More Whip Cracking Today

It's getting down to the wire. And the hours that I need are getting fewer and fewer.

I started off the day working downstairs, trying to clear the living room of the piles of books and magazines, and the box loads of stuff that needed to be sold.

And I have been trying to find "homes" for all these things in the library and studio.

I put more clothes on the sales rack.

I brought in from the outside a whole bunch of stuff, like flower pots, the garden statue of St. Jude, odd pieces of cookware that I got when the neighbor was putting his stuff out on the curb, free for the taking, and the ceramic Christmas tree that's been sitting outside by the porch.

Speaking of Christmas trees, I also brought down the artificial tree that I had upstairs in my bedroom.

All while I was busy working downstairs, I noticed that it was quiet ~ too quiet ~ upstairs.

Taking a look at the chill room, I noticed that it was still in a shambles. Definitely not at all ready to do business.

It was time to crack the whip again.

Richie went to work on his room, and I got Ariana busy in the storage area and the chill room.

When I saw that she was having trouble and looking rather lost in the chill room, it was time for me to step in.

Because Ariana had already gone through the stuff in her end of the storage area, that was a good area for me to start.

However, I could not start until I brought up a lamp from the living room. The storage area did not have any lighting. And if the day is cloudy, like it was today, you cannot see very well inside the storage area.

And if I could not see well enough to work in the area, then how would the potential buyers be able to see what's on the shelves?

Once there was light, I took all that Ariana had left in the storage area ~ tons of shoes, Beanie Babies, etc., and organized them on the shelves.

Once that was all done, I was able to go into the chill room and start removing stuff from there to put on the shelves in the storage area.

The storage area is now ready for business.

Around this time, a fellow name Matt showed up to look at Neil's weight-lifting set. He went through the motions of seeming interested in it and said that he will call me tomorrow.

We'll see.

I cleaned out all the trash that Neil had under the drafting table. Tons and tons of boxes of obsolete software.

And after all those boxes were cleared out, I discovered ~ way in the bottom of the pile ~ Neil's Dremel tool that he was not able to find.

I also found his old Cheshire Cat belt buckle.

That's one great thing about doing household purges ~ you never know what forgotten buried treasure may turn up.

Stuff that looked like it could possibly be sold was shelved. Stuff that I wanted to save went into boxes in the storage area.

I hammered several nails into the beam by the drafting table. From the nails I hung purses, bags, and belts. I thought that was pretty clever.

(I could not believe all the hammers that I was unearthing, just like Ariana could not believe all the scissors she was finding.)

One of the bags belonged to one of our most recent squatters ~ the ones that I had to evict shortly after Halloween. Ariana noticed the bag and took a fancy to it.

I went to empty out the small filing cabinet by the drafting table. I was able to empty out the 2 bottom drawers. However, the top drawer remained stuck. It seemed as though it was locked.

If I cannot get that drawer open, I cannot sell the filing cabinet. After all, I don't know what could be in the top drawer. And I do not want to take the chance of having sensitive information leave this house.

After working on that filing cabinet, I went to work on the tall filing cabinet by the wall, that was next to Neil's newest wide filing cabinet.

First of all, I cleared the stuff off the top of both of the cabinets, especially since the ceiling leaked on top of those cabinets. I needed to get rid of the water-damaged books that were on top.

While clearing the top of the 2 filing cabinets, I discovered a box of dinnerware. It was rather nice dinner ware, in a pleasing olive green color.
I asked Ariana where the dishes came from. They belonged to a couple of long-forgotten squatters.

Well, now they belong to me. And after finding out that Ariana was not interested in them, I put them on a shelf, along with the rest of the stuff to be sold.

Garbage bag after garbage bag was being filled. There must have been about a dozen in the middle of the chill room floor by the time I was done.

Tomorrow I will have Richie take all those bags and put them outside. Let's hope that this time he won't block the rear workout room door.

Because it's all getting down to the wire, I did grunt work a couple of hours longer than usual.

I didn't get to work on my signs until after 6:00 PM.

I finished the last yellow sign that I started working on yesterday. Once that was done, I opened the 3-pack of white foam-core board to make one more sign for the street.

It was a good thing that I started working on the yellow signs first. Because once I started working on the white board, there was something different about the surface texture that ruined 5 brand new broad Sharpie markers.

It was a real struggle to complete that poster.

I still have 2 more posters to make, but they are for the parking lot and the house. I have 7 brand new broad multi-colored Sharpie markers. Maybe with all those 7 markers, I may be able to eke out 2 signs.

Tomorrow is going to to a challenging day.

After bringing Ariana to school, I will have to stop at church to set up the altar for Sunday. Then I'll need to stop at the bank to get $200 to $300 in small bills and change so that I will be able to make change come Saturday, when I open the doors to the gigunda moving sale.

Also, I will have to put up the posters that I made.

If I'm lucky, I'll get home by 12 noon.

However, I will not have much time to work because I will be needing to pick up Ariana from school at 4:00 PM.

So I will have to take my moving sale preparations well into the night.

And I think that I should start making a concerted effort to get up very early in the morning so that I could get more work done.

I tell you, I am not enjoying all this pressure to meet the deadline.

And after the moving sale is over, I will not be able to sit back on my laurels and gently sigh with satisfaction.

Once the sale is over, I will have to attack Ariana's room, especially since I have been putting stuff and empty box cartons in it to get everything out of the way.

At least once the sale is done, we'll be able to easily spread our stuff through the house.