I need to have a clean-out and a garage sale! There is so much "stuff" spread all over the house, inside and out, it's everywhere! The reason I'm particularly conscious of it at the moment is that I've had fruitless searches for three different items in the last couple of days, and turned up none of them. Instead I found stuff! Endless papers, files, folders, books, magazines, CDs, photos, etc etc. It's time for a BIG clean-up!
I spotted an ad on a noticeboard in town today for a set of shelves, very reasonably priced at $40. I went round to look at them after soccer training and quickly decided to buy them. Then the fun started!
I had The Heir's car, the Blue Beast, but for the life of me could not open the back tail gate!
Was this some sort of revenge Karma for his flat tyre exploits with my car in Perth?
He wasn't far away, at work, so I drove down there to either find out the secret of the tailgate or swap the Blue Beast for my car.
"The key is in the glove box" he explained.
"Why" I wondered!!
Back to the vendor, open the back, lay down the seats and carry out the shelves.
Hmmm!
They wouldn't fit! Just! It was a matter of millimetres, but that was enough, it wouldn't fit.
The spare wheel stand was in the way. It's in the back because the space norammly assigned to the spare wheel has been taken over by the LPG gas tank.
It was bolted in so we broke out a socket set to see if we could remove it!
We couldn't!
We tried for 20 minutes mind you, but to no avail!
It wasn't coming out, and the shelves weren't going in!
"Sorry, I'll have to get a trailer and come back tomorrow!!"
No worries!
Only an hour of my evening wasted!
Sports Update:
I watched the State of Origin tonight and enjoyed seeing Queensland square the series with a 30-0 shellacking of the cockroaches.
As I said at the start, the rest of the night was spent looking for things I couldn't find!!!
A CD Rom to install the scanner on the new computer. No good.
Favourite Daughter's Yr 10 Graduation certificate. No!
My Grand Final ticket. Nowhere to be found.
Of course, I did find a whole lot of "stuff" that I don't need or want to keep in the process.
There's a black hole somewhere near here that is sucking up all the things I'm looking for and in return spewing out "stuff"!
Time to dig out the Garage Sale signs, if I can find them!!
Showing posts with label Garage Sale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garage Sale. Show all posts
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Dream or reality?
I think I dreamed this morning that the soccer team won 4-0 and Sport Boy played really well, or it may have happened in real life, I'm not sure. If I did get up this morning and go to soccer after 3 and a bit hours of post-taxi sleep it was one of the more impressive feats of human endurance in the post-modern era, or in the last week, one of the two.
Beyond the soccer dream there was a hazy garage sale experience in which I found one of those three wheeled push-bikes (trikes?) that seem to be peculiarly common in Busselton and was able to haggle the price down from $250 to $190. I think removing the front wheel and loosening the classic "Angel Bar" handlebars enabled me to get it in the car to bring home. Replete with large basket at the back, between the two rear tyres, it will make an ideal vehicle for the junk mail round, and as a transition stage before one or both of us has to take to a gopher. They cost about $700-800 new so it was a "bargain"!
I spent the afternoon back in bed recovering from last night and preparing for tonight. In an effort to raise some extra funds, and because I'll be away for a few weeks in July and September, I'm driving the taxi on both Friday and Saturday nights this month.
My most interesting fare tonight was to pick up a family of 5 from the airport who had just flown down from Perth on a small twin propellor passenger plane. Turns out prior to that they had flown down from Broome this afternoon. I took them on the final leg of their journey, to Eagle Bay, where they were going to a party! That's a darn long way to come to a party! The bloke, who wore a cowboy hat off the plane, has a cattle station near Broome and there was an abundance of cowboy hats in evidence when we arrived at the party. Apparently The Magnificent Seven (a "country" band of some repute) were playing. I take this on advisement, courtesy of a subsequent customer, because I of course have a deliberate extremely small knowledge of country music and it's proponents. I have an inheritance coming which is designed to remedy this particular deficiency so I'm not in any hurry to further my knowledge at this point, and considering what the precursor to said inheritance must necessarily be, nor am I in any hurry in the future.
I can only surmise that there is money to be made in either cattle or country music, or perhaps even both, because apart form the cost of the flying excursion, the bloke in the cowboy hat gave me $100 for the $85 fare and told me to keep the change.
Beyond the soccer dream there was a hazy garage sale experience in which I found one of those three wheeled push-bikes (trikes?) that seem to be peculiarly common in Busselton and was able to haggle the price down from $250 to $190. I think removing the front wheel and loosening the classic "Angel Bar" handlebars enabled me to get it in the car to bring home. Replete with large basket at the back, between the two rear tyres, it will make an ideal vehicle for the junk mail round, and as a transition stage before one or both of us has to take to a gopher. They cost about $700-800 new so it was a "bargain"!
I spent the afternoon back in bed recovering from last night and preparing for tonight. In an effort to raise some extra funds, and because I'll be away for a few weeks in July and September, I'm driving the taxi on both Friday and Saturday nights this month.
My most interesting fare tonight was to pick up a family of 5 from the airport who had just flown down from Perth on a small twin propellor passenger plane. Turns out prior to that they had flown down from Broome this afternoon. I took them on the final leg of their journey, to Eagle Bay, where they were going to a party! That's a darn long way to come to a party! The bloke, who wore a cowboy hat off the plane, has a cattle station near Broome and there was an abundance of cowboy hats in evidence when we arrived at the party. Apparently The Magnificent Seven (a "country" band of some repute) were playing. I take this on advisement, courtesy of a subsequent customer, because I of course have a deliberate extremely small knowledge of country music and it's proponents. I have an inheritance coming which is designed to remedy this particular deficiency so I'm not in any hurry to further my knowledge at this point, and considering what the precursor to said inheritance must necessarily be, nor am I in any hurry in the future.
I can only surmise that there is money to be made in either cattle or country music, or perhaps even both, because apart form the cost of the flying excursion, the bloke in the cowboy hat gave me $100 for the $85 fare and told me to keep the change.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Blogging from Bridgetown
We decided to avoid risking the kangaroos and the Easter Traffic last night and delayed our trip to Bridgetown until today. 14 people have already been killed on Australian roads since Easter started. Something strange happens when people drive at Easter, every year a huge number of people are killed on the road so we took the safer option today.
It's always fun and relaxing at Mum and Walter's place. We went to a garage sale at a house belonging to an artist which had a wonderful garden, featuring a walkway and deck nestled amongst dense shady trees and shrubs and bushes. She had several paintings for sale which had me interested. Sadly, while we were there a gust of wind blew one canvas over and it landed on the corner of a table causing it to tear!! She managed to contain her disappointment pretty well but I could feel her pain.
Carolyn and I went down the street to look around the shops in the main street and I bought her a jacket which she loved! This was on top of a bracelet I'd bought for her at another place! As the lady said when I paid for it, "Just think of all the brownie points you've earnt"!!
Absolutely right!!
I tuned in to the football on the web to hear the broadcast of the Geelong game and thoroughly enjoyed listening to the Cats chalk up their biggest ever score and highest winning margin against Carlton. Winning was good but the icing on the cake was the wager I'd had with Stu the Garden Blogger about the game which guarantees me a Vanilla Diet Coke and an Easter Egg as my prize.
It's always fun and relaxing at Mum and Walter's place. We went to a garage sale at a house belonging to an artist which had a wonderful garden, featuring a walkway and deck nestled amongst dense shady trees and shrubs and bushes. She had several paintings for sale which had me interested. Sadly, while we were there a gust of wind blew one canvas over and it landed on the corner of a table causing it to tear!! She managed to contain her disappointment pretty well but I could feel her pain.
Carolyn and I went down the street to look around the shops in the main street and I bought her a jacket which she loved! This was on top of a bracelet I'd bought for her at another place! As the lady said when I paid for it, "Just think of all the brownie points you've earnt"!!
Absolutely right!!
I tuned in to the football on the web to hear the broadcast of the Geelong game and thoroughly enjoyed listening to the Cats chalk up their biggest ever score and highest winning margin against Carlton. Winning was good but the icing on the cake was the wager I'd had with Stu the Garden Blogger about the game which guarantees me a Vanilla Diet Coke and an Easter Egg as my prize.
Monday, February 12, 2007
Sunday
Church was good this morning, the speaker was a 23 year old surfie who has a heart to reach muslims in Indonesia and is well on the way to establishing a surf based mission there.
After church we cruised a couple of garage sales. I bought a painting table for $20. I don’t know how practical it will be but it may get me off the kitchen bench some of the time. Sport Boy invited Jack over for the afternoon and after lunch we went round to drop the art exhibition form off to Ron, and Carolyn found a few things she wanted to buy, a cane bed head and a set of shelves. I got a box of brass door knobs and key plates, more artistic ideas to work on.
The boys loved the Billy cart and tried to convince Ron to sell it but now he’s keen to put it in the exhibition he’s going to finish it off, and keep it.
We took the boys down to see the Grand Final of the Beach Volleyball competition being played in Busselton this weekend as part of the state series. The level of play was superb, especially in the windy conditions. It made our 4-a-side games on Wed. nights look pretty bad!
Some kids at the beach were teasing the seagulls by throwing them chips they had put inside a coke bottle, it was very funny watching this flock of scavengers all fighting over the unattainable prize, they kept pecking at the chips and not understanding why they could see them but not reach them.
I had a headache when we got home so I snoozed in the recliner while Carolyn took the boys to Meelup for the church gathering. Once I’d recovered I pottered around working on some projects, I’ve taken to hanging things around the back patio, mobiles, propellers, driftwood etc. Today I tried to create a marble way out of pvc pipe which a strung together with fishing line. It sort of works but not as well as I’d hoped.
I completed two paintings today, one I’m undecided about, I’ve changed the colours once already and I suspect I’ll be doing so again because they don’t match the frame very well. The second is a big one, based on another painting I did a while back which a friend likes. She was looking for something larger so I decided to oblige, and tried out using rollers instead of brushes. It worked fairly well but I need to keep practising to get a consistent application and appearance.
I was listening to England beat Australia in the cricket, a huge upset. After the absolute shellacking in the Ashes no-one forsaw this outcome. I’ve been wanting some closer contests all Summer but this tested my feelings about competition V winning.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Saturday
By the time I got up today (after last night's cab shift) no-one was home. I read some emails then went to get bread and the paper. An hour later Carolyn came home from her swim, with bread and the paper! Great minds...
She didn't sleep too well so went back to bed for a nap. Jordan came home from jetty jumping with his friend Michaelangelo and later asked if he could sleepover for the night. He looked harmless enough, and said he thought the paintings on the wall were cool (before he knew I'd painted them) so I said yes. Sport Boy spent the day playing at Sam's place, only reappearing at dinner time! He had a great day playing soccer and cricket, and Sam's mum told me his manners were wonderful. Sam's Dad Ali and I play footy together and they live a couple of streets away.
I gritted my teeth and decided to clean out the fridge this afternoon! It was a voyage of discovery, use-by-dates, mould and unpleasant aromas! Once completed there was room to put things and almost everything left in the fridge is edible.
I went and picked up my x-rays from the hospital. The latest diagnosis is that there are three small cracks and chipped bones in my foot but none of them equate to the type of pain and swelling I'm experiencing. A cast was seen as unnecessary, instead I was given a referral to an orthopaedic surgeon and have an appointment in Bunbury on Tuesday morning to get it checked out. Not sure if it's all good news or not, certainly I'm glad not to have my foot in plaster for the next two weeks, but if it requires surgery to fix the ligaments I smell large medical bills!
The bottom line is I really want to be able to play sport again, volleyball at the least and preferably football as well so treatment is required.
On the way home I called into a garage sale and met a really great bloke called Ron and we ended up talking for over half an hour, about his plans to move his house from the front to the back of his block, sheds, art projects, making things etc. I told him about an upcoming art exhibition at the Courthouse Gallery with the theme of Blokes and Blokeyness which is inviting submissions of art for blokes, the sorts of things made in back sheds. He showed me a billy-cart he made which started out as an office chair, it was fantastic, and I urged him to enter it in the exhibition. You know what it's like when you hit it off with someone and you talk and laugh and really enjoy their company from the first time you meet them? That's what it felt like meeting Ron. I'm going to drop the rego forms off to him tomorrow, and I'll take the camera to get a couple of pics of Ron and the Billy Cart.
He gave me some weather beaten jarrah fence posts which I'm hoping to make frames out of, as well as some round metal disks that I have an idea for. I bought a box of guages at another garage sale this morning and hope to put bits and pieces together to make another "blokey" piece of art to accompany my "This used to be a microwave" sculpture for the exhibition.
She didn't sleep too well so went back to bed for a nap. Jordan came home from jetty jumping with his friend Michaelangelo and later asked if he could sleepover for the night. He looked harmless enough, and said he thought the paintings on the wall were cool (before he knew I'd painted them) so I said yes. Sport Boy spent the day playing at Sam's place, only reappearing at dinner time! He had a great day playing soccer and cricket, and Sam's mum told me his manners were wonderful. Sam's Dad Ali and I play footy together and they live a couple of streets away.
I gritted my teeth and decided to clean out the fridge this afternoon! It was a voyage of discovery, use-by-dates, mould and unpleasant aromas! Once completed there was room to put things and almost everything left in the fridge is edible.
I went and picked up my x-rays from the hospital. The latest diagnosis is that there are three small cracks and chipped bones in my foot but none of them equate to the type of pain and swelling I'm experiencing. A cast was seen as unnecessary, instead I was given a referral to an orthopaedic surgeon and have an appointment in Bunbury on Tuesday morning to get it checked out. Not sure if it's all good news or not, certainly I'm glad not to have my foot in plaster for the next two weeks, but if it requires surgery to fix the ligaments I smell large medical bills!
The bottom line is I really want to be able to play sport again, volleyball at the least and preferably football as well so treatment is required.
On the way home I called into a garage sale and met a really great bloke called Ron and we ended up talking for over half an hour, about his plans to move his house from the front to the back of his block, sheds, art projects, making things etc. I told him about an upcoming art exhibition at the Courthouse Gallery with the theme of Blokes and Blokeyness which is inviting submissions of art for blokes, the sorts of things made in back sheds. He showed me a billy-cart he made which started out as an office chair, it was fantastic, and I urged him to enter it in the exhibition. You know what it's like when you hit it off with someone and you talk and laugh and really enjoy their company from the first time you meet them? That's what it felt like meeting Ron. I'm going to drop the rego forms off to him tomorrow, and I'll take the camera to get a couple of pics of Ron and the Billy Cart.
He gave me some weather beaten jarrah fence posts which I'm hoping to make frames out of, as well as some round metal disks that I have an idea for. I bought a box of guages at another garage sale this morning and hope to put bits and pieces together to make another "blokey" piece of art to accompany my "This used to be a microwave" sculpture for the exhibition.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Saturday
Slept till lunchtime, my usual post Taxi driving pattern. Went down town and while there looked at an exhibition at a gallery and thought about painting techniques, checked out a garage sale which turned out to be at a house belonging to a mate of mine, Alan, a teacher, and which used to belong to local mp and shadow treasurer Troy Buswell. Bought a frame and a miniature basketball hoop. Browsed through the 2nd hand shop, bought a puzzle toy. Found some metal brackets at the Salvage shop which I needed to fix the crate and carry baskets on my bike and Carolyn's, a job I've just completed, in order to make junk mail delivery easier. Jordan has decided to quit the junk mail round but Carolyn and I decided to retain it as it's our neighbourhood and the money and exercise will both be useful. Came home, read the paper, dozed in the lounge chair, then rounded up 80% of the family and went down to the beach and had takeaways for dinner. It was what we in the taxi business call a milk run, Red Rooster for Jordan, McDonalds for Sport Boy, and fish and chips for Carolyn and I, which we ate down by the jetty, overlooking the scene of tomorrow morning's Jetty Swim, an annual event in Busselton.
Ran into Keith who in turn had run into an old mate from their days in the air force together who told a very interesting story about his conversion to Christ which included spells living at Amberley Queensland, down the road from Rosewood, a town I lived in for a couple of years as a teenager with Dad and Julie, and Sale Victoria, a place I also lived in for 6 months when Carolyn, the Heir and I went to Kilmany Park to do a 6 month course with Fusion; a hobo walking along a road who he drove back 5 miles to give $50 to; and a Gideon's Bible which despite several opportunities to do so he couldn't bring himself to throw away.
Ran into Keith who in turn had run into an old mate from their days in the air force together who told a very interesting story about his conversion to Christ which included spells living at Amberley Queensland, down the road from Rosewood, a town I lived in for a couple of years as a teenager with Dad and Julie, and Sale Victoria, a place I also lived in for 6 months when Carolyn, the Heir and I went to Kilmany Park to do a 6 month course with Fusion; a hobo walking along a road who he drove back 5 miles to give $50 to; and a Gideon's Bible which despite several opportunities to do so he couldn't bring himself to throw away.
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