorable baby girl clothes (all of it from one child, I overheard).  I think the one with the baby clothes and little girl items made over $400.  Shwew!  I'm not complaining, though.  We had a lot of old junk and so much of it was hand-me-down to begin with that I feel quite pleased with our take.  Plus, an older couple across the way from us brought numerous hand-painted bed-frames and yard ornaments.  As far as my eye could tell, they only sold one item.  Poor things.  Hopefully that one item paid for their booth rental.

Needless to say, I'm exhausted.  Plus this week was full to the brim.  Thursday alone could have killed me.  On that day, I had the cardiologist appointment for Bryce (John took him, thankfully, and his surgery is scheduled for early June), two dental appointments, a pre-school graduation ceremony and a kindergarten registration.  Plus, during the week we had a sports physical and two physical therapy appointments (for Bryce's high-ankle sprain).

Now, the men have vanished to take a load of branches and trunks back into the woods for disposal.  A hummingbird has taken advantage of the quiet and is sipping at our hummingbird feeder just outside the window by my computer.  We have all grown quite fond of birdwatching lately.

In fact, we are so fond of our birds that we hired an animal control agency to come this week to root out a bit of a raccoon problem we have been having.  The coons were stealing the bird food from the feeders and leaving waste on the back patio.  It was quite troublesome.   The boys have been excited, though, to watch the traps catch three gigantic raccoons (one, they told us, was pregnant).  We are waiting to see if we net any more.

Well, that's enough nothing for now.  I'd better get off this computer and attempt to read The Tiger's Wife for my upcoming book club meeting.  I've never put it off so late before.  I may just have to skip this month.  Not sure if the book even interests me.