Lost, Found, Won & Done

Before the whole mess at school started, I volunteered there a few days a week, waited in line for thirty minutes each day to pick up The Bean, made copies for the teachers, baked cookies for their fundraisers, waved at all the Mom's, talked to the Mom's, served as a PTA Chairman, etc., etc., etc. I was like a fixture at that damn school. And then, one day,out of the blue, poof, I disappeared and only one person ever called to see where I had gone. Only one! But, I haven't blogged in four days and I had three emails asking if I was okay. Now, that, is friendship. Thanks to my buddies in blogville.

We had our house appraised today and I have pretty much been a madwoman cleaning, dusting rearranging and hiding clutter. Someone suggested hiding the clutter in the dryer. Well, there is a full fledged Laundromat down on the corner, and that wouldn't hold all my clutter! I decided to tackle the living room, kitchen, bathroom and master bedroom. My ebay room is beyond help and what can you do to a 12 year old boy's room when he is halfway between still being attached to his toys and halfway to music, video games and Hannah Montana. It's not like the house is a total disaster or anything, it's just that I don't know if your typical house has 12 picnic baskets stacked in the corner. I like it, and they hide my craft supplies very well, but what do other people think? Especially strangers. And even more especially, men strangers. Men don't often get the whole collecting thing. I culled it down to six baskets, donated two and put the others in the garage. I cleaned off the kitchen table. I mean, you could actually eat a meal on our table now! Yea, me! I mopped the floors, I hid the laundry, I scrubbed the bathroom within an inch of it's life, vacuumed the carpet until there was a hairball the size of a cat in the vacuum canister (can you believe how much crap comes out of your carpet????), cleaned the windows, dusted the blinds and did all sorts of other household chores. (Disclaimer: I do these things all the time, I just did them really, really well and really really often over the past three days. )

The Appraiser shows up, thirty minutes early, which is good because there wasn't one more thing I could do. He walks in, makes a note of where the doors, closets and windows are, sticks his head in each room and he is done. When he walked into my Office, he said, "Oh. My. God." And, I thought "Oh crap. My stuff." And then he said, "You have some COOL STUFF!" Then he proceeds to ask me for my ebay ID and starts asking about certain items I have in my Office. He said, "I have a lot of junk too, but I don't sell it. I just like it." Oh, a man after my own heart.

He was in and out in seven minutes and I worked for three days getting ready. Oh well. I have company coming this weekend, so I am ahead for the week. Hopefully our house will appraise at close to half a million after all my hard work. HA!

After three straight days of cleaning, I positively had to get out after he left. We headed to Target - Land of Hidden Deals. They've already clearanced out all their summer merchandise, which is crazy since the first day of summer is this weekend. But, if they want to mark it down and practically give it away, who am I to argue? Thee wasn't much left, but I did get a couple big plastic gallon size drink dispensers and a big Melamine striped bowl. I love giant bowls. The bigger the better. I don't know why, but I love having big bowls for salads, bags of chips, etc. All three things were $5.00, but would have been $15.00 since it was all 75% off.

On the way home, I spotted a thrift that has never been open on Mondays before, was open today, so the car just careened in on two wheels. Not much,which is fine. I've learned to buy only what I love and be happy with what I find and find a spot for it when I get home.

Here are my finds: A nice Floraline planter for 75¢, a hand carved Santa for 25¢ and a wee miniature old insuluator for 50¢. I've never seen such a teeny little insulator!

I entered a blog giveaway over at My Polka Dotted World. I rarely ever enter the giveaways on blogs because I seem to have my own surplus of goodies. But, when I spied the prize, I HAD to enter:

And... I WON! Oh, is she cute or what? I can't wait to get her and introduce her to the family. Thank you Kristin!

This concludes this post of random thoughts and silly stuff. I'll be back when I have something worth writing about!