Squibblog

it never rains but it pours

I've had a fairly slow start to the working year. My usual writing and editing gigs have been chugging along, but I worked so damned hard before Christmas that much of the work was done for the next issue of Go before our holiday, so February was a little slow for me.

I also had no extra work projects on, and I usually have at least one or two in any given month to keep me extra busy and bring in a few extra $$. Those were a little slow in coming these last few weeks so I was feeling a little idle at work. Not that I sat around and twiddled my thumbs. I got stuck in to cleaning up and clearing out, rearranged furniture and the like. But I find slow periods of work make me feel a bit down, and this one was worse than others because the economic news is all doom and gloom.

Fortunately we seem to have come through the doldrums with a bang, and I am now swamped with work (thank you, God), just in time for the start of a new semester at Uni and while I am still half-way through about six projects around the house. Last night I had a restless and anxious night, tossing and turning and worrying about how I will get it all done today and worrying that my promise to make flower girl dresses for my sister-in-law's wedding was going to overwhelm me.

Fortunatley I remembered at 2.30am that the wedding is on 1 May, not 1 April and then I slept.

clearing away, the eBay way

I've never been a particularly big fan of selling things on eBay. There's the photographing and then the packing and posting. It seems like a lot of work, and used goods need to be at bargain basement prices to sell, so the rewards didn't really seem worth the trouble.

Although I have to admit that Soy's sell those ugly trees on eBay strategy worked a treat, I've not really sold anything else, preferring the immediate hit of giving things away to charity.

But whenever I put together a charity bag, I always worry that the things we have loved, but no longer need, are never going to be fully appreciated by the people who trawl over them in charity shops and may never find a home with those who really need them. 

So last weekend I had a rush of blood to the head and pulled out all the old things I had been intending to sell and got to photographing them. Things I thought I might use again I listed for a decent price, things I just wanted to get rid of, I listed for $0.99. Everything sold, and for very good money in the end.

The selling and the clearing are part of a bigger strategy: to move the kids into the same bedroom in preparation for the wonderful time when we get to renovate to turn Nell's (small, dark, poky) room into a bathroom and laundry. And luxuriate in having more than one toilet in our house.

I may be crazy, and Soy thinks that I am, but I think it's good for siblings to share a bedroom. So I comfort myself by thinking that moving the kids around is not purely driven by my selfish desire to shower without being interrupted (Every. Single. Day). And given the gender divide, sharing is only really a possibility for our kids for a couple of years starting from now. So it's now or never.