Destashing Again

It's that time again - time to tidy up the linens, clean out the cutters and make room for a new batch of yummy goodies. For months (years?!) I've been meaning to take these bins of cutter sheets and make fat quarters and squares out of them. My space and time just doesn't permit such activities so I decided to put them into like-color bundles and list them on Etsy.

 

 Green Gingham Sheets $25

The other week, my mom and dad came to MD to retrieve the rest of my stuff from my old house and take it to SC. While here, I let my mom rummage through the cutter boxes and pull out any sheets she loved.

 Hot Pink Sheets $33.50 

Mom pulled out lots of pretty coordinating sheets to start her sewing business with. Those sheets are going to make gorgeous aprons and other wearables!! 

Olive Green Sheets $33.50

I'm so glad she took so many sheets off my hand the other week -- I cannot imagine how many I would have to list if they were all still here!! And despite my best (recent) efforts to only buy sheets that are in excellent condition, it never fails that after I get home from a day of thrifting and start sorting through all of the newly acquired linens, I run across a couple that have a small flaw here or there that I didn't notice while I was in the store. Now, instead of just throwing them into the cutter bins, I'll go ahead and match them up with other cutters in the same color family and list them for all of the quilters and crafty people to use!

 

Orange Butterflies and Stripes $33.50

All of these cutter bundles ship in a medium Flat Rate Priority Box, so that's perfect!! Normally, I can only fit one sheet into a Flat Rate Envelope, which mails for $5, so this is really saving a lot of money on shipping!!  Perfect for building a stash, too!

Linens. Lots and Lots of Linens

My  mom was here visiting last week and she helped me sort through, iron and photograph hundreds of linens. It was a very time consuming task, one which I'm still doing on a daily basis. It's nice that my stash of vintage sheets is mostly ironed and organized. Seeing all of the pretty patterns sitting together on the shelving unit in my guest room makes me happy. The editing of pictures and creating new listings is a long, long process. I'd say I'm maybe halfway through. Maybe. 

The weather was terrible while my mom was here. It was cold and rainy with some snow showers almost every day, which meant that we didn't get to do any of the touristy stuff like we'd planned. We completely missed out on the Cherry Blossoms but we did manage to get 3 days of thrifting in!! We took a nice drive to Pennsylvania one day, went to a great resale shop, had lunch at a delicious little Mom & Pop kind of place, stopped in our favorite little market. We spent a whole day thrifting here in MD at 3 of the best thrifts around and I really resisted the urge to buy every vintage sheet I found. I only bought the ones that I knew were going to sell right away!! 

Mom left on Friday to go home and I've been working every day trying to get all of the listings done and be 'caught up', if there is such a thing. I don't know when/if I'll ever get to that point though!! 

 Saturday night, I went dancing and had a fabulous time, as always. Then, after 4 hours of sleep that night, I thought it would be a great idea for the honey and I to get dressed and go into DC to see the Cherry Blossoms, despite my legs throbbing from all of the dancing the night before. Well, shortly after hopping on the Metro, I started to feel so motion sick and thought I'd end up yakking on the train but I survived and we finally made it down to the Smithsonian stop. We walked. And walked. And walked and walked and walked. Stood in line for 30 minutes to buy chicken tenders that had too much breading and not enough chicken and cold fries. Went to see the Lincoln Memorial, watched a drum group perform, decided it was time to leave around 5 that night. I didn't take a single picture -- we missed the pretty pink blooms and they were just plain white when we got there. Pretty but not really a picture worthy kind of day. And the crowds were ri-damn-diculous! It's like people forget their manners and/or common sense when they get out in a crowd. 

So, anyway, I've been job hunting again for the last week or so. No luck. Big surprise there. I just really don't know what I'm going to do. I am trying to avoid at all costs having to move back to SC but ugh. It's like I can't catch a freaking break here. I was told by the ex that if I could swing the payments for the house, he'd 'rent' it to me. Well, without a job, that's going to be impossible. And furthermore, it's so damn expensive here that I just really don't know that I'd want to waste that much money on rent every month. I don't want to be house poor and living in fear every month, wondering how we're going to be able to afford the basics. I'm trying to have faith that things will work out but after searching for a job for the last YEAR, and not having found one, I'm starting to lose hope. 

Once again, I have no real pictures of things to share other than all of the yummy linens. I hope my readers don't mind seeing pictures of things I'm hawking on Etsy. Seems like some of the blogs I read only really publish posts or pictures when they add something new anyway. 

It's Wellie Season!!

Do I even own wellies? Nah. Do I need to go buy some? Definitely! You can tell that winter is over (and not just by looking at the calendar, which said the first day of spring was yesterday) but  by my basement, which is once again flooding on a regular basis. Fabulous!! Now, I am happy that I survived another crazy Maryland winter. This makes winter number five that I have been through. I remember the first winter when we moved here -- I was wearing thermal underwear in OCTOBER. Yes. Seriously. It wasn't unusually cold in October either, I just wasn't accustomed to temperatures in the 40s! I'm glad to say that my blood has thickened up quite nicely over the years and that this winter was mild in comparison to last year. In fact, I wore flip flops three times in the past week and it's been in the 50s or 60s.

So, spring is here and I'm so excited to see leaves on the trees and flowers blooming. We have like 3 daffodils in the flower beds that are just about to bloom and instead of leaving them out there to do their thing, as soon as those suckers open, I'm going out there with some shears and cutting them off to bring inside! The forsythia is blooming too and it's so gorgeous. I hate that the blooming period is so short lived though and then for the rest of the year, it just looks like a big ol tangled mess.

You know how I've been searching for a job for the last, oh, 11 months? Well, I've kind of given up. I have sent hundreds of resumes, filled out countless applications, had several interviews, tried to apply at retail jobs and nothing, NOTHING!!, has come of any of it. I've come to the sad realization that Maryland is just not going to work out. I am tired of spending God knows how much time searching for jobs in a place that's quite frankly too expensive to live in. I don't want to slave away for 40 hours a week at a job I hate just so I can barely afford to live here. I don't. That doesn't make any sense. I mean I like Maryland, for the most part, but I don't love it. And I don't want to spend the next 5 or 10 years of my life in a place that is just mediocre.

 So, having said that, I am thinking (seriously thinking) about moving to Pennsylvania this fall. I am on a time constraint insomuch as the ex is for certain moving in September to North Dakota. As you all know, our living situation has sucked because we're still forced to live in the same freaking house together because we bought when the market was high and were trying to wait until it recovered a bit before selling. Well, unfortunately for us, we won't have enough time to wait for that to happen since he has orders to get to ND and we are going to have to sell or rent by September. So, that's my timeline. I am hoping to spend the next few months saving money, destashing some goodies, researching the PA area even more and then hopefully, come July/August, I will be prepared to start applying for jobs there. In the event that I can't find suitable work, I will have enough saved to live for a while and I can still do my Etsy gig part time. I just really feel like I need to move somewhere that I love, that has a lot of opportunities to continue doing what I love. I have nothing to tie me down, except dogs (they love to travel!) so I might as well take advantage of this chance, right?!

 I am longing for the chance to live somewhere peaceful. Somewhere with a lot less traffic, a lot less houses, a lot less crime. I want to be able to see beautiful scenery without having to get in my car and drive an hour. I want to live somewhere that I don't hear the constant noise of trains, buses, fire trucks, airplanes. I want to hear the clip clop of horse hooves and be able to see rolling green hills and buy vegetables from a local market. I do think that the Amish area of PA will provide these things. And if by some chance, I end up hating it, I can always move again.

 I'm debating if I should keep this blog or not. I don't really post here much anymore. I don't really receive comments anymore. Maybe I'll think it over for another week or so and decide then. I find myself wasting a lot of time reading other blogs and commenting and I don't know that it's worth it to keep mine open. Hmm. Well, that's that. Time to go schlep to the basement and start laundry and package orders. In lieu of actual sunshine and flowers, I'm sharing some of the great vintage linens I've listed recently in my Etsy shop. These will have to work until the real things start blooming here!!

My Extremely Productive Day!

Despite sleeping in until 8:30 this morning, I have already accomplished so much today! I'm quite proud of myself because even though it's raining and gloomy and I'd love to take a nap, I'm pushing through! I ran to Wal-Mart first thing this morning, where I spent a good 20 minutes standing in one of the 3 open lanes trying to check out my shipping supplies. I hate that place. If the prices weren't so good and it wasn't so convenient (less than 1 mile from home), I swear I'd never go in that place. I hate how they have like 500 lanes and only 3 open. Even when it's ridiculously busy! ::vent over:: When I got home from Hell Wal-Mart, I packaged up some orders and ran to the Post Office, where I once again had to stand in a very long line. Boo!

But, the rest of my day has been fabulous! I came home and started ironing tons of linens I've purchased recently so I could then take pictures. I ironed for a couple of hours and I didn't even mind! Now, as domesticated as I am, there are some tasks/chores which I just despise doing. Like dishes. Or vacuuming. And normally, ironing. But a few weeks ago while I was shopping in Homegoods I picked up a bottle of Lavender scented linen spray and now I love to iron! Well, I'm not sure if it's the smell of the lavender or the smell of the money I'll hopefully make upon selling said linens, but something is making ironing a lot less dreadful than it used to be! LOL

Speaking of linens, I went to three thrift stores yesterday and I scored big at all of them. I shopped until I almost dropped. My joints were killing me by the time I got home last night! Part of my haul is pictured below. I haven't taken pictures of the "keep" pile yet, but it's equally huge. All of this is stuff I'm going to sell, despite my deep desires to hoard it all! lol











The husband is gone again until late tonight so I'm going to try to get the rest of my "sell" pile done and then start on the "keep" pile. I have so many things I want to show you guys! Maybe I'll get caught up soon!! Hope you all have a fabulous weekend!