All around the town,........

Gotta get this blog done as I was too worn out from raking and other yardwork as well as taking care of a 3-yr-old with a bad case of flu :( .

So last weekend on Saturday, the community had a big line up on garage sales and since the weather was soooooooo nice, my husband attached a rope to his mountain bike to pull the boys' red wagon. Think it doesn't sound safe? Don't worry, he rode SLOWLY with the three-year-old riding in the red wagon, as I buckled the 1-yr-old in his new umbrella stroller since I decided to walk to get some exercise. And heh heh, we should have thought of using the Explorer in the end LOL.

As we strolled around town, there was alot of people making frequent stops at every sale they see balloons attached to the residential properties. For some sales we stop at, there was alot more antiques and ornaments than useful items we could put to use. At one sale, the senior lady had a HUGE (I mean HUGE) orange cat and it looked like we can't pick that cat up at all. But it was very friendly and kept our kids entertained while my husband and I looked around. So, at another stop, I noticed there was a lawnmower and I was curious to see the price of it, since we need one so bad to cut the lawn, but the seller was asking for $100, and it was not in our budget at all. The seller even tried to start the lawnmower as a demo, but it didn't start well at all. Parts anyone?

We sure had walked and biked quite a lot for the past 2 and a half hours but it was a lot of fun to check out parts of the community. Even preschoolers and toddlers from families holding the sales are very happy to know that our boys are amongst more kids to play with in the park this coming summer when their parents are going to be taking holiday times to give the kids a break from going to daycare.

As for the rest of the garage sales, there were quite interesting things (beside antiques and ornaments) but others were kinda,....well,......junky? For instance, at one sale, the house and the yard were messy with junk, and it was in a midst of what they call it,"renovation" (in others words, the kitchen window was missing and it was supposed to have a new window but it looked like it didn't happen (?) ), and the lady asked us if we were interested in a hot tub that was hardly used at all (we loved to, but where are we going to put it and will my landlord have time to use it with his girlfriend in case we have to move? LOL) During the strolling, we have noticed that there was a lot of homes being abandoned and vandalized. I even was told by the village administration that some of the abandoned houses were repossessed for tax arrears and they could not track down the property owners that "disappeared from town" and owed taxes. Crazy.

As I mentioned earlier that we could have taken the Explorer, we did come home with a lot of items that my 3-yr-old had no problem rummaging through them while riding the wagon LOL:

-A child's sleeping bag with images of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that our three-yr-old will use for camping.

-a weed eater that didn't work well in the end that my landlord told us to make use of his new weedeater that he hardly used.

-a bag of snack containers that we can make great use of, from putting in small snacks for my husband to take to work as well for our kids to take with them whenever they are hungry.

-a few toy cars and such that the boys can use them outside in the sandbox.

-alot of t-shirts barely worn (very new to us!) with logos mainly of SK Roughriders (100 years old this year for the CFL team!) and the local junior hockey team in which we cheer for.

-a set of Budwieser beer can coolers that my dad will be chuckling about it when my parents visit the next time whenever beer is served COLD.

I absolutely cannot remember how much we spent in total altogether as the very warm weather got our brains too fuzzy on memory, but the good news is, at least we had plenty of cash to keep the gas tank full and stock up more of food until the next pay day :)

Until next time, I have no idea what are the plans for the May Long weekend as the weather news call for rain (and people already had plans to camp this weekend :S ).

(Now if someone have gardening supplies in good shape they don't need anymore, we would like them because Walmart is asking outrageous prices for new supplies :S )

Wow, a long day,....

Well, yesterday morning, my husband took 140 dollars out for the garage sales as well as the big indoor flea market at the city agriplex. So, before we went to the big indoor flea market, we stopped at two garage sales, and oh goodness, we felt it was a waste of time for sure,......groan. Senior citizen trying to sell off their antique ornaments that some volunteers could have came and buy them as props for community theaters or schools or something like that. So we proceeded to the flea market. There were sure alot of people there, trying to find bargains and deals, and after a good hour, we came out with a few bags and a big box of things we will put them to good use. While at the flea market, we see everything, from toys and movies on VHS and DVDs, to children's and adults' clothing, to rare antique items, to house plants and vegetable plants, to class board games, and oh, you name it all. What I am very thankful is the fact that no one sold expired or damaged children's car seats at all, otherwise I would have vented to the organizers and Transport Canada about it.

After coming out of the flea market with bags and a box full of "stuff", we went to a few more garage sales around the city. The funniest part of going to garage sales is having to stop, unbuckle the kids out, take the umbrella stroller out and buckle in my youngest son, go look around, and when we are done, go back to the vehicle, unbuckle my youngest son, buckle the kids in their carseats, put away the umbrella stroller and then take off. It is such a repetitious task, I should be getting my arms a good amount of exercise. By the time we were done checking out the last garage sale, we were not only exhausted, but the wind and rain started to pick up and sellers were scrambling to save their items from being blown away.

So, we bought:
-two tomato plants (but I still have to start plating the other varieties of tomatoes for our garden ASAP this week)
-french fry cutter, because I am so tired of cutting the potatoes into french fries all the time, I wanna just peel the potatoes and use the cutter and fry-em!
-a sweatshirt and pant outfit for my youngest son, since some of the pants handed down to him from my oldest son has worn out LOL
-a toy Hummer that my oldest son, who's a toy car fan, picked out.
-a classic toy car, a 1964 Mustang, still in box, picked out by my oldest son.
-a dish rack and tray set which I needed so bad. At dollar stores, they sell for 15 dollars and over, and hey, I got it for 3 bucks, still new with label on it.
-two bundles of children's hangers, ten hangers per bundle, for cheap, so I can hang more clothes up instead of bunching the clothes in the drawers.
-a few classic albums on records that my husband like.
-a couple of caps, yes, because my husband collects them :)
-a wallet, still new, because my last wallet lost the zipper tag.
-an old Sunbeam mixer/bowl/stand set. Hey, I still have to save money for a brand new Kitchen Aid set, right?
-A small Panasonic CD/cassette player for the kitchen so I can get back to listening to my favorite CDs again.
-a few collections of movies on DVDs (and I didn't pay attention to what we got, because my husband put them away before I could see the rest of them LOL )
-a V-tech Play Desk in which my oldest son gets to listen to the sounds of alphabets and words.
-8 storybooks to read to the boys at bedtime, plus two teacher's workbooks for preschoolers to learn science and health.
-a WWE board trivia game, never used, but we will test how much we know about the players in the past.
-a hanging basket and a planter's container. Hey, gotta have it for flowers and veggies outside :)
-a set of speakers for the computer, brand new, still in box.
-a motorcycle model, still in box. (Okay, does the packaging still have value?)

And it was less than a hundred dollars (I think,......maybe,......eh,.....)

Next weekend, there is a huge garage sale lineup in the community, and I told my husband that we will have to leave the Explorer home, use the umbrella stroller and the red wagon. That way, I don't have to take my youngest son on and off the umbrella stroller all the time LOL.

Well, I am going to pick out a CD to put in the CD/cassette player to listen to.