Hanging Head in Shame

Bad blogger!  Bad! 

I can’t believe how far I’ve let this little blog slip — and I have no excuse, either.  I mean, I’m growing another human and all that and so that keeps me busy; but not too busy to make some time to write down my thoughts and document our little life so that ALL YOU INTERESTED AND LOYAL READERS (ahem) can get your fix. 

So here I am… in my 7th month of pregnancy, still feeling great and still having a hard time believing this is actually happening — to US this time. 

This past weekend we took a big step in Operation Get Ready For Bambina — we held a sidewalk sale to get rid of oodles of stuff that was preventing us from actually having room for a baby.  We spent the last few weeks (oh, wait, really I spent the last few weeks because let’s talk turkey here and admit that The Brit didn’t help much at all since it’s baseball season after all)… anyway, I spent the last few weeks cleaning out closets, drawers, cabinets, storage areas… deciding what is staying and what is going… all in an effort to arrive at a perfectly empty second bedroom.  The goal was a blank canvas on which to build a lovely nursery.

Some dusty work, time spent with flourescent dot stickers and a sharpie, some tough decisions (and some really easy ones!)… a trip to the copy shop and a long walk to post flyers around Hoboken… and two-and-a-half hours spent out in front of our building yeilded $260 and a room so empty it now echoes.  Woot!

Things I learned at my gate sale:

• Two grown, I’m sure otherwise mature, women will indeed fight over a set of iced beverage glasses, and they will plead their case to me like I’m Judge Judy.  The glasses were $10 for a set of 12.  They were cheap crystal — an ill-informed, not-off-the-registry wedding gift — really, ladies — a gate sale brawl?
• Delivery seals the deal.  If I saw someone looking at one of the small pieces of furniture or bulkier items we had out there, a simple “If you take that, my husband will help you get it home” seemed to sealed the deal.  All small furniture items were GONE in the first 45 minutes — and with very little haggling thanks to The Brit’s delivery service.
• The point was to unload crap, not make a lot of cash… so we priced things to really move.  Barely anything was more than $5… but because we are apparently junk magnets we had enough that it really started to add up.  This is regardless of the fact that I was really ready to deal — if someone bought several items, I often gave them the last one free… a few bucks here and there, but most the crap I would have paid THEM to take off my hands!
• Nosy neighbors make great gate salers… one guy from a building across the street shouted out from his window while we were setting up — “Hey!  How much for the desk?”  We yelled up the price and he came down, paid and went on his way.  Awesome!

Anyway… we were done by 1pm, ready to enjoy the rest of our day.  Perfect for a few hours work. 

Next up — a closet redo from The Container Store (elfa rocks!) being installed next week, and a few coats of Benjamin Moore’s “Butter” on the walls.

And maybe… if some more blog posts to revive this sorry little site!