I guess the yard sale wasn’t a total bust, but it was a disappointment. I’ve had two yard sales in my life. The previous yard sale was here two years ago, and I made right around two hundred dollars in about four hours. Today, we were out there from eight to around one, and I made a grand total of sixty dollars. Now, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the sixty dollars. I was just hoping to get a little more. I took a whole van-load of clothing, shoes, toys, and miscellaneous household items to a local charity when I was through. I didn’t figure there was any use in carting it all back in.

The people who have came to my two yard sales never cease to amaze me with the junk that they are willing to buy. I am somewhat of a junk magnet. People love to give me stuff. Not just little stuff, but, since I have somewhat of a big house, people always try to give me their old furniture and stuff, too. Several people have given me bags and bags of little girl’s clothing. Even when I tell them that I already have more than enough, they tell me to go through it and take what I want, and do whatever with what remained. So, I do that. Both times I have had a yard sale, I’ve had tons of baby and little girls’ clothing that people had given me, that I just didn’t particularly care for. Some of it, though, was downright ugly. Slap a 25 cent price tag on that ugly, old as the hills dress, though, and people will line up for it. It doesn’t matter that it’s ugly. It doesn’t even matter that they probably wore the exact same style dress when they, themselves, were small. All that matters is that it’s cheap. A bargain! They can’t pass it up. So, while I have quite a bit of perfectly nice stuff, very reasonably priced, they pass up the nice stuff, and buy the ugly 25 cent stuff. Lots of them are grandmothers and mother’s in law who are buying ugly 25 cent dresses to give to their grandaughters and daughter’s in law. Who, go through the bags of yard sale clothes they were so graciously bestowed with, take out the ugly 25 cent dresses, keep the rare $1.00 splurge dresses, and hide the ugly dresses until they themselves have a yard sale. Then, they sale the ugly 25 cent dresses for 15 cents, and the whole cycle begins again.

Yeah, the more I think about it…yard sales are for suckers. I think I’ll stick to my clearance racks for bargains, and Goodwill for junk.

Chris’ mother flew in from Texas on Wednesday, and we have been busy ever since. Today, I took Velvet (my mother in law), Kyra, and Elijah to the zoo. We had a lot of fun. It turned out to be a good day to go, because all of the bigger animals were active and moving about their exhibits. The kids had as much fun on the playground there as they did looking at animals.
I particularly enjoyed watching the gorillas and the chimps. They are a lot of fun. Kyra and her Mamaw rode the camel. I would have liked to ride it, too, since I have never done that before, but I had on a shorter skirt. I didn’t know if that would work out decently or not. So, we had a lot of fun at the zoo. We got something to eat, and ran by Target after that. When we took Velvet back to her mother’s house, her mom, the kid’s Mamaw Geraldine, had cooked green beans and potatoes, fried squash with fried green tomatoes, and corn on the cob…all fresh from the garden. Even though we had just ate like an hour and a half earlier, we all had to eat again. You just can’t turn down food like that.

Tomorrow, I am having a yard sale here at my house, with my Aunt Kim. I have a ton of stuff, even though I wasn’t sure if I would really have all that much to sell. I agreed to have it here right off the bat, though, because Kim doesn’t have a good locale for yard sales, as she lives out in the boonies. In typical Rachel fashion, I put off getting ready for it until tonight, and had to go borrow some tables, gather and price all of my stuff, and now I have about four and a half hours until I need to get up to get everything outside and set up, and yet here I sit…blogging. There’s no help for me.

I have been reading like crazy, lately. I have always loved to read, for as long as I can remember. It’s one of the great pleasures in my life. I am trying to enstill a love of books into my own children, because I want them to experience the same happiness that reading has given me.

Recently, the books that I have read are (in order from the last back to the first in the most recent stretch of reading):

Lord, Please Meet Me in the Laundry Room: Heavenly Help for Earthly Moms by Barbara Curtis
The Traveler:A Novel by John Twelve Hawks
Shoot the Moon by Billie Letts
Little Earthquakes by Jennifer Weiner
The Glass Castle:A Memoir by Jeanette Walls
Twilight Children by Torey Hayden
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

I enjoyed all of these books, but some of them were really, really good. By good, I mean very interesting. I hate books that can’t keep me pulled into the story. It doesn’t matter if it’s fast paced of slow going to me, as long as it is interesting. My reading world expanded by leaps and bounds when I discovered blogs. I love reading other people’s blogs. My favorite right now is Mommy Life, which belongs to the author of the first book I mentioned, Barbara Curtis. She just happens to be my new hero. If you are a mother, you should definitely check out her blog. She has a wealth of wisdom to share.

Right now, I am reading two books. Very rarely in my life have I tried reading two books at the same time. I normally can’t bear to put a book down for long, until I have finished it. These books were both pulling at me to read them, so I am reading both of them. The first one is Freakonomics:A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, and the second one is The Mommy Manual: Planting Roots That Give Your Children Wings by Barbara Curtis. So far, I’m enjoying both of them.

So, anyway, that’s what I’ve had my nose buried in for the past several weeks, and I’m looking for your recommendations of what I should get next. So, let’s hear it…what do you suggest?

Investigators have said that they are investigating foul play in Sunday’s death of Goldie the Goldfish. The officer on scene said that witnesses had called the authorities reporting that Goldie’s body was being eaten by her canibalistic, adopted brother, Mud Puppy the Algae-eater. He was caught in the act when the authorities arrived at the crime scene. Mud Puppy, refusing to cooperate with the investigators, has left them with very few clues, and a lot of guessing. Frosty the Goldfish, both the victim and suspect’s adopted brother, told us, “There was always something not right with Mud Puppy. He had shifty eyes.” Yet another adopted sibling, Nemo the Goldfish, told us, “He never wanted to hang out with us other fish. He mostly just kept to himself.” Another witness who we talked to, Oliver the Cat, told us, “I didn’t know Goldie or her family personally, but, being their neighbor, I did happen upon the scene.” Visibly shaken, Oliver told us, “He was just eating her. If you could have seen it…Me-ouch!”. Authorities tell us that Mud Puppy is being held for questioning in this on-going case of possible murder.

I know I didn’t blog anything yesterday. That is because we were off having fun. Yes, in spite of the heat, we were able to find something fun to do. We drove to Chatanooga, and took the kids to see Rock City and Ruby Falls. We had a lot of fun We went to Ruby Falls first, and the kids thought that it was neat to be in a cave. The waterfall itself was magnificent. It was pretty cool underground, as well, especially near the waterfall. So, that was our creative way of beating the heat.

After exiting the cave, the kids played on the playground that they had there, and then we went and had dinner at Popeye’s. After eating, we drove back up to Rock City. The kids really liked Rock City a lot better, I think, overall. They enjoyed the cave at first, but I think it got old pretty quickly. Kyra had a lot of fun leading us along the paths. We enjoyed looking at the different plants and flowers, and squeezing between huge boulders. The swinging bridge was a lot of fun. Kyra headed off accross it on her own, unconcerned with the height or the movement. Elijah was a little more cautious, and preferred to hold his Daddy’s hand. When we got to the overlook, we were supposed to be seeing seven states at once. It was a pretty cool view. When we got to Fairytale Pass (or something like that), there were 3D displays of different fairy tales, that we all thought were pretty cool. All in all, it was fun trip. The kids enjoyed it, and so did Chris and I. We had went to Rock City when we were dating, but it was much more fun taking the kids. If you are ever planning a trip to that area, I suggest going. It was really interesting, and lots of fun. You couldn’t beat the scenery, either.

Goldie the Goldfish, age undetermined, passed away Sunday, July 24, of natural causes at her home in the fish tank in the Harmon household. She is survived by her owners, Kyra and Elijah Harmon, her dear fish family, Mud Puppy, Frosty, Nemo, and Oscar, Oliver the Cat, Baby Woof Woof the dog, and the bunny sisters, Snow White and Domino. Services for Goldie were held the same evening in the Hall Bathroom. Goldie was an upstanding member of the Harmon household, where she was loved by all. She will be missed. She was with us for only a short time, but she will forever be in our hearts.

Rest In Peace, Goldie.

***
In leiu of flowers, the Harmon family asks that you send a small donation in memory of our dear, departed sister. A paypal account will be provided upon request.

I picked up my guitar, to play for a few minutes, and heard a distinct rattling inside. Great, the kids have been putting things in it again. So, after a few minutes of shaking the upside down instrument, the contents were revealed:

Three quarters.
One blue marker cap.
A small piece of red plastic.
A goldenrod crayon, broken into two pieces.
One half of a black crayon.

On a different, yet related, note….I’ve not been able to find a green sippy cup that I gave to Elijah a few days ago. Until this morning, that is. Kyra enlisted my help in getting her toy cell phone out of Elijah’s basketball toy, that you are supposed to drop a ball in the top, and then it comes out the bottom.

In further inspection, not only was the cell phone inside, but the missing sippy cup as well…half full of a solid lump of spoiled milk. As I was dumping the contents outside, I was very thankful that I am not pregnant. When I would have to empty the contents of Kyra’s just found, phantom sippy cups when I was pregnant with Elijah, without fail, I would end up losing my lunch (or breakfast, snack, or thought of food…whatever the case might have been).

So, yeah. Life with toddlers is interesting. Now if I could just find the missing video tape, the tweezers, and the other four missing sippy cups.

–While driving to the doctor, we were singing different songs in the van. I had just finished singing the chorus of “I’ll Fly Away”, when Kyra says in a very sad voice, “But Mommy…I’ll miss you so much if you fly away.” I tried to tell her that I wasn’t going anywhere, and that it was just a song. She pondered that for a moment, and then said in a very sad voice, “I don’t have wings…just hands.”

–While flipping through the channels, Chris stopped on the Ms Olympia competition. We, of course, had to watch for a few minutes, and make fun of the grotesquely muscular women. They all had very dark tans to show off their muscle tone. While we were laughing at them, Kyra pipes up, and says, “I want to be black.” Chris and I laughed until we nearly wet ourselves.

–After informing Kyra that I was going to give her a spanking, she says, “I like spankings. They’re my favorite.” I replied, “Oh, really? Then you are in for a treat.” She smiled sweetly, and said, “That’s okay, Mommy. I’ll spank myself.” With that, she started smacking herself. I couldn’t help but laugh. My three year old is trying to use reverse psychology on me.

My Beautiful Girl