| It's spring! Well, technically it isn't spring, but in Carlsbad, NM; spring usually arrives by February; we're running late this year. I have yet to see a fruit tree blossom. Gave all my little ones away to a bird rescue place up in Pinon, what with my planning, working, betting on escaping Little Texas sometime in the next year or so. Oh, what a happy day that will be!
The bird people in Pinon do raptor rescue and also parrots that need homes. They live in a town of about four people other than themselves; long trek for groceries, so they are up for putting in an orchard, and were so happy about my contributions. They're in zone 7a, I'm in 7b, and they don't get temps over 100 much, and all the trees were zoned for much colder zone ranges as well, so hopefully that will all work out, for those nice people and their rescued birds as well.
This business of arranging for things to be taken away is complicated. The books are too much with me, late and soon. Today I finally finished up with the really difficult books, the ones that would be too complicated to even Freecycle. The last six boxes of them sit hopefully on the curb outside my house, with largely printed signs about "Free Books!"
A stray dog came by earlier; I threw a rock - not to hit the dog, but to discourage the dog from peeing on the Free Books. Enough is enough.
The next higher cut comprises the Freecycle books. I've already given away several hundred books to happy Freecyclers, yay! And I have more hundreds yet to go, O Freecyclers.
I think that when I started out this "Books Must Go" project, I had about five thousand in house. That's a lot of books. We're not talking mass market paperbacks here, folks. Almost all the paperbacks are trade paperbacks, which means they're bigger & better. And the hardcovers..the art... the weight.
An average-sized box of books that aren't little MMPB's can hold about 25 books or so. And it will weigh maybe fifteen pounds?
A banana box full of hardcovers can weigh 70#.
I swear, if I ever get involved with a business that involves inventory ever again, it's gonna be small, valuable, light-weight, waterproof stuff. Jewelry comes to mind.
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I'm not just giving stuff away, though. I'm learning about Ebay. I sold $400 worth of books on Ebay over the last month. And I was just getting started. Hey! Not bad. I've been doing Ebay for a few years and now have 80 positive recs (100% positive!) and that's a really low number of recs, so I'm kind of happy and positive about this.
Very inspiring. I'm now seeing my entire inventory as something to mine. But it's like moving (all change is like moving, I'm starting to think) in that it requires eighty-seven gazillion separate decisions.
Wearing, this business of making decisions. I am fortunate in that I have 1600 sq feet of defective houses, because that means I have lots, lots, lots of sorting space. Much easier when one can portion stuff around into different places. I also have lots of bookcases. They mostly are crappy bookcases, but as I free them up, they become sorting stations. Eventually I'll freecycle them too. But not too soon. You can never have too much horizontal workspace. Trust me on this.
Okay, what else? Well, I discovered Gary Farber at Amygdala, h/t Fafblog. That was good. Gary can blog, bless his terribly worried heart.
Just Call Me Jay pointed out this really entertaining music site. Bit of a one trick pony; but it grows on you. After I watched it the fourth time, I really got into "subsumed into giggle time."
Oh, and AllisonInSeattle sez I should be following the story here about the outed nephew. She's right. I should have been. I saw it here, and thought; well, just more homophobic evil. I figured y'all would take care of it.
But I often do what Allison sez, more power to her. So I shall look. I hope, though, that anybody who makes my acquaintance here, realizes that I am a HARD CORE FAG HAG AND LESBIAN LOVER FROM WAY BACK.
And you can quote me on that. Put it in your sig lines, if you wish. Anywhere, everywhere. Loves me some homosexuals of ANY gender. Yay!!! |
