Well, it’s been a while since I last blogged. Life has been
really busy lately. Now I must think,
where to start, way back when did I last blog….
Well, over the 4th of July weekend, I was with
cousins in Indiana and we all went to the Fort Wayne Skyzone. That was a ton of fun. For those who don’t
know, Skyzone is a huge indoor Trampoline park.
It was a lot of fun to be jumping around with close cousins and just
being able to spend time together (especially since I’ve been in Canada the
past year).
As soon as we returned from Fort Wayne, I went straight
Grandma Baurer’s house. I am staying
there currently (between her house and the Schlipf’s house – Cousins). But this specific time, I was at her house
prepping for the upcoming Garage Sale that weekend. I got to her house late Tuesday afternoon,
and spent the next two and a half days going through all the stuff I had
stuffed in her garage (both my stuff and stuff my parent’s didn’t take to Texas
– two truck loads, two van loads (no seats in the van) and two car loads of
stuff). It was crazy and when I opened
the garage sale on Friday I didn’t feel ready.
I sold most everything for $1 or less and most things for 25 cents or
less, though I did sell a few higher priced items. Friday morning was the busiest, it was
constant people there (3-6 at all times).
The advertising really helped. I
told people where I was going, the reason for the sale and 200-300 items that
were for sale (mostly 25 cents or less).
That Got people’s attention, I advertised it on about ten different “For
Sale” groups on Facebook, on my Facebook page, my blog, craigslist and about 15
different garage sale websites. So
people from all over came and bought quite a lot of stuff. Friday after noon was somewhat dull, but that
was expected since most garage sales close around noon. I was open for 11 hours on Friday. Saturday was even more dull, though there
were a few people here and there and some good sales were made, it wasn’t the
busy I had expected. Saturday I was
open for 15 hours. I had a donation box
set out for donation for my trip to Canada, and I raise around $100 in
donations, plus a lot of the “random” people that came were asking a lot about
what I am going to be doing there and about SLI last year. My overall goal was to sell $1,200 worth of
stuff. Sadly I only got 2/3 the way
there. My total sale was about $850,
which is REALLY Good for a two-day garage sale, but wasn’t the amount I was
hopping for. Plus when the sale ended on
Saturday, I had enough stuff left I could of done a whole another garage
sale. Most of the stuff was to be given
to Salvation Army and Mission Mart (a story yet to come).
Sunday I went to Grace Presbyterian Church (near Grand
Prairie) and it was good. Over the
summer I am trying out a bunch of different churches. I want to see how different churches feel,
act, work and what other church cultures are like. I am
not “church hunting” since my home church is Koinonia (in Canada), but I just
would like to see what God wants to show me through different houses of
God.
Sunday evening I headed back over to the Schlipfs house for
Bethany’s (cousin) Birthday dinner. Her
birthday was on Monday, but she worked Monday, so they celebrated it Sunday
night. After a dinner of shish kabobs, a cookie cake and presents, we sat down and
watched Mom’s Night out – it was the first time I had ever seen it. It was really good and I really enjoyed it. Part way through Caleb (cousin from Indiana)
arrived. He is staying at the Schlipfs
for two weeks while he is at a Music Camp in the area. We all thought we would have a lot of time
with him but it doesn’t look like that any more since he found out the times of
the camp. It starts 8:30am and ends
8:30pm. That’s okay though, as long as
he is having fun. I spent the night at
the Schlipfs and headed back to grandma’s in the morning. I have been at grandma’s since (the past 4
days).
I have some finishing up work to do on cleaning out the
garage sale remains. I arranged to have
Salvation Army to come on Wednesday and take all that was left, though there
were a few things that they couldn’t take.
As they were loading up the desk, they took the two remaining glass tops
off (there were 3 but one randomly exploded in my hands while setting it up for
the garage sale) and stated to load them.
As they were almost in the truck, another large glass piece decided it
wanted to instantly and randomly become a messy puzzle. From one piece to million-piece puzzle it
went, shattering all over the road and yard.
It freaked the guy out. It was
kind of funny, I was surprised by it, but it was less surprising since it had already
happened to me. He couldn’t figure it
out, since he didn’t hit it against anything, it just exploded. They volunteered to clean up most of it, but
after they left we spent a good 20 minutes picking up pieces on the road and
out of the grass.
Tuesday, I literally spent the entire day posting things to eBay.
To get more free listings I paid the $25 monthly cost for a eBay
store. I am trying to sell most, if not
all of my coin collection to raise enough money for Canada next year. I am expecting that between food, rent, gas
and clothing, I will need an additional $2,000 (USD) and my dad recommended to
make it $2,500 since most things end up costing more than we expect. Plus I need money for a car, and if I want
any Emergency funds, I have to raise that money as well. So figuring I will
need at least $4-5,000 more. This is really hard when you can’t get a job –
companies just don’t hire when they know that you will be leaving in a little
over a month. So my full time job now
has become selling all my stuff. Selling
my coins, larger valued item left from the garage sale and my silver. My goal is to get $2,000 from silver, $1,000
from coins and $1,000 from selling some of the larger items left from the
garage sale. It’s going to take some
work, but if God allows it, I think it just might work. I currently have about 100 coins (lots)
listed on eBay, about 11% of them have bids at this point. I’m praying that over the next few days, they
all will get bids. If they all get bids
and sell, that will give me about $400 in coin sales, but that’s a rather large
IF.
I was going to post a big lot of most all my silver and 90%
silver coins on eBay, but through the advice of grandma and my dad, I
didn’t (it was going to cost about $400
in fees and shipping to sell it on eBay).
So I posted them on craigslist and got a reply back from a guy south of
Lincoln. He made an offer for the
silver, and also said that he might be interested in the silver coins as well,
so we set up a time that we would meet in Lincoln (about 75 minutes away). I set
the timing and place up at a Mission Mart, so I could drop off the rest of the
garage sale items that Salvation Army didn’t take. By as I was 30 minutes into the trip (near
Morton) the little Hyundai I was driving decided to die… in heavier traffic… in
a construction zone… and while the highway I was on was merging with another
highway (removing the shoulder temporarily).
I coasted for a bit, the acceleration not working, and the guy behind me
wasn’t to happy at my sudden reduction in speed (he couldn’t pass because of
the traffic in the left lane). As I was
able to get onto the other highway (that was merging from the right side) and
head towards the shoulder (full of construction cones), my brakes locked
up. Then they car’s engine light popped
on, followed by the battery light, followed by the low oil light and followed
by the CHECK ENGINE light. Having no
breaks, I rolled until I felt I was about at a stopping speed and then rolled
in between two construction cones. I
called my dad, (two times) but he didn’t pick up, so I called my mom and told
her the situation (remember they are in Texas now). She suggested for me to call David (my
brother) and then call the insurance company to get a tow truck’s number (we
have road-side assistance, which includes a free tow). So I did that. David was 30 minutes away and agreed to pick
me up in Tremont at the auto body shop.
They tow truck came within 15 minutes and towed me to Tremont. I had texted the guy I was meeting and told
him my car broke down and I’d be 30-40 minutes late. David picked me up and took me to the county
house (where he is living now) and I took the truck to Lincoln. They guy was an honest guy, and worked hard
to make sure I got what the silver/coins were worth. He
didn’t wan to pay what I wanted for the coins, but he looked up and
called around and got the exact current value of them and paid me fairly. I was happy.
I sold my 113oz of silver and nearly $15 face value of 90% silver coins
for $2,525. This has now paid for next
year. All they money I make now will go
towards a car, emergency funds and potential visa fees. God is good. God provides!!! Praise GOD!!!!
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