Kuochun was told the next opportunity to take a flight was at 6:38 Saturday morning. He was concerned about arriving to Hong Kong in the evening because the next step was to take a ferry to the mainland. He was not sure if the ferries would be running at that time or if it would even be safe if they were. But it was not meant to be as when I got up at 4:15 AM to take him to the airport, he let me know that the same thing happened - the San Francisco flight was delayed. The next opportunity was Saturday evening and this trip was successful, however not without some harrowing moments. Kuochun said the plane could not land in San Francisco right away and kept circling around. Good thing he only had a backpack with him to deal with because he was the last person to get on the flight to Hong Kong. He arrived on Sunday evening our time which is Monday morning there, they are 15 hours ahead of Arizona.
Before Kuochun left, we set up an app so that we could communicate while he is away. We did make a trip to Cox Mobile to see about setting up an international plan but the only choice was $10 per day which was too much to spend for an extended trip. The app is not bad, we were able to send messages back and forth as well as a quick video call which did end up getting cut off. But it is free so we cannot complain! I am sure it will take some time to adjust. He gave me a quick spin around his room. It is great that he has his own room because then his snoring will not bother anyone.
Mother and I had plans to attend the annual Indian Market at the Heard Museum Saturday, I had purchased tickets in advance. Even though I was wrecked from lack of sleep we still headed over there. I was hoping to arrive at 8:00 to get a spot in one of the ADA parking lots but we did not get there until 8:30 and both lots were filled. I had to drop Mother and the wheelchair off and go park in the same paid lot I used last year. However this time we were able to get in early because our prepaid tickets said 8:30 AM admission, with the general public admission at 9:30 AM. This definitely helped us get through most of the areas where the artists shared large tents. We made a beeline for Kyle Lee-Anderson's booth and he did have a much better selection than last year, however there was nothing that I could not live without. I was hoping to get a bracelet with Navajo pearls (I did not buy the one last year because it was a little large) but he did not have any. I should have bought it and had a bead taken off.
After that, we started to walk the show. We did view the booths of other artists we purchased from last year but did not find anything to buy. However everything changed when we came upon Clarissa and Vernon Hale's booth. Clarissa is the daughter of David and Alice Lister, who are iconic Navajo artists. Two other sisters, Dee Nez and Davida Lister are also very talented silversmiths. For a very long time I have been wanting a single stone necklace set in the east-west direction with a chain. Mother bought one a few years ago (Kathy Sands, who is non-Native) and it looks so cute on her.
Blackjack turquoise is my favorite right now and I did purchase this necklace at the Tucson Gem Show. The stone is stunning and it is a very nice necklace but the styling is a little traditional for me. I put this one up for sale before I discovered the one I purchased from Clarissa and family. It is also Blackjack turquoise but not quite as formal.
This is the set I purchased - they are definitely investment pieces but I do not have anything like them in my collection. I also have more than enough jewelry that I either no longer wear or never wore that I will be offering for sale to offset this expense. I was happy to find that even though Saturday was the cutoff day for my credit card statement, these transactions were pending and did not hit my statement until Sunday. Therefore, I have an extra month to pay! I am going to try wearing both necklaces at once and see how it goes. A lot of times the layered look can be matronly on me.
There were several of these beautiful necklaces in the booth and this was the first one I saw. I immediately thought it would be great for Mother. She also loved these earrings and although they are not a perfect match, they look amazing with the double loop chain she also purchased from Clarissa. I offered to put these pieces on my credit card and I will sell others to cover it. It is a big splurge for her but she made it to 80 and deserves it!
We could have bought so much more but we are both watching our pennies this year. The only other artist we purchased from was Robert Johnson. He and his wife Lenore are such lovely people, I see Lenore posting her husband's work on Facebook quite often. We loved the earrings they had to offer. Mother purchased a pair like the one on the left and I encouraged her to get the Navajo pearl earrings because I knew they would be a perfect match for another necklace she has. Sure enough, they were! I snapped up the all sterling silver hair clip for Mother's birthday gift. I have never seen a piece like it before and wanted to get her something unique for her birthday. Good thing I did because a lady came by and had her eye on it. The hair clip and Navajo pearl earrings are not for sale but I purchased a second pair of the earrings on the left so they plus the statement dangles in the center and the heart dangles on the right are available for sale.
We paid a visit to the gift shop and did not attempt to view the permanent cases because it was very crowded. However they did have a "command center" setup with five cases filled with vintage pieces. The jewelry was amazing but very pricey. We inquired about a Fred Harvey era thunderbird necklace and it was $2,200. It was fun to look though. In addition, there were many vintage pieces in the permanent showcases. I am sorry that my jewelry was not priced in time to make the show but hopefully it will be there next year!
At this point we were both very tired and headed for home. The Heard Museum is like a little oasis in the middle of downtown Phoenix. There are such cute homes in the neighborhood. One of the streets, Palm Lane, is lined with majestic palm trees. I highly recommend attending the Indian Market. It is mostly jewelry but many other forms of Indigenous art was represented as well. It is a great place to spend the day or even the weekend trying Native food such as frybread and watching the performances which culminate with hoop dancing. Hopefully next year we will be able to stay longer. We will have the scooter which will help immensely.
Now to back up to the start of the week - on Monday afternoon Kuochun felt like grabbing a bite to eat so I suggested Illegal Pete's which is a Colorado-based chain with 13 locations there, one in Tucson and one in downtown Tempe which is where we went. Several people in the Facebook groups said the food is way better than Chipotle. Since I like Chipotle a lot I thought we should put it to the test. But what do I do? Not order a bowl so I could compare it to Chipotle but a chicken quesadilla instead. The food was very good and I will definitely go again in the future and try a bowl. The rice looked great. Kuochun has been into nachos lately and he loved what he ordered.
On Thursday I had a couple of folks visit to take a look at the jewelry. I did not fuss too much but did need to do some general tidying up in the garage for them. I am not sure what they were looking for exactly but they did find a squash blossom pendant. The plan for next week will be to take the jewelry tables down and make room for the car. I did move the walking pad over to the center of the garage so we no longer need to use an extension cord and the position is close to the ceiling fan to help us keep cool while walking. I was able to use the walking pad a couple of times during the week, alternating with going to the senior center. I am 40 pounds under the walking pad's weight limit but could feel like it was struggling a bit to handle my weight. I did an hour each time at the rate of 2.5 miles per hour. I will keep at it and see if it helps. Kuochun continues to love it!
For months, as soon as Kuochun made the decision to go to China this year, Mother has told him that he needs to bring gifts for his granddaughter. However, he kept saying that her parents have very specific taste and would not like anything we brought her. I let it go but at the last minute Kuochun's son "suggested" that he bring some gifts. Thus began the mad scramble to find something to bring. I thought The Mercantile in Old Town was a good place to start. They had a booth with items made in Mexico. Kuochun had the idea to get mother/daughter bracelets and we picked out a couple of beaded flower bracelets, one in child's size. I was concerned about the larger one because it basically fit me and I have a pretty big wrist. Kuochun was set on it. Then his son messaged again and said his granddaughter was really into cats and kitchen items right now. At first I thought of Hello Kitty but there is no Sanrio store in the Phoenix area. Then I thought they can probably get all the Hello Kitty stuff there is in China, being so close to Japan.
Kuochun asked me to go to World Market while I was waiting for Mother to do her therapy. I did not have luck there but it just so happened Painted Tree Boutiques was right next door. They had a larger Mexican booth where I found this adorable cat. As soon as I found the cat, Mother called and was ready to be picked up so I brought her back to the store. We chose an embroidered dress and a little Frida bauble in addition to the cat. A book would have been great but the books at Painted Tree were too babyish for her. It was not a bad haul for the very last minute, luckily Kuochun liked what we got and in the end was happy not to go empty-handed.
Because of all the weekend activity including getting my hair done on Sunday, I was not able to post a weekly purge. I will definitely plan to get back to it next week. I have some amazing pieces which I have not shown yet, going back to November of last year. I did get a few more pieces online and have now posted all of the new Native American Tucson Gem Show finds from one vendor this year. I have a lot left to go! It is a time-consuming process posting to five different venues but I sell items on all of them so it is worth it.
I did post the remaining two Bali pieces I have here in Scottsdale, this hummingbird pendant with Hubei turquoise and the owl earrings. The rest of the Bali jewelry collection is at home so I plan to work on it this summer. I was happy to see that the folks who make this jewelry seem to be recognized online and that many of the pieces other sellers put up have sold.
I also posted five new Native American pieces - two adorable stacker cuff bracelets by Sunshine Reeves and three of my personal pendants which I ended up never wearing. I love them all but they are a little on the small side for me. One thing they have in common is that they are all exceedingly great quality. The Bali pieces are in the Bali Jewelry collection and the cuffs and pendants are in the New Native American Silver Jewelry collection at CestLaBries.com.
This pendant by Delbert Doss features Carico Lake turquoise and orange spiny oyster shell.
This pendant by Cooper Willie features a stunning piece of webbed Kingman turquoise.
This cluster pendant by Elgin Tom features Golden Hills turquoise which usually has a lot of matrix but these stones were chosen which have little to no matrix. The hand stamping on the bail is gorgeous, I love the combination of the simple stones with the textured bail.
Finally, here is one of the Sunshine Reeves stackers. This one is covered with stamped stars, even on the inside!
That is all the news for this week. Plans for next week as time permits include continuing to post new items online and starting to tackle the shoeboxes filled with random jewelry. One box per day, five days per week is a goal to strive for!
]]>We went with Monkey Bread as a starter - I have had it once before several years ago when I took a trip to Wauwatosa WI, Mother's hometown and dined at a local spot which used to be Heinemann's, my grandparents' favorite restaurant back in the day. I have many memories there, especially of their famous Lush Torte. But I digress, this version of monkey bread was very good and we were told several times back and forth that it was sold out, we got one of the last two, sold out, etc. but it would have been better warm. I usually go savory for breakfast even though I have a huge sweet tooth but this time I decided to get the chocolate chip oat pancakes. I was glad that the serving was not huge. Kuochun selected salmon sliders on pretzel rolls and Mother chose shrimp tacos. Everyone enjoyed what they ordered! The atmosphere was lovely with birds hopping around hoping to be fed. There was a fountain behind a wall and all we could see was the sphere at the top and one of the birds decided to land on it and stay a while. Overall it was a great experience and both Mother and Kuochun felt it was the best restaurant they have been to in Arizona so far.
Mother did not want a cake and there is a pie shop close to her pulmonary therapy called Piefection. Her oxygen machine ran out so she could not go inside but I made the choices on my own. I knew she would not want a whole pie so I picked up four slices instead - Strawberry Rhubarb, Michigan Cherry, Almond Joy and Arizona Orange. I tried the cherry and Almond Joy and thought they were both very good.
Melinda was not able to join us on Saturday so Mother and I met her at the Fountain Hills Spring Fountain Festival Of Fine Arts & Crafts on Sunday. This was our first time visiting Fountain Hills for anything larger than their farmer's market which is not big. It was the 50th anniversary of the festival and it was huge! This was one day when having the scooter would have been most helpful. Parking was a challenge, accommodations for the handicapped were non-existent and there were no signs directing people to the event but we figured it out. The town was very organized about labeling parking areas which were reserved for the local businesses where festival parking was not allowed. We ducked into an antique store which had a high-end look but smelled like baby powder. The people minding the store will kind of aggressive which was a turn-off. They had the most jewelry I have seen in a store of this type but nothing we wanted to purchase. We did not purchase anything at the festival either but it was nice to check it out even though it was kind of hot in the sun. I wanted to show Melinda the shop I like in town where I have purchased a lot of jewelry props and baskets in the past because I thought she would like it too. She found a really pretty agate slice which will complement some amethyst pieces she already has. Last time we were there the shop owner did not want to sell me the petrified cactus but this time she was more accommodating and I found five great props for the collection.
I found pieces of petrified cactus which were not quite as pretty as the one the store owner wanted to keep but they will do. One is large but should fit in the light box and the other is small and perfect for these individual shots. I was so surprised to see the large piece priced at $5.00 and she let me have the others for only $4.00 each. This is a sterling silver pendant from Bali with a large piece of Hubei turquoise from China.
Here is the other horse pendant from Bali in my inventory, also with Hubei turquoise. I purchased these pieces four years ago and now is the time to get them online!
I also found two small pieces of driftwood to experiment with. I recently joined a new Facebook group for jewelry and although this group is Native American centered, they also allow any type of turquoise jewelry as well as vintage pieces. Someone in the group requested horse jewelry so I thought I would take the opportunity to shoot a few photos with the new props. This piece of driftwood has great movement which is perfect for this running horse pendant by Navajo artist Chimney Butte.
This little experiment lead me to decide that except for the vintage Native American jewelry, I am going to customize the props and backdrops for each piece. What will tie them together is that there will be a prop made of a natural substance like petrified wood, driftwood or wood slabs along with an embossed leather or printed cowhide backdrop.
It is going to be fun matching them up! I also invested in some more of the wood pieces from Ireland this week and look forward to receiving them. The pieces the seller is offering just keep getting better. After the new pieces arrive, I will take a look at everything and decide whether to sell some of the older props locally.
It was a long week with appointments and other running around every day and more social activities than I am used to so I did not get to do a jewelry purge again this week. I will need to plan ahead because next weekend is the Heard Museum Indian Market which Mother and I will attend on Saturday and I have a hair appointment on Sunday.
On Monday, we visited the Apple Store at Fashion Square Mall which is only a few minutes away from home. The store is massive and in the high-rent district, I cannot imagine what the monthly rent is. Kuochun is having trouble with the backup from the estate sales showing as blurry on his phone. He prints them out for me to save me time and has had to use my phone lately to print them. We tried to ask for help but the gatekeeper turned us down. We then went to the food court and grabbed a burger from Johnny Rockets. The burger was better than the fries but I think Culver's burgers are even better. On our way out I noticed that there was a different gatekeeper so I thought we should ask our question again. There was an hour wait for a technician so we made an appointment for Wednesday.
Tuesday was the day we finally unpacked the walking pad after waiting for the garage sale to be over. I had to rearrange our mini appliances in the garage because the walking pad was not working well with the GFCI outlet. Things are not put away yet from the garage sale so for the moment we are using a heavy duty extension cord. Kuochun has taken to the walking pad right away and has used it every day this week, even if we also went to the senior center! He is loving the flexibility of being able to exercise without having to travel to the senior center and work around their fitness room hours. I have not tried it yet but next week for sure!
Wednesday Mother and I met with a new doctor who specializes in heart failure and is so fabulous. He came from Wake Forest where he was performing heart transplants. The verdict is Mother is a difficult case but it is nothing he has not seen before. He is a great addition to her healthcare team. After the appointment it was back to the Apple Store, we had to wait quite a while and the technician changed some settings on Kuochun's phone but it did not seem to help. Looks like it will need to wait until he returns home from China. Instead of the food court, we ran into DeFalco's for lunch. This Italian deli is very well-known all over the Phoenix area and people travel far and wide to eat there. It is just a few minutes from home, close to the post office and on the way to the senior center. I suggested Kuochun get the muffuletta which he loved and I got a chicken pesto sandwich which was way more delicious than I expected. I had been there for dinner a couple of times and it was fine but I will definitely go back for lunch.
The two times we had been to the mall reminded me about Sprinkles Cupcakes which is across the street. In all of the time we have been here in Scottsdale I have never gotten their cupcakes here. I have had them twice - once in Dallas when we were visiting there for the Roller Derby World Cup and again shortly after on a visit to the Sprinkles ATM in Chicago's Gold Coast which is the only Illinois location. Sprinkles Scottsdale is only a few minutes from home. I remembered the Black & White cupcake being good before even though it has been ten years. The one thing I would do differently is not purchase six at once - it did not take long for them to get stale. In the future I would just use the ATM and get one at a time.
And a last note about food - one of my all-time favorite TV shows is a Chicago original - Check, Please! on PBS. I have always enjoyed watching it but felt for the most part the recommended restaurants were not easily accessible for us - they are way in the city or in the south suburbs so it would take a long time to get there, parking would be challenging, etc. I was really excited to find that Arizona has its own version of Check, Please! and it is back after a hiatus of several years. So far I have watched two episodes and it is just as good as the Chicago version with a little added bonus - the host/chef asks the diners to give a "pro tip" before they wrap up the discussion about a restaurant. I have appreciated the fact that all of the restaurants would be easily accesssible and not more than 20 minutes away due to our central location. We even saw one of the featured restaurants as we were running errands one day. However the one closest to us is fine dining in Old Town and Kuochun is like $125 per person? I don't think so! Kuochun wants to try some of the other restaurants so it is probably a blessing in disguise to get a break from dining out while he is gone.
One last bit of news is that I posted eight new Gem Show finds to the New Native American Silver Jewelry collection. They are investment pieces but beautiful and unusual. CLICK HERE to see them.
Until next time!
]]>Unfortunately I was not able to get to tidying up the garage for the sale until the two days before, also working around house cleaning day on Friday. On Friday evening I was beyond tired and ready to throw in the towel when Mother came to the rescue with some ice cream and assistance. She did such a great job staging the right side of the wall with the bohemian costume jewelry I found at the Gem Show last year. I found a great wooden necklace form with an embossed floral design at HomeGoods for only $9.99 and a pair of beautiful long woven baskets. Mother used the necklace form and a large natural wood platform which I had originally purchased to shoot jewelry photos with. As beautiful as it is in person, I found that both this large piece and a smaller matching piece I bought were not good for photos. I tried hard to capture their natural colors but in their photos they always look very washed out. I was going to sell them but they look awesome as props on the wall. This area is really coming together!
I extended my sale to Sunday but made the hours 9-3 and thought about doing Monday as well from 9-1 because Mother had a therapy appointment at 1:30 but in the end decided against it. I always push myself so hard but for once I put on the brakes. A small part of the reason was I was approached by the HOA representative on Saturday and was completely caught off guard. There are no rules against having garage sales here but we are not allowed to hire an estate sale company to host a sale for us. This kind of puts me in a grey area because although I do not do estate sale business in AZ, I do so in IL and of course even our simple downsizing sales are going to be done to the best of my ability. I was running on fumes during the sale due to lack of sleep and when she approached me I did not even recognize her as I have not seen her for three years. When she said we need to have a conversation and that I was in potential violation of the rules all I could say was "what have I done?" The issue was with the sign which says Sale By Brie's. If I had my wits about me I would have explained that I was not doing business here but that these are all personal items for Mother, Kuochun and myself. The jewelry I was trying to sell were all pieces that I am looking to liquidate in order to downsize the number of jewelry lines I carry. I just let her know that I will take the sign down right away. The sign was not needed anyway.
Luckily I had the foresight not to put up street signs out of respect of the garage sale signs they had put up for the community. Other reasons for not continuing Monday were that I would have to reduce the 75% off items to 90% off and I ended up not having many photos of the items for sale or photos of the room. It was mostly individual photos of the vintage Native American jewelry along with some Federico photos. I think I will need to take the photos way in advance for next time, like before I leave this spring. I also gave Melinda back the sawhorses we were using for street signs, as it was mentioned that I had used them in the past. However I thought they did not mind what I was doing as before that they allowed someone who was moving away on my street to hire an outside company and have a public sale with street signs posted for at least five days. Well now I am aware and will act accordingly.
The Federico jewelry did attract three big buyers - I had one (who had visited us before) purchase the butterfly necklace above along with all of the other matching pieces to complete the set. I had a cuff bracelet, clip earrings and an adjustable ring as well. Federico uses all natural stones in his jewelry and there is a crack in one of the stones he used on the upper left wing of the center butterfly. I explained that this was a part of the natural stone and that the piece was not broken. Luckily there was a very cool couple visiting us at the same time - they had amazing jewelry on that he had made by painstakingly cutting out the buffalo portion of coins. He had little buffalo made from nickels circling his hat band and his wife had a very cool necklace and belt buckle made from larger pieces. They were such nice and down to earth people - everyone calls him Cowboy. Mother asked her name and she said it was Clarissa but she tells everyone to call her Cowgirl since she is always with Cowboy. He gave the customer the confidence to go ahead and purchase the set, backing up what I had said about the stones. It was not a big moneymaker as I was offering 50% off plus I gave her a bundle deal on the fly but I have had the necklace for three years and was OK with letting it go. I will put the money towards this year's Gem Show bills.
On Sunday two women stopped by and one of them was looking for these earrings. I did not have the chance to put the Federico jewelry out and was just taking it out of the storage box for people. I was in a bit of a panic because I could not find the earrings but then I realized that they were probably mixed in with the Federico I just purchased from the Gem Show this year. They are clips and I had brought the three pair of clip earrings I bought last year wanting to exchange them. I brought them to Tucson but forgot to bring them to the show. She was not worried that they were clips and when she tried them on, they were absolutely stunning on her. She is tall with a nice long neck which supports their length and wears a lot of black. Her friend did not really want to come but decided to at the last minute and she found pieces for herself and for gifts. She said she was so glad that she came.
I showed her this necklace which is the last high-end Federico piece I have. She adored it and said she loved it more than another necklace she has which sounded very interesting. She said it was Native American and reversible with pink conch shell on one side and turquoise on the other. I offered a possible trade and she is thinking about it. Too bad Mother was not downstairs at the time, she would have really enjoyed them.
The very last thing we sold was the ceiling fan which was taken down from our dining area. I let it go for only $10 because it has been completely in my way for two years and I was over it. I tried to get $40 on Facebook Marketplace but no luck. I was not sure if it would even fit in the car to take to Goodwill.
I feel like I have a lot more breathing room but this will not last long because the plan next week will be to finally unpack the walking pad and start using it. I will need to work on how to arrange everything in the garage so the car, walking pad, mini refrigerator and mini freezer along with all of the jewelry and supplies will nicely fit. It would be nice to shoot photos down there until it becomes too hot. We sold some of the Christmas items but understandably not a lot given the time of year. There are bins filled with silk flowers, Christmas sprigs and garlands and although it is not a priority with so much stuff to put online I may spend a little time on it to see if I can find anyone interested through Facebook Marketplace.
I would also like to contact a Phoenix consignment store to see if they would like to sell all my powder coated furniture and extra railings. They seem to do really well with wrought iron furniture, they display it in front of their store and every time we have been by the furniture is different. We toured the store once and the pricing is pretty hefty because it is in a trendy area of town. This would leave us with no furniture in the backyard but no one is using it and I do not want it to sit outside for a third summer and continue to chip and peel. The hope is to get something new and more comfortable next year.
As a side note, the tree in the background in the above photo is currently totally covered in white blossoms, even Kuochun was impressed by it!
Mother would like me to send some of her unsold items home such as her hats and scarves as she feels they will do better there. We do have the sale coming up in Wayne so it seems like a good opportunity and there is plenty of value to offset the shipping cost. There is still so much to do as she has two bins filled with beautiful vintage beaded flowers which I think the Etsy folks would really love. I do not think I will be able to post everything online but I will do my best to get through as much as I can while I am here. I look forward to the day when there will only be our jewelry and clothing to sell.
I was not feeling quite as tired Sunday but tired enough not to post a jewelry purge. I will be back next Sunday with more amazing items. New pieces are on the way as well so now I would say I will have enough to do three purges by then. There are lots of great items to come in the near future as I will start to work on this year's Gem Show finds as well.
Well now is the time to work on the weekly newsletter, see you soon!
]]>This week was kind of a blur as it was time to resume preparing the estate sale packages and we had a doozy of an estate sale in Riverwoods over the weekend. A sale like this only comes around about every five years in the Chicago market and it could not have come at a better time. It was such an interesting mix of items including the best Barbie collection we have ever seen as well as tons of quality men's clothing, unique taxidermy and lots of cowhides. Everyone really enjoyed shopping at the sale and we are going to continue with an extension. Next week we have another great sale in Highland Park in a large home with some beautiful items and we just booked a sale in this gorgeous home in Wayne for the week after.
The community garage sale is next Saturday and I will be participating as well as doing an extension on Sunday. Melinda is going to come down and help out and the weekend format will work great for her as traffic is much lighter on the weekend days. I posted the advertising as promised, now I need to work on my own advertising! I received a question through Craigslist so I thought I would ask the group if they were selling any of the items the gentleman was looking for. A couple of people responded but then another person whom I have never met and also did the same advertising (not sure why as I suggested only one person do it) sent me a pretty nasty e-mail telling me I was going to get tons of questions like that and just tell them to come to the sale, because the sale is way too big to bother with answering questions. From what I can see, there are only about 14 homes participating so that is not large and my style is to do my best to help every customer who comes my way, even though I will not be selling what he is looking for. I nearly shot back a response saying who I was but I decided not to answer as to not make waves here. Next year he or she (I am not sure which as they have a gender-specific name) can do the advertising themselves.
Once again the local Facebook groups continue to impress with great recommendations. Ever since I mentioned Ocean Trail restaurant at Talking Stick Resort (about 15 minutes away from home) it has been on Kuochun's short list to get there because it is a combination of Cajun and Southern food, two of his favorites. We decided to go Wednesday for lunch, as we did not have a sale going on and I had a little break between my early week and latter week tasks. I was resigned to getting a Caesar salad which I do enjoy but was hoping to try something more substantial. When we approached the entrance, a man was waiting there, menu in hand and let us know he was ordering carryout and not waiting in line. He mentioned that the shrimp and grits was amazing. When we were seated and I was looking over the menu I decided to go for it. Maybe I have tried grits once in my life and found them to be overly buttery. This entree was amazing and I have that gentleman to thank! These grits are a smoky cheese flavor but not stringy with tons of cheese or butter. Diners can request a spice level of 1 to 10 and I thankfully chose 1 because it was pretty spicy. I like a little kick but nothing crazy. Kuochun selected the combination pan roast, spice level 3. He can handle a lot of spice so a 3 for him is probably a 7 at other restaurants. I think I enjoyed my entree much more than Kuochun did but we will plan to go again and he can get the gumbo.
After lunch, we walked around the casino a bit. This was our first time there since before the pandemic when we went to the buffet. The buffet is no more but Ocean Trail is a great addition. Kuochun likes to put $20 on a roulette game (not the regular roulette tables) but we could not find any. Instead, he chose a buffalo-themed slot machine. It was penny slots but a minimum bet of $2.00. We got off to a good start with some small payouts but then we hit a bunch of free spins. One of those spins hit a big jackpot (for us) and then more free spins after that. As soon as the free spins ran out, we cashed out and were left with $53.50. This almost paid for my entree so we were really excited.
Kuochun has been in the mood for dining out lately so Friday night he wanted to try the new Lou Malnati's sit-down restaurant at Tempe Marketplace, also 15 minutes away but in the opposite direction. We have a carryout Lou's just over the border in Phoenix 5 minutes away from home but thought the restaurant would be fun to try. The style is much different than the Chicago-area locations - there is absolutely no Chicago sports memorabilia on display but I understand that. We both loved the modern design and the use of different size pizza pans as wall art. I was able to snap a photo because surprisingly the dining room emptied pretty quickly.
We thought the food was as great as usual - we selected a small Chicago Classic deep dish and a thin crust sausage and pepperoni. Of course we had to get the cookie pizza! I think it will be a good choice to go there once a year because the restaurants are always jam-packed back home. Next door was Barrio Queen which is a Mexican restaurant with several locations. Looking through the windows as we walked by, the decor looked amazing and I would definitely like to try it even though Mexican is not my first choice.
I was able to post this jewelry purge on Sunday evening, focusing mainly on pieces without stones. This was another combination of very special pieces from the Gem Show and other more budget-friendly items. Only the earrings on the right and the crossed arrows pin at the bottom center sold, the other pieces are all available. As I always say, turquoise rules! I may not get to post a purge next weekend due to the garage sale but I have two lots to post after this one - one with either blue or green turquoise and the other with multi-color stones. I am going to put all of the new pieces in the garage sale so if they sell, that will be less work to do.
I feel like I have been preparing for an event the entire time I have been here between the downsizing sale, Gem Show and garage sale. After the garage sale is over, I will focus on the Gem Show finds and will plan to start polishing and pricing vintage sterling jewelry to send home to the caravan. It is about time to showcase some new pieces!
]]>Here are some more of the sculptures. Kuochun sent a few photos of himself in the garden to friends in China. They were shocked to see how much weight he has gained and commented on his belly!
After a bit of an initial walk-through and a visit to the gift shop we decided to go for lunch. At this time they are offering a temporary cafe with outdoor dining called Porter's Patio Cafe by Charly's BBQ & Grill food truck. It was very casual but the food was great. I chose the mac & cheese with pulled pork and Mother and Kuochun each ordered a Sonoran BBQ Chili Dog. I got two full meals out of my serving and it was only $13. We had to order bottled water as no tap water was available but it was still a great value.
By then Mother's oxygen machine ran out so we sent her back to the car to put the scooter away and let it charge. Kuochun and I went back in and took a second tour, making sure to hit all of the sections. I really liked the sculptures in the garden:
Our final stop was the butterfly greenhouse. We were able to get in just before it closed. It was very hot in there! The greenhouse was filled with non-native plants and butterflies. As much as I love butterfly motif jewelry, the real thing was creeping me out. There were several bird baths scattered about with slices of orange on them and lots of the butterflies were drinking from them. They were slowly opening and closing their wings which I had trouble watching. I did not stay there long and although the limit was supposed to be five people inside at once it felt like there were too many people in there. When we exited the greenhouse and into the staging area, the attendant had me spin around twice to make sure there were no butterflies on me. Thankfully there were not!
The Tucson Botanical Garden was very charming and would be a great place to spend some time, relax and literally stop and smell the roses. Unfortunately we did not have time to do that this trip but I am glad we went because I always wondered about it. I was happy to see that Kuochun enjoyed it so much.
On our way out of town we stopped by Arizona Hatters. We did not really have time as the rental car needed to be returned by 1:00 PM but it was the only time we could go because the store is closed Sundays and Mondays. Mother has been dreaming about finding a hat like the one shown in her childhood photo - it had her name embroidered on the brim and she wore it all the time until she grew out of it. We were disappointed in our experience at the Phoenix hat store but even though this store was 25% the size Mother zeroed right in on her perfect hat. The staff was awesome to work with and one of the men working in the shop actually made the hat she chose. Mother asked him to sign it which he was honored to do, on the inside under the ribbon. I found an amazing sterling silver Fred Harvey-era pin in Prescott last year which I had been holding onto for a special project and it is perfect for this hat! Mother is going to get some feathers to put with the pin as well. It caused us to be 45 minutes late to drop off the car rental with all the time spent deciding if she was going to buy the hat or not but it was worth it, she was so happy! She had fun trying to duplicate her childhood photo with her new hat.
After Kuochun and I dropped off the car at a parking garage near the airport, we were hungry and decided to find a quick bite nearby. I found Outta Bronx which sounded perfect. The owner was super nice and very friendly. I chose the Long Island which was a pastrami and turkey sandwich and Kuochun went with the Empire Steak. We both really enjoyed our food and splurged on an orange soda for me and mango soda for Kuochun. The area was a little sketchy, I would definitely not go there at night but it was alright during the day.
Once we returned home, it was right back to the double therapy schedule for Mother on Wednesday and Friday. On Thursday, it was the big day for the girls to go to their first dental cleaning. We were already prepared for the worst based on the first opinion we received but it did not make things any easier. Vivi lost four teeth but they are in the back and are evenly spaced. However poor Margot had eleven teeth fall out during the cleaning and had to have eleven more teeth removed. I am so heartbroken for her. Vivi went first so she had more time to recover but Margot was not doing well her first night back. I have been diligently giving them their three medications twice a day and they are doing better now. I know in time Margot will adjust but it is so sad to see her with so many teeth missing. She is just as sweet as ever and hopefully getting out of pain. We were pleased with the process, the vet was very thorough and gave us lots of personalized information.
The girls are supposed to eat soft food for the first week after the procedure and I found one that we could purchase locally at Petco called Just Food For Dogs. The one we selected was chicken and white rice with carrots. The food came frozen and took two days to defrost so in the meantime Kuochun made them chicken, white rice and cooked carrots with red pepper soup as a gravy. The food was kind of expensive (and Mother threw a package away by mistake) but Kuochun really likes it so he decided to order more. It just takes a little planning because it is frozen but it is better than getting the bags of FreshPet which do not always stay fresh by the time we get to the bottom of the bag.
On Thursday we needed to drive out to Gilbert to switch out the defective portable oxygen machine. After that, we stopped by Flancer's for lunch. This was our second time there and it was great once again. I selected the It's About Thyme Chicken sandwich with fries and Kuochun went with the We Must Meat, I Ain't Lion Filet Mignon sandwich with coleslaw. It was great once again. If it were closer I am sure we would go more often. It's a very friendly, down-home place and the owner never stops moving to assist his guests.
I cannot pass through the area without getting the best cookies in the universe at American Way Smokehouse in Chandler. This time it was mostly fruity flavors and a few other choices. I tried one birthday cake cookie because I usually find birthday cake flavored items too sweet but this one was amazing. I also got strawberries and cream, orange dreamsicle, chocolate chip walnut and peanut butter. Two cookies are free with a dozen purchase. American Way is an awesome lunch spot as well. The photo is of my favorite, the sugar cookie. Mother is not a big dessert person but she absolutely loved these cookies! She wondered if she could order these to send to Wisconsin for her virtual birthday party. I do not think they ship but if she really wanted to I could learn how to properly ship cookies.
I was able to post a new jewelry purge for the first time in nearly three months. I did not realize that it had been that long. Unless some new items come in, I should be able to process all of the new items this month. This is a combination of some of the very amazing pieces I found at the end of the Tucson trip with some more budget-friendly pieces. The pendant near the upper left, the five-station necklace and pendant necklace and the two rings on the right have sold. The keychain is pending sale and the other items are currently available. The owl watch tips are super adorable and this is one of two sets that I purchased. The other set does not have a background. Surprisingly they did not sell. They would make the most awesome Apple Watch band!
That is all the news for this week, next step is to prepare for the garage sale which will be February 17 with my personal extension to February 18. The woman in charge of organizing the garage sale reached out to the participants asking if there was anyone who could post advertising to Craigslist, Nextdoor and Facebook Marketplace. Even though I am very hesitant to put anything else on my plate right now, I knew I was the right person for the job. Kuochun offered to go around and take photos of the other participants' setups for the ads but I have not heard a response on this yet. Once the garage sale is complete, I will be able to focus more on the online store. I posted a few items including the two lariats I found in Tucson, some vintage Zuni butterfly jewelry and the rest of the items I had delisted last spring and kept here in Scottsdale. As a result, I sold several different items on eBay, Etsy and Facebook Marketplace. I love the way that works!
Until next time!
]]>The following Saturday we brought the girls to a local vet which comes highly recommended in one of the Facebook groups and happens to be right down the street. We were able to get in as walk-ins and swiftly were given our own room once the barking commenced. Overall we were pleased with the experience and scheduled their first cleanings for February 1. I was happy to see detailed notes e-mailed to me which is not something I have experienced at a vet before. The notes said Margot's dental disease is moderate but did not mention pulling teeth. Vivi's is more severe and the notes said some teeth may need to be pulled. Kuochun is strongly against pulling teeth so we will see what happens.
The search for a hairstylist continued for me after a very poor experience last time. The stylist I see at Bloom Salon in Arlington Heights was a good friend and co-worker with a stylist who moved to the Phoenix area. She recommended that I go see her while in AZ. I love Davines products which are featured at Bloom and there is only one salon in all of Phoenix who specializes in these products and their hair colors. The drawback was it is 35 minutes away in North Scottsdale but I felt I could not go wrong with the recommendation. Things did not work out. She did not touch up any of the hair around my face, gave me huge chunky purple streaks and spent about 3 minutes cutting my hair, resulting in it being uneven and on an extreme angle going towards the front. She also had no suggestions about products I should use, simply asking me what I currently used so she could use the same. I looked OK leaving the salon and did not see the problems until later. It was really expensive and I should have done something about it but the location is not close to home and time is precious. After looking at my uncolored temples for seven weeks I thought about taking the long journey to switch to my natural salt and pepper like Mother and Rachel have done but in the end I decided against it.
Facebook groups saved the day once again! I found a great recommendation for a stylist who is only seven minutes from home in the Old Town area and works in a very cute salon suites building. She works Thursday through Sunday so I was able to set up a Sunday appointment! Because most everything was closed on a Sunday morning I was able to park right out front so it was very convenient. Her aunt owns the suite and works Monday through Wednesday and there was another stylist there who had two clients while I was there, one after the other. It was a really nice balance because it was not just one-on-one making small talk for three hours with someone I just met, but it was not a crowded salon with too much commotion. She is very talented, she fixed my hair and I was very pleased with the results. And as a huge added bonus it was substantially less than I paid before. I think I have finally found my hair person here in AZ!
Another highlight of the week was my meeting at the Heard Museum to present some of my jewelry collection for consignment in the gift shop. The head of the consignment program was delightful and accepted all of my pieces! I am waiting for him to go through and research everything, and then he will present me with a list of the items and the suggested retail pricing. I will then decide which pieces to have them offer for sale in the shop. We had not been to the gift shop since last March during Indian Market and it was so crowded it was very difficult to get to the jewelry cases. This time though I found they do have quite a bit of vintage already and it is beautifully curated. We were told that vintage does very well which I am not surprised to hear as it is not easy to find. I think my pieces will fit right in. I am hoping the venture will be profitable as opposed to just receiving what I paid back for these pieces but I trust that fair values will be assigned. He said they feel the same but at the same time they do not want to be "married" to them! Mother gave him some movie ideas and he said let him know when we would like to visit the museum and he would give us some free passes. I am looking forward to hearing their take on what the jewelry is worth.
After the meeting Mother and I had a nice lunch at the Courtyard Cafe. My quesadilla with shrimp was delicious and really hit the spot. The posole was sold out so Mother chose the sopa de lima which she enjoyed. She also selected the dreamcatcher salad which was just beautiful, I should have taken a photo of it. The ingredients (tomato, avocado, corn, dried cranberries, wheat berries and pepitas) were arranged in neat piles around the bowl over the greens. Even though it was business-related, it was nice to get out and do something fun.
The constant appointments lead us right up to the day before we left for Tucson. Check-in time was 3:00 PM on Tuesday but we were not able to leave as promptly as I hoped. Kuochun kindly rented a Nissan Pathfinder for us so we would be able to bring along everything everyone needed, including Mother's two oxygen machines. We needed to pick it up near the airport so that took extra time. It was also quite rainy that day so traffic was heavy and we did not arrive until after 6:00. However the Airbnb was not ready at 3:00, it was closer to 4:00 so if we would have been on time I would have been very unhappy if we could not have access to the home right away.
The home had its pros and cons. Pros were that overall the neighborhood was quiet, even though most everyone has dogs that stay in their backyards. Speaking of which, although the backyard is bare bones, it worked very well for the girls. The next door neighbors have a chicken coop and Vivi really enjoyed listening to them. There is a large piece of Astroturf in the yard which we were able to get Margot to use. Vivi is not so particular. This helped Kuochun out a lot as he basically only had to walk them in the morning and evening. There is a doggie door but it is built up high for larger dogs. Also, the laundry is conveniently located on the same floor and Mother was able to do her own laundry! The beds are also comfortable and the sheets very soft. The entire area is surrounded by an impressive mountain range which is absolutely beautiful. At this time of year the mountains are snow-capped even though temperatures ranged from the 50s-70s on the ground. Cons were that although the furniture looked cool in the photos, except for the bedroom floors the rest of the house has not been updated for a good 30 years. Also, the location is remote to anywhere we needed to go or anything interesting to do. I joked that every time I put an address in the GPS, it was 26 minutes away. It would not be bad if it were mostly highway driving but it was all local, stop and go traffic. It took a good chunk of time and energy out of each day. Finally, just the bare minimum was provided. There were two towels for each of us for 8 days, the garbage can was overflowing from the previous tenants and there was no basket of goodies or even any water provided. After a long day the first day, we had to go right out again and get drinking water. Since this Airbnb cost a lot, my expectations were high. The listing was called "Gem Show Special" but the location is not convenient to the shows. Lesson learned, I will avoid the east side of town in the future.
We rented a mobility scooter for Mother for the week and although it was extra work to take the pieces out of the car, overall it was well worth it. It provided Mother some freedom to move about as she pleased and I did not have to push her everywhere. Two of the three shows we attend have parking challenges so I asked Kuochun to drop us off the first day. However the attendance was even lower this year than last year so parking ourselves would have been fine. We ended up waiting about 45 minutes for Kuochun to pick us up.
I am going to give a brief summary of each show - I was not able to take photos of all the goodies yet but there are a few samples.
Show #1 - we hit the large booth with the huge variety of Native American jewelry first. I still have a lot of their inventory from previous years so I only purchased a few items for resale. Highlights were a pink conch shell lariat and a smaller scale lariat with various color stones and roses. There will also be a couple of darling stacker cuff bracelets by Sunshine Reeves with stamped hearts, stars or both. I had it in my mind to get a Ella Peters squash blossom necklace (I had passed on one last year) but the couple they had were out of my price range. I did pick up a very cute necklace with different types of turquoise and a flower in the center as well as a stunning piece of Black Jack turquoise in a beautiful setting with a chain. Mother selected a gorgeous rosy red spiny oyster shell pendant and several pairs of earrings, as well as one of the Sunshine Reeves stacker cuffs. We were not the first ones in the door so someone had cleared out all of the Kathy Sands just ahead of us and I did not see any Leo Feeney. But I do have a bunch of Leo Feeney from last year. The staff is so kind to us, especially Mother and she enjoys talking with them.
I was very excited to find the Leon Martinez booth again after two years. His wife said they had been there each year but not in their usual location. I do not know how I missed her. She is a gorgeous woman who wears the jewelry so well. When I approached the booth, a customer was looking at the naja pendant above. She seemed very serious about it and I was sorry to have seemingly missed it. All of a sudden though, she put everything back and walked away. I took the opportunity to snag it along with another one with Royston turquoise. These pieces plus some of the others I purchased have special meaning, I will explain this next time. She gave me extra money off as well which I will be able to pass along. Mother mentioned the Heard Museum show and we were stunned to find out Leon is on their waiting list! Hopefully he will be accepted because his work is amazing, such beautiful designs with quality stones and great attention to detail.
I took a glance at the amber booth but did not buy this year as I did not see anything spectacular. We avoided the man at the Mexican booth like the plague, he is such a good salesperson he gets me to spend too much money! For some of these lines, I need to sell what I already have before I buy more. Mother said he said hello to her but she took off on her scooter. I said it was OK to say hi! I did not see the Bali booth but was not planning to buy. After that, we called it a day.
Show #2 - we made a beeline for Buffalo Dancer, every year I miss out on the multi-heart necklaces and I thought this year will be the same as someone was looking at them when we arrived. However she turned out to be a vendor and said she needed to sell some stuff before buying. I thought to myself, they are not going to last! I waited until she left and then added them to my tray. This one is Royston turquoise and the other is white buffalo. I still have a bunch of this jewelry from the past two years but I really believe in it. I selected some more but did not spend as much as in the past.
This year the tie dye booth was open (last year the booth was set up but wrapped up in plastic and not open) and I was glad because I wanted to get a couple more scrunchies. I found two I liked but then saw they were selling the scrunchies in packs of 100. I decided to purchase a pack to sell at the upcoming garage sale. I think they are a rayon knit fabric and I love them! They are very cute and I will be able to offer them at the same price as the vendor - $3 each or 2 for $5.
We also stopped by a booth we both like but had never purchased from before. They had a bunch of interesting Southwest Style charms by Dan Dodson and others so I purchased an assortment as well as a couple of sterling buttons. We are going to try our hand at using a button for a clasp for a necklace or bracelet. I am going to try and sell the charms first and we will make jewelry with whatever does not sell. Mother's oxygen machine ran out so we had to leave so I took her back to the house and had Kuochun go back to the show with me because I needed to pick up my two orders. Sometimes the vendors need time to calculate the total and package everything up. We came to find the vendor with the charms only accepts cash so I needed to get it from the bank anyway.
I had wanted to see another booth with Native American jewelry and pottery on the first go-around but someone was making a pottery purchase and they were wrapping it up all over the cases. When I went back with Kuochun I was able to see what they had to offer. I am glad I did because there were some awesome pieces by two notable artists at reasonable prices. I picked up an assortment plus three beaded Hubei turquoise necklaces. Featured here is this gorgeous Royston turquoise statement cross pendant by Dean Sandoval.
That evening Kuochun wanted to get something to eat and had a taste for Portillo's. I was not thrilled because we can eat at Portillo's anytime but we were so impressed with the Tucson Portillo's. The decor was amazing - light and bright but still fit the theme and they had an awesome neon sign. Interestingly, there was an In-N-Out Burger next door with the usual never ending drive-thru line. Tucson must be a burger town just like Phoenix.
Show #3 - this is the "fanciest" of the three shows and the most strict as far as wholesale only admittance. I did not receive my updated sales tax number from the state in time to pre-register so we needed to wait in the long line for our passes. After that, we made our way to Federico. It is such a big difference to visit him on the first day as opposed to the third day, as I had to do last year due to illness. Prices seemed to be up but Federico works with me when he can. I only found one ring that I felt was worth purchasing but I selected some amazing earrings in either Sleeping Beauty turquoise or onyx, some necklace sets and some very special pieces including the one pictured above which I will explain about next time.
This show has a lot of beautiful ethnic booths but I am trying hard to keep my selections to Native American, Southwest Style and Mexican. Mother's oxygen machine ran out again just as I had started to look at the other Mexican vendor I enjoy so we had to leave. The portable machine has not been working well and we tried hard to get her a replacement before we left but the company did not get the job done. On the way back we were able to charge the battery a bit and stopped for lunch at Beyond Bread. We both loved it! I had a shrimp po'boy special and Mother had the reuben daily special and tomato basil soup. Both were amazing to look at and so delicious. Mother's sandwich looked like it should have been on a magazine cover. Arizona sure knows how to do bread. This is a Tucson-area chain so I will be sure to put this on my must-do list for next time. A great sandwich is one of my very favorite things.
Between show #2 and #3 there are no new shows so Friday to we made the trip to Tubac. We were not able to go last year so I was very excited that we had the opportunity this year. I read online that there was a pecan farm in Sahuarita on the way down, we exited the highway at the town but could not find it. Turns out it shut down in 2021. So we made a pit stop at McDonald's for some breakfast. The businesses surrounding the highway looked newly built and very clean, it was a pleasant experience. The young man working there was so sweet, the nicest employee I have ever encountered at a McDonald's. When we were leaving Mother said to him you do not need to be so nice! He said, well ma'am, that's my job!
We got back on the road and headed into Tubac. The first stop was my favorite trading post. I found two pairs of earrings, one by Navajo artists I enjoy. This is the only place I know of to find these artists' work. They had two beautiful bumblebee jasper heart pendants but the prices were a good 40% higher than I had paid for the custom-made white buffalo heart they made for me three years ago. I decided to pass. I love the Navajo pearl earrings I found there, they go great with other jewelry I have but the other pair unfortunately does not suit me. I will need to sell them. We went to the high-end Native American gallery in town. I never expected to buy anything there but they had one of the best butterfly pendants I had ever seen by Navajo artist Herman Smith. It was less money than the bumblebee hearts so I decided to go with it. I know I will get many years of good use from this pendant and will likely downsize some of my butterfly collection.
On the way to lunch we stopped by a gallery which was having a retirement sale. Mother found a darling Fred Harvey era pin for the collar on her jacket as well as a cowgirl and cowboy themed pillow for her bed. We noticed two pieces of the coveted petrified cactus in one of the display cases and asked the lady if she was willing to sell. She called her husband and he said no. This is the second time this has happened to me! I could take such great photos with those, they were even better than the ones I saw in Fountain Hills.
After that we went to lunch at Shelby's Cafe. This was my third time there and third time to order a pesto chicken sandwich. It was difficult to get Mother up there but we figured it out and left to park the car. When we got back we found that she barely got in the restaurant in time - they were closing for an hour to prepare for dinner service. There were hardly any customers in town and I was very surprised to see all the people they turned away in that hour. It was good as usual but I am ready to try a different place next time.
We were able to complete our "errands" as well - Mother picked up four of her favorite Southwest Style knit shirts at a boutique and I got more of the felted wool eyeglass holders I had been wanting. I was going to get more for the three pairs of eyeglasses Kuochun keeps in the cupholders of the car but he had an even better idea! He found they had zippered bags and one of them was the perfect size for his glasses. There is even a zipper on each side so the pair with the string attached can go in the center and the other two can go on each side. The little things make me so happy! Every day all those eyeglasses are in my way.
Sunday we decided to go back and finish off Show #3. I did end up purchasing some pieces from the Mexican vendor. They had some very unique stone jewelry to offer this time including Maligano jasper from Indonesia. I was trying to find a booth with vintage Native American jewelry Mother loves and at the last minute we found it. They had some of the most interesting pieces I have ever seen in person with sky high prices to match. I did find pieces I could work with as well as some Rose Martin pearls which are very hard to find. They had the best selection I have ever seen. While I was looking at them, some "big shots" tried to muscle me aside and grabbed a bunch. But they were grabbing the largest ones and I was looking for more budget-friendly. I think they spent about $10,000 in five minutes. The owner of the booth asked for my driver's license and that is when I discovered that it was not where I normally keep it. I have been through everything and was not able to find it. The last time I presented it was Saturday when I was registering for the show but I swore I just put it in my small bag. Looks I will need to see about getting a replacement. I am sure I am not the only one that this has happened to while out of state.
We rounded out the week by going out for an Italian dinner at Piazza Gavi in the Catalina Foothills, which is one of the nicest areas of town. Melinda, Mother and I went there two years ago and loved it. The restaurant has such a romantic, charming feel. I have never been to Italy but it seems like this is what it would be like. I went with the chicken Milanese, Mother selected a lasagna special and Kuochun opted for the seafood stew. We ordered calamari to share - this works out well because I like the rings and Kuochun likes the tentacles. He liked his but mine were some of the worst I have ever eaten. They were beyond rubbery and just plain difficult to eat. I am not one to send food back though and it seemed that our server was overextended covering too large of an area so I was not confident that it would be taken care of promptly. My chicken was good although overly salted and my spaghetti was just OK. Mother loved her lasagna which was very interesting - a layer of Italian sausage, a layer of seafood mix and a layer of Italian cold cuts. She would not normally order something like this but said it was even better the next day.
This rounds out the week - we are in Tucson until Tuesday morning so there will be a bit more to report. See you next time!
]]>Speaking of sweet tooths, I had the last of my dental appointments (for now) this past week. My molar at the upper right back had several fissures in it from the metal filling expanding and contracting over the years. The dentist suggested that I replace it with a crown before it broke and caused problems. It was not bothering me in the least but I went ahead with the procedure. They were able to make the crown in less than an hour while I waited. It actually looks better than my natural tooth but several days later I am still experiencing sensitivity to cold. I drink a lot of cold water from a dispenser and by the end of the day, it is taking a toll. I hope I did not make a mistake. I go back at the end of March for a cleaning after only three months. I have been diligent about using the Oral-B toothbrush (it feels like a car wash for your teeth!) and the dental rinse every evening. I just need to take some time to figure out how to use the WaterPik as I have never used one.
Time got away from me this week with my appointment as well as Mother's along with the final round of estate sale packages for 2023 due. I was able to post a clearance sale of Federico rings for at least 50% off original retail prices. Even when Federico gave me a better deal, I still took 50% off his discounted retail price. These rings are big and bold with all natural turquoise. I have not even had time to post them all online but decided to let them go with Tucson rapidly approaching. I did sell two rings - the Kingman turquoise ring at the upper right of the photo above and the triple onyx ring at the center of the photo below. I was hoping to sell more but understand that they are an investment even at 50% off. However, no one ever discounts this jewelry! I am going to try the earrings next Sunday and then decide what to do after we return from Tucson.
With Mother's help, I took a little time to survey our Windy City Jewelry collection, which is the beaded jewelry we made for more than 25 years. We did not have the chance to put any of this jewelry out for the December downsizing sale and will be sure to offer it at the February garage sale. Mother is becoming slightly enthused about making more pieces and she may decide to rework some of her older designs. I ordered a few beading supplies to get her up and running again. All of our kitchen pantry cabinets are loaded with "to-dos" so the winter project will be to at least get one section cleared so we can have space for some actual food!
Mother and I took a run out to the Old Brick House pop-up sale on Friday since we had appointments Thursday. We do not need anything but we enjoy going, the staff is so lovely to us. All of their Christmas items were on sale and I purchased a few things to use as photography props. I am not sure if they will work out and if they do not, I will end up selling them. Two of them are angel's wings which is a popular theme. I also purchased a black metal folding display shelf for only $30. I may just use it at the garage sale and then sell it. We purchased several varieties of jam because Mother loves jam and the flavor combinations sound interesting. We did not purchase the hot pepper jam but one of the ladies working the sale said she actually uses it in her thumbprint cookies which we thought was a unique idea! Even though this week was dessert overload I love their frosted sugar cookies which are creamy but still light. They always have classic with light pink frosting and the special flavor this month was key lime pie.
I probably have mentioned before that I treat my Facebook feed like reading a magazine while I eat meals and I enjoy belonging to some of the local groups. The folks have been very helpful with their recommendations. Someone was looking for Cajun food which is Kuochun's favorite and one recommendation was for the seafood restaurant at Talking Stick Resort which is a casino about 15 minutes away. The restaurant is called Ocean Trail and when I told Kuochun about it, he is extremely interested and cannot wait to go. Their specialty are pan roasts, which is kind of like a seafood stew. There is not a lot for me at a Cajun restaurant but they do have a caesar salad and I can select chicken or shrimp.
In the same posting, a local chef mentioned that she has a booth at the Uptown Farmer's Market in Phoenix and she specializes in southern food. Soul food is right up there with Cajun as Kuochun's favorites besides Chinese. He wanted to go check it out when I mentioned she was cooking up gumbo on Saturday. None of us have been to Uptown yet and it is my favorite farmer's market. I love to go and get a $10 breakfast burrito and choose some goodies. The market is huge - I would say a good 200 vendors. It puts our suburban Chicago-area farmer's markets to shame. So many people bring their dogs and there were dogs from 5 pounds to 200 pounds. There was even a mini Schnauzer with a non-docked tail.
We found the southern food booth but I got big-time sticker shock as everything was $25+ per pound. But Kuochun is willing to pony up for really good food and he selected the gumbo and collard greens. I chose a $9 brisket breakfast burrito and at the last minute we decided to get the pulled pork because Mother and I both like it. Kuochun was disappointed in the gumbo, he said he only got shrimp and rice. I noticed the broth was a grey color when she spooned it into the container which did not look appealing to me. The burrito was pretty good but not warm enough. Mother and I loved the pulled pork!
There was a baker there I had never seen before and she had charming packages of very reasonably priced baked goods. We got Mother a little strawberry rhubarb pie and apricot rollups and I chose peanut butter rice krispy treats with a chocolate layer on top and peanut butter cookies with chocolate kisses. Each item was only $5 and the items I tried were delicious! Unfortunately her name was not on the packages but I will definitely seek her out next time.
We did not get there until after 11:00 and so many of the vendors were sold out or nearly sold out. I loved Chubby Cheeks Cookies last time and they are a good deal at 4 huge gourmet cookies for $13. This time they only had cookie butter and chocolate chip salted caramel left so I got two of each.
I did not choose as much as usual at the farmer's market because I now belong to Wildgrain. It is a monthly subscription box with bread, baked goods, fresh pasta and more. What I love about it is the food is delicious, it is made from scratch by artisan bakers, there are no preservatives or bad ingredients and everything is frozen, so nothing ever spoils. I like to have a sandwich for lunch and sometimes I bake a frozen pretzel roll or English muffin in the toaster oven instead of microwaving something that has been in the refrigerator for two weeks. Another delivery is on the way and the mini freezer is filling up so I better get to baking some croissants and apple bites for Kuochun's breakfast.
Next week we have a very full schedule with many appointments for all of us, even the girls. I will do my best to have some jewelry news!
]]>Happy New Year! We have been in the midst of our annual holiday break for estate sales which is normally two weeks but turned out to be three weeks this year. We did work ahead at two sales in preparation for the four sales we have next week to kick off the year. Things are quieter for me on the estate sale front but I still have most of my usual tasks to work on. After next week I will have a three week break from paperwork which I am really looking forward to. It worked out well because the third week we will be in Tucson for the Gem Show. I might just make the holiday break three weeks from now on!
I have not organized the garage after the last sale like I wanted to and the car is still out on the driveway. I am very happy to report that our community is going to host a garage sale once again. A survey was taken and the overwhelming majority (myself included) voted for the same weekend as last year. It will be February 17 which is a Saturday and this time I will continue the sale on my own Sunday as well. The plan is to separate out the items which are worth putting online and doing deep discounts on the rest, jewelry included.
I was going to start posting weekly jewelry lots again as it has been nearly two months but I unfortunately did not get to it this past Sunday. Instead I have been working on getting all the vintage Native American jewelry collection online. It has been kind of a slow process but I was able to get about 30 items posted, although some of them were pieces I left in Scottsdale this summer and were already written up. I updated the descriptions to match my new format and made sure every necklace and earrings listing has a "try-on" photo. The new items are all listed at the top of the Vintage Native American Silver Jewelry category, click on the link to view them. The most popular item as far as activity goes is this gorgeous cuff bracelet by Navajo artist Daniel Mike. I was very shocked to see that I have 920 views on this bracelet on Facebook Marketplace alone. No takers yet, I had a few offers but the people did not follow through. I did sell four different items in the few days since I started posting, two of them staying in state.
Since there are just three of us, on Christmas Day we went to The Buffet at We-Ko-Pa Casino Resort. It is about a half hour away near Fountain Hills, AZ. This is definitely the nicest casino in the Phoenix area. Compared to other dining options, this buffet was a great value and had something for everyone to enjoy. There used to be a pretty good buffet at Talking Stick Casino which is a little closer but they never reopened after the pandemic. We-Ko-Pa was well worth the trip - we had to wait about 45 minutes but the food was plentiful and very good. I was not crazy about where they seated us because it was right near where the employees were flying in and out of the back room behind us and diners in and out of an adjacent dining room right next to us. I think they stuck us there because of Mother's wheelchair.
For New Year's Eve, we stayed in and did Italian food carryout from Streets Of New York which is right down the street. Too many crazy drivers around Phoenix to go out! We were going to get the lasagna but they were out of stock. Mother selected a Mediterranean pizza and Kuochun and I shared pizza rollups and boneless chicken wings. I have never dined in but I have really enjoyed all of the food we have ever ordered here. Unfortunately Phoenix does not have a local televised party. I used to watch the Channel 7 show in Chicago every year. There is no fireworks show either but the local news did show an aerial view of all of the amateur fireworks being shot off all over town. Poor Vivi was so afraid of the fireworks noise. It was difficult to get her to out for her evening walks for nearly a week after that. Margot was not phased in the least.
Another project I have been working on is to apply for consignment of my best Native American pieces to the Heard Museum in Phoenix, which was founded in 1929 and is a world-class exhibition of Indigenous art only 16 minutes from home. I have not had the chance to tour the museum yet but have visited their wonderful gift shop several times and their beautiful cafe once. I created a webpage under my name BrigidMcAlpin.com showcasing pieces I felt would be of interest. I contacted them on January 2; their website says it takes about four weeks to receive a response. I was so surprised to hear from the director of the program just two days later! He is very interested in working with me and their consignment program sounds fantastic. I responded with my application and let him know I could deliver the jewelry in person as opposed to shipping. I hope to hear back soon! I am very honored that the Heard is willing to accept my jewelry. Mother sees this as a sign that maybe things will look up for us in 2024. These pieces are all online and will remain available for purchase until I take them to the Heard.
This past Saturday was Melinda's birthday and we met up at Thieves Market which is an antique / flea market in the parking lot at Paradise Valley Community College in North Phoenix. We learned about the market at my last sale - a couple visited who sells there and they highly recommended that I sell there as well. We used to do tons of outdoor events back in the day but have not for a long time. I thought it would be a better idea to pay them a visit as opposed to just signing up. Things started off a little slow but we all found some little things to buy. There were a lot of items there which are not my cup of tea, such as rustic antiques and '90s T-shirts. I was mainly looking for jewelry but all the vendors were asking retail except for one. Some of them even had their antique mall price tags on everything! Melinda bought a sterling chain and Mother bought a pair of sterling earrings from the reasonable vendor, who came from New Mexico. She definitely had the most interesting jewelry but it was not low enough for resale. The market was not crowded, there were a fair amount of people in attendance but I do not think it was enough to make it worthwhile for me to participate. I would have to rent a U-Haul because my car is too small to hold everything and get up so early because the market starts at 8:00 AM and is a half hour away. The market runs from October through April and I am sure by the time April comes along, it will be very hot in the sun, especially without a tent. I will not be in a hurry to go back but I was glad to have known about it and it was a nice way for us to celebrate Melinda's day.
We took our time going through the market because our plan was to go to Cornish Pasty Co. across the street for lunch. I have been wanting to try this British restaurant ever since I first came to Arizona. It is a local chain with additional locations in northern Arizona and Boulder City, NV which is near Las Vegas. When Kuochun and I went to Las Vegas last year, we visited Boulder City but Kuochun was not hungry. The main attraction are the pastys, which are pastry dough hand pies with lots of different savory filling choices. Upon looking at the menu, Mother immediately knew she was going to get the Guiness stew. The photo is of her meal, she got a little creative by adding chips (hand cut fries) to the sour cream and chives. I selected the meat and cheese which is pork and sage sausage with cheddar and Swiss cheese. Melinda went with the mushroom, walnut and spinach soup and homemade bread. We all just loved what they ordered. The atmosphere was great and Mother even enjoyed the music which never happens. Mother mentioned the restaurant to one of her therapists and she was actually there on the same day! She said the desserts are amazing. There is another location 5 minutes from home so hopefully one day Kuochun will be able to try it. He is kind of skeptical about the pasty idea because he does not care for heavy breading but this shell is so thin it is just a nice compliment to the filling. Like many others in the local foodie groups, I highly recommend adding this restaurant to the "to-do" list when visiting either Phoenix or Las Vegas.
I shot the main photo while Kuochun and I were out walking the girls Saturday night. The sunset was absolutely spectacular, it looked like someone painted the sky. The photo did not do it justice. Sunday evening, the sunset was various shades of grey. It is very interesting how the colors are different every day.
Later that evening, I decided to purchase a walking pad from QVC. I belong to MyPoints, which is a website which allows you to earn points by clicking on e-mail or making online purchases. These points can be used towards gift cards. I always get TJX gift cards which can be used at TJ Maxx, Marshalls, HomeGoods and a couple of additional stores. I had been thinking about getting a walking pad for quite some time, but the ones I saw online did not look too sturdy and I am over their weight limit. I learned about this today's special value through a MyPoints e-mail and I watched the demonstration video. I was really impressed by its sturdiness, I easily meet the weight requirement and it folds up and can be rolled out of the way. Currently Kuochun and I go to the local senior center three times per week where I mostly do time on the treadmill with incline programs but the purpose of the walking pad will be to get 10,000 steps in per day. I have seen the heartwarming videos of very overweight dogs who have been rescued and treadmills are used to get them back to a normal weight. I thought if it can work for dogs it can work for me! Plus I can catch up on TV programs at the same time. It is not in the budget right now but since there was a 5-month payment plan I decided to go for it. I will receive 4 MyPoints per dollar spent as well.
Coming up, the plan is to get ready for the garage sale as much as possible before leaving for Tucson so afterwards I can work on putting the new goodies up for sale. My budget for Tucson is not large this year so I will be choosing very carefully but I would have been sad to miss it.
Until next time!
]]>After the lymphedema evaluation, Mother needed to go to UPS and on the way I spied Modern Market. I have passed it by a number of times these past three years and always wanted to check it out. I thought it was a gourmet grocery store but it turns out it is a breakfast and lunch restaurant housed in a very cool mid-century modern building. I loved the architectural details!
Good thing it was lunchtime, so we did not miss a beat and ordered lunch. I selected the basil chicken sandwich and Mother chose the curry sweet potato soup with hibiscus lemonade and later decided to get a margherita pizza. My sandwich was fantastic, simple but so delicious. There are great bread bakeries in Arizona and it was evident that the bun came from one of them. I loved their concept of fast food but healthy. Everything is made from scratch. We will definitely be back again!
We made a couple of trips to Costco this month and it was a good thing we picked up the Christmas cookies assortment on our first visit. Those cookies were out of this world, especially the sugar and the chocolate chip M&M. However although the gingerbread cake was totally adorable, I did not love the cake part. We returned to Costco last week to get more cookies and strangely enough they were not there. There were only apple and pecan pies like they had for Thanksgiving. Next year I will plan accordingly and get two containers!
After much deliberation, I decided on the Airbnb to book for our Tucson trip. I know it is only a week, but last year's trip did not go well with me not only being very sick most of the time but my choice of place to stay being a real flop. This time, I gave careful consideration to choosing a home which would be comfortable for everyone, right down to the regular sidewalks in the neighborhood which makes it way easier to walk the girls. This home is on the east side of town and less than 20 minutes from the shows. I sprung for the lodging and Kuochun is going to rent a larger vehicle, most likely a minivan. Our Hyundai Kona is kind of small for three people, two dogs and everything we need to bring with us, as well as the goodies I plan to bring back! There is also no climate control in the back seat. When Mother and I drove to New York for Rachel's wedding, we rented a Chrysler Pacifica which was very comfortable. I brought along lots of silver jewelry to polish and it is a good thing I did because except for the wedding day, the weather was lousy with cold and rain so we really did not go anywhere.
We are also going to rent a travel scooter, so Mother has the freedom to go where she wants during the shows. My only concern is one of the shows is in a big tent and they run electrical cords across the aisles, covered with plastic ramps. I was not able to get the wheelchair over these ramps and Mother had to get out of the chair and walk over them every time. The rental for the week is $145 as opposed to $40 for a wheelchair but I think it would be a good experience to see how difficult it is to take apart and put together for me and to see how Mother likes using a scooter. Interestingly enough, at pulmonary therapy both therapists Mother has seen said they do not want her to get a scooter at all. They feel that if she puts in the work, she can do with a nice walker which would allow her to sit down if she has trouble breathing. They do not feel scooters allow their patients to progress which makes total sense. I agree with the therapists but do not believe Mother will ever be able to walk a great distance such as covering a flea market or one of the gem shows. It would be nice to compromise and have the scooter for big events and use the walker for regular size stores and restaurants.
We had an appointment at the pulmonogist which is "up north" so afterwards I decided to make a run to Fountain Hills which is not too far from there. Normally we really enjoy visiting Fountain Hills but this visit was kind of a bust. We ate at Georgie's, the food was just OK. It happened to be farmer's market day and I took Mother in the wheelchair up and down inclines for about a mile, it was a workout! Baker Thirteen was there, I always buy from her but since it was towards the end of the day the selection was not great. I did pick up a few items but they were not my favorites. My favorite bread of hers is the Apricot Walnut but she did not have any. We went to the gift shop where I have had great luck in the past purchasing jewelry props including driftwood, petrified wood, wooden animals and interesting baskets. Sometimes the owner is in a helpful mood and sometimes she is not. This was a not day. I expressed interest in a long piece of petrified cactus and she said it was not for sale, she would never sell it, her husband cleaned it, etc. I thought so why is it out on the selling floor? For the first time, I left there empty handed. I think we are good on Fountain Hills for a long while.
In my last blog I mentioned that if I could keep unexpected expenses at bay, it would be a great help. However that went out the window with a trip to the dentist. I had never been to another dentist in about 40 years but since we are spending time in Scottsdale, I needed to branch out and find a new one. A dentist's office which is a 2-minute drive down the street continually caught my eye and we had also received postcards from them so I thought I would give them a try. I was able to book an appointment online exactly 6 months from my last appointment so I could stay on schedule. They have a program for those who do not have dental insurance - $399 for a year which includes two cleanings and 30% off anything else that is needed. It was good that I opted into the program. I was there for two hours on my first visit - the first hour for X-rays and evaluation and the second for a deep cleaning on one side of my mouth. This required a couple of big shots of Novocaine. All my teeth were mapped out and it was determined that I had the beginnings of a cavity between two teeth and a fractured molar in the back. I had a ton of dental work done as a kid and something that I have never understood was that the orthodontist never aligned my four back molars, creating pockets that are challenging to keep clean. One of these molars is fractured in more than one place due to a metal filling and would eventally break if not attended to. The week after this visit, I had the other half of the deep cleaning done and the cavity taken care of. I am sure glad they do not use metal fillings anymore. I had been using a Quip toothbrush for about 3 years and although it looks cute on the countertop, it is not that effective. I purchased a state of the art Oral-B and a Waterpik at the dentist's office and dental care is going to be more involved than before. I will need to go every 3 months for cleanings for now, meaning I will keep my June appointment in Park Ridge. I totally feel that this office is on the up and up and was not trying to run up my bill. I have been very pleased with my experience so far. The dentist even said thanks for giving us a chance. The hygenist has been working there for 10 years and said there are a lot of bad offices out there but this is a good one. I will get the crown next month and everything is adding up to about $3,000 after discounts. My March cleaning should be paid for though as part of the program. It is not good timing at our slowest time of the year but I am a big believer in the importance of dental health and it needs to be done. Kuochun will be up next, he is a little scared but I told him it was an excellent experience and the hygenist is very gentle. I think Mother will go too when she is ready.
After my first dentist visit, I had not eaten all day and even though my mouth was still numb my stomach was growling. A group decision was made to head over to ZuZu's for happy hour. After years of checking out their Showstopper Shake which changes monthly, we finally were going to get one! This month it is Buddy's Breakfast, which was mainly chocolate and mint. It was good but chocolate overload for this non-chocoholic. We also got short rib empanadas and fancy tater tots. Kuochun chose two oysters and parmesan fries. I enjoyed what I ordered but Kuochun did not love the oysters. The fries were a big hit with Mother and Kuochun. Even though I was not feeling great it was fun to go and would definitely do it again when the shake is a non-chocolate flavor. My only negative observation was that there were no special non-alcoholic drinks.
Pulmonary therapy started up as well, there are two therapists Mother will be working with and I was able to meet one of them at the evaluation December 12. She was also excellent and knows her stuff. This therapy will concentrate on exercise so I think this is a great one-two punch with the combination of massage and exercise. This rehab center is about 25 minutes from home so it is too far to go home in between. I have been just waiting in the parking lot making the best of things, trying to work on my phone. I would have no problem waiting inside but the waiting area is extremely small. We made the trip up there on a Friday afternoon, only to have the receptionist tell Mother she did not have an appointment. What a goof-up because we knew she did and she was even able to prove it once we arrived home.
HomeGoods and Marshalls are nearby so I took Mother there to make up for it. She bought a pretty holiday wreath by Martha Stewart and some holiday goodies such as hot cocoa mix, nonpareils and a big glass jar filled with shortbread cookies. We both saw them at the same time and were impressed, it was a combination of plain, chocolate and chocolate chunk cookies. At $49.99 we knew it was something special but I Googled it. They are Mary MacLeod's shortbread cookies from Canada and the flavors are classic, Dutch chocolate and chocolate crunch. They sell them for $75.00 on their website and free shipping does not kick in until the order is $100.00 or more so we felt it was a great opportunity to try them. Shortbread cookies are not the most exciting but we thought they were delicious.
On our way out, I noticed that there was a Flower Child restaurant. This local chain is a favorite of Rachel and John when they visit. Mother has never been there but loved their soup when they brought it home for her. It was my first time and I was hesitant because I thought it was a vegetarian restaurant but we decided to give it a try. It can actually be vegan or vegetarian but they serve meat as well. I opted for a mix and match platter with chicken, gluten-free mac and cheese and sweet potato fries. It looked like something kids would choose but I really enjoyed it. Mother went with the Thai red pepper soup but it was very spicy and seemed to be causing breathing problems. I shared my fries with her to calm down the spicy. When she asked her therapist about it, she said make your own soup, do not eat soup in restaurants or from the grocery store. They just have way too much salt. So Mother made some chicken noodle soup with ingredients from Costco but also bought a bunch of prepared soups. It is always a work in progress!
On the evening of Tuesday the 19th we had a wonderful opportunity to visit the Desert Botanical Gardens for their Luminaria event at no charge through the senior center. Tickets are normally $39.95 per person. I saw the flyer posted when we went to exercise one day and I tried to sign up but the spots for our location were filled. I signed up for the waiting list then saw that the other senior center in town had three openings. The botanical garden is only 6 minutes from home and it was way out of the way to go to the other senior center location but I felt it was well worth it. Mother said someone called her and said to be at the senior center at 2:45. I thought it was strange because it said departure time was 4:30 online but I went with it. Turns out it was 4:30 so we waited in the library until then. It was just us and one other couple but we were totally shocked to see our transporation was a fancy party bus! None of us had ever been on a party bus before. It was all decorated on the inside and there were tons of colored lights. Some of my favorite Christmas songs were blasting and I LOVE Christmas music so I was happy! The photo cannot capture how festive the bus was. It turned out we also stopped at the senior center we normally frequent to pick up the rest of the participants. Mother had a good time talking with people on the bus. However, once we arrived, there was no plan. Everyone was to go off on their own and meet back at 7:20 PM. I thought we were going to stick together and there was going to be food served but that was OK, we went with it.
I took the photo above upon entry and the lighted green "plants" are actually glass sculptures by famed artist Dale Chihuly. Not too long after that, the sun set and it was difficult to see the plantings.
The musical entertainment scattered throughout the gardens was incredible! We were greeted by a group of old-fashioned Christmas carolers. I am not normally a fan of mariachi music but loved the charming band which was playing near the entrance. We could hear a brass band which we did not see personally but they sounded great as well. But the highlight was Traveler as shown above. I could not capture the beauty of this setting - the sky was gorgeous and the mountain in the background all lit up. Mother and Kuochun especially loved this unique and very talented band specializing in multi-cultural music. Just in the short time we stayed to listen, there were Gypsy, Middle Eastern, Celtic, Greek and Turkish influences. Mother had a cup of pork soup which she loved and we got some kettle corn to share. The only drawback is the area is not wheelchair-friendly, especially at night. But we all loved the experience and were glad to get out and do something fun for once. Next year one of the senior center staff said they would just have the bus go from the center which is closer for us.
Last Friday was house cleaning day and Mother had lymphedema therapy, so we headed out and by the time Mother's therapy was complete, the second floor had been completed so Kuochun and the girls could stay up there. I took Mother for some Christmas shopping she had wanted to do at Sphinx Date Co. Palm & Pantry and Old Town Jewels. She sent tins of dates and chocolates out to a couple of folks and picked up some goodies for herself. Mother cannot go there without getting a date shake, even at 10:30 AM. We had a much better experience there this time, the daughter is very friendly. After that, it was Old Town Jewels. I purchased a showstopper heart necklace which I knew was going to be too heavy and had them take four hearts off. They made the hearts into a pair of pendants and a pair of rings which I was going to resell. However Mother laid claim to the pendants, giving one to Rachel and keeping one. We picked out a ball and chain necklace to go with it for Rachel and Mother and I each got some shiny Navajo pearls.
After that, Irma was not finished cleaning so Mother asked me to take her to Central Phoenix so we could check out Rewind Consignment & Vintage. Rachel had been raving about it and went there more than once this last trip. I understand that these types of stores are hit or miss but we did not love it. The building is a cute cross between Art Deco and 1950s but it smelled like incense everywhere which I do not care for. There were some nice items mixed in here and there but prices were very high. I felt like the store was a step above a thrift store and even though it is in the trendy part of town it was way more than I would pay for those items. Also, we had a lot of rain that day and there was a lot of furniture in the back of the building that got wrecked. The lady working there said 95% of their items are on consignment. If those were my consignment items I would be very upset. I am not sure how we missed this store because it is only two doors down from Modern Manor, a store we have been to several times. If I was looking for something and in the area I would give it another chance.
Rachel and John gave us a gift certificate for Valentine restaurant which is attached to Modern Manor. We were going to save it for a time when Kuochun was with us but decided to just go, since there was probably enough on the gift certificate to go twice. It is definitely a hipster place and Mother felt like a fish out of water with her oxygen machine. Patrons order at the counter/bar and the food is brought to them. I ordered a churro belgian waffle, along with a yogurt parfait and tater tots to share. Mother chose a wagyu burger and hatch chile yuzu lemonade. She made me try the lemonade which I did not want to do because I knew it was savory and it was the worst thing I have ever tasted in my life. I cannot explain how unpleasant it was. When the food runner came by, Mother said "I HATE THIS LEMONADE!" and he brought her a regular one which she did not like but I thought was perfect. The waffle was not bad but different because it was crunchy like a churro. I did not like the tater tots at all, they had seeds on top which is fine, I like seeds. I do not know if it was the oil they used but the taste was very strange. The yogurt parfait was odd as well, I knew it had tahini in it but it had a taste I could not get used to. After brunch, we walked around Modern Manor a bit. Customer service is non-existent there but they have an awesome collection of mid-century modern furniture. I collect Higgins glass and they had lots of pieces at reasonable prices. The entire time we were in there, there were no people to help. I had felt fortunate that the handicapped parking space was available, running parallel to the building very close to the door. Upon leaving, I had a very embarrassing moment - the backup camera didn't warn me and I knocked over a huge planter with a cactus inside. No one came out to assist so I just lifted the planter back into place and left. I felt bad leaving dirt everywhere. Unfortunately there is a big scuff on the bumper from the incident.
Even though it is the holiday break from estate sales I am still in the midst of paperwork. The paperwork break will come in January. I figured it out and if we end up with a 3-week break this year I will not have to do any paperwork the week we are in Tucson which would be a good thing. If we do not have any sales the first weekend of February which is entirely possible, I would not need to do a schedule either and we could get by without bringing the computer. But we probably will end up bringing it because there is a place to put it at the Airbnb and it is an all-in-one unit so it is not too bad to take on a car trip.
I am waiting until the new year to post new items for sale. I took inventory of the vintage Native American jewelry to be sure all of the pieces are accounted for in case anything sells. I am also in the midst of reposting the pieces I left in Scottsdale over the summer, making sure photos and descriptions are updated. I am going to apply to consign some of my best pieces with the Heard Museum. Their criteria is they are looking for pieces which are older than 1970, were made by a deceased artist or an artist of note. I am not sure who they are looking for as far as artists of note are concerned because there are so many but I do have cuff bracelets by Tommy Singer and Kirk Smith who are deceased and a number of pieces which I believe are older than the 1970s. I created a webpage with my information along with photos of these pieces so it is easy for them to evaluate. I am sure they get SO many requests for consignment but most people do not know what they have and will not present items to fit the criteria. There was such a big boom for Native American jewelry in the 1970s and the styles were very similar so I can understand why they would want to exclude these pieces. I will do my best not to waste their time and hope they will consider me, I think it is a big advantage that I am local as well as knowledgeable about the jewelry. It would be amazing to have the jewelry in place for the big Indian Fair & Market in early March. It is one of the largest in the world with 600 artists and people do come from all over the world to visit. We are so fortunate to be only 20 minutes away! The gift shop was jam-packed with shoppers when we were at the market in March and we cannot wait to go again.
I did post some of our downsizing sale items to Facebook Marketplace with mixed results. I sold Mother's headboard for $20 more than she paid and my desk lamp for $20 less than I paid. I thought I had the wine refrigerator sold, it was as is and only $200 for something that was $2,600 originally. I even helped the buyer put it in his vehicle and gave him a new moving blanket but he called the next day and said it was not cooling. He had lined up a repair person but they ended up not showing up. I guess I am not the only one to have this happen with service people here in the Phoenix area. He did not tell me that he was on a deadline and needed the refrigerator for a party that weekend. I am not in the frame of mind right now to argue with anyone so I just sent his money back by Zelle and he said he was going to donate it. I am glad to have the space since we now have the mini freezer in addition to the mini refrigerator in the garage for extra food storage.
The next step is to organize the garage and laundry room. There is still a lot of stuff to sell and I do not know if I will be able to get to it all while we are here but I will try. I am going to store items we are keeping such as the Christmas tree in the laundry room and bin up the clothing, shoes and accessories and put them online one piece at a time. The goal will be to get the car back in the garage again. I think I can do that with a power hour or two. I have been having trouble getting motivated to work on these projects because the amount of work to put it all online is overwhelming but know that I need to get going on it during the slow period for estate sales.
I also decided that 2023 is going to be the last year that I am going to save paper files for estate sales. I have never thrown away any files in the history of the estate sale business which is heading into its 16th year and still have old receipts from when we had our store. Everything is pretty organized but the volume of files has taken over the furnace room in Mount Prospect and has fully crept into the main room of the basement. I think I have only had to refer to old files once or twice in all these years so I will be purging the files for sure next summer. For 2024 and on, I will scan everything I keep in a paper folder and keep the images in the cloud. I already keep client files with their paperwork, preliminary photos and ad photos online. It will be awesome to not have to deal with these hundreds of paper folders every year.
I will probably take a break from the blog as well until we resume estate sales again and will be doing newsletters. There will be a newsletter next week to let everyone know about the estate sales we have booked in January and February so far. Until then, Happy 2024! I am planning to not let recent events get me down and to make it the best year I can.
]]>When I purchased my home in Mount Prospect in 2001 my dream was to live there forever. When Dad went to memory care, I encouraged Mother to move from their townhome in Northbrook to a little home on one level close to a thriving downtown and we made it happen in 2018. Her Arlington Heights home really fit the bill. At that time we did not know what the future would hold. Circumstances have changed, we need to live together as much as possible and unfortunately neither home is large enough for all three of us to live in. It is doable in Scottsdale, although Kuochun and I are kind of cramped with just two long narrow bedrooms and a bathroom on the second floor. Kuochun's room was used as an office by the previous owner, it does not have a door and has three large open sections which look out onto the front hall and living room so he never has any privacy. It is a good setup for Mother as she is able to have her own primary suite with a large closet and attached bath. The kitchen is nearby and the back patio is just steps away. She can keep her oxygen machine in her bedroom and reach all of these areas fairly well with a 40-foot long extension. The property tax is a fraction of what I pay Cook County and everything runs on electric so there is no gas bill. The electric stovetop is completely flat and so easy to clean. The kitchen is so much more spacious than what we have in Mount Prospect, where countertop room is pretty much non-existent. Even the garbage is convenient with 300 gallon cans in the alley just behind the patio. We only need to put out a recycling can once a week. However living here full time would have a couple of challenges. The very hot summers are the biggest issue, Vivi and Margot could not take walks which they are used to doing. Vivi could go in the yard as she did when she lived with Mother but Margot has been pampered and will only go on walks. Also, a lot of the drivers are terrible and we constantly have to be on guard. They take U-turns out of nowhere, never stop when we are backing out of a parking space and weave in and out of traffic like a video game.
Although this is not what I originally planned, it has turned out to be a financial challenge to keep up with two homes due to unexpected expenses. I spent half of last year and eight months of this year paying back loans I had to take out to pay for a couple of problems in Scottsdale, the first of which was the massive sewer issue of early 2021 which I should have been compensated for by homeowner's insurance but the insurance company refused to pay. After retaining an attorney, trying other avenues and more than a year of fighting to try and get what I deserved, I finally gave up, let the attorney go and changed insurance companies. I never would have done any remodeling in Scottsdale until I paid off the Mount Prospect home in 2025 but was forced to when most of the first floor including the laundry room, bedroom and bathroom was destroyed in order to fix the plumbing. In addition, in the summer of 2021 the garage completely flooded and I lost everything inside, including the wall of original built-in storage cabinets and the carpeting which was glued to the floor. The company I hired to watch over the home while we were gone did not detect the problem, a neighbor told us about it. I had to have a remediation company come clean up this area as well. The largest expense was the remediation, and then the epoxy chip floor but I am so glad I did the floor. When we returned here in October the garage floor had evidence of water leakage from under the door and dirt where the water was. It was pretty easy to clean up. To prevent the flooding problem from occurring again, I have to have landscapers come every other week to keep the drain and the rest of the front yard and back patio free from debris. The next door neighbor has a tree which is beautiful but sheds thousands of very tiny leaves year round.
I fought to keep up with everything for about a year and a half but it finally came to the point where I had to take out the loans. Any money I earned from estate sales this year went to these loans so I had to work harder than ever to be able to pay all my other bills with the money I earned from jewelry sales. It has been a lot of sleepless nights, waking up in the middle of the night to check the bank balance six days a week and I am still not out of the woods yet. As long as there are no more major surprises for a while, things will continue to get better.
I have always put my whole heart and soul into anything I work on and it may be perceived as I am just busy "buying a lot of things" and "doing a lot of things" but it is all part of the constant pursuit to keep these businesses going strong. This blog is jewelry-focused and although I do not talk about the estate sales here as much, the estate sale business is always my first priority and what I spend the vast majority of my work time on. Other than the pop-up sale in Mount Prospect in early October and the downsizing sale in Scottsdale in early December, I have not had time to work on jewelry projects for three months. The plan for the new year is to balance everything more.
I started both of these businesses from zero and what I have achieved is the product of sheer determination, relentless hard work and valuable experience in two different careers, accounting and IT. I followed a predictable path when I was younger - graduating high school at 17, undergrad four years later and earning an MBA while working full time and having a side hustle six years after that. Everything changed when I ended up getting divorced in 2001 and losing my job in 2002. I never relied on my former husband financially but we were sharing the household expenses. I had to start over and was determined to figure out a way keep my new house and never go back to corporate life. It was a scary but liberating moment to leave that office for the last time as I was not happy there and especially hated the office politics. It took a while to find the path where I could make a living but I am so happy I did not have to go back to the 9-to-5 grind and intend to keep it that way.
Coinciding with the past two years of helping Kuochun and Mother through their worst times and fighting through financial struggles, it has come to light that some folks in my life have taken advantage of the situation and have been dishonest. I will not elaborate but the mere thought of this is extremely sad and has been weighing very heavily on me. The holiday break could not have come at a better time this year. It may be time to take that leap of faith once again and start over. Only time will tell.
]]>As far as jewelry is concerned, I did not sell quite as much as last year but was still very pleased with the results. The attendance was not as large but I only had time to do the estate sale advertising. I did not have any costume jewelry for sale and not a lot of budget-friendly jewelry. There was the collection of Tibetan jewelry which I did sell a number of pieces of. I did not have time to polish and price any "regular" sterling silver jewelry and the few random pieces which were ready that I did put out for sale all sold except for one bracelet. The vintage Native American jewelry was most popular and I sold some vintage and new Mexican pieces as well. The new Native American, not so much even though I double discounted it. I think I will put the artisan signed pieces online and liquidate the rest for my cost. I will definitely place more emphasis on the regular sterling jewelry next time.
Overall I was absolutely thrilled with the way the garage turned out. The handyman needed to make two trips but he was able to put up all of the shelves on one side wall of the garage and the electric fireplace on the other side wall. The weather has been unseasonably warm - last year we were freezing in the mornings but this year it was pleasant right from the start. I turned the fireplace lights on for ambiance but did not turn the heat on. I found a pair of round mirrors with black frames at the local thrift shop to hang above the fireplace, they look cute but I think I will still be on the lookout for something better. When we had the dining set here, I had purchased a quirky bonsai / pine branch arrangement to put on top of the china cabinet. For now, it fits perfectly on the mantle in the empty space below the staggered mirrors. We have one of the beautiful large clothing racks on each side and once the wine refrigerator is gone, we will also have room for two shoe racks for shoes for sale. Since the fireplace area did not have items for sale, I did not take a photo of it but I will post photos next time.
We went to a local paint store and Mother changed the color scheme on our two "fancy" jewelry cases from the fall-like Brie's colors to black with metallic turquoise brushed over it. I would say Mother got them about 90% done but then decided to stamp a bunch of rubber stamps on two sides of one case which looks pretty crazy. I think it's too busy so she will need to paint over this. I would also like to replace the plexiglass with regular glass so the jewelry is easier to see.
I also was able to stage the shelving with the Tibetan jewelry collection on one side and vintage Native American turquoise jewelry on the other. I was able to make use of all of the different props I had on hand and was happy that I did not need to purchase anything. The only thing I did not love was the row of purses on top because they are so random so next time I will think of something else to display there and get the purses online. I even had room for my Harman Kardon Onyx Studio speaker and went with the Holly channel on Sirius XM as the music choice for the weekend. It is the perfect mix of classic and modern holiday tunes and is always upbeat which is perfect for shopping. We had a lot of room behind the row of tables and I have an extra area rug which I put down on the floor for us to walk on. I am going to keep half the room up in anticipation of the community garage sale which I hope will be held in February again.
A celebrity visitor came to our sale - a man and his daughter, the man dressed in Chicago Bears gear. Mother said "what team is that?" and they said "it's the Bears!" It turns out the man was Bob Wallace, a former Bear who played from 1968-1972. He was a tight end and wide receiver. We let them know we were from Chicago! Mother mentioned Ernie Banks for some reason and Bob said "that's my wife's cousin!" His daugher let us know he has an account on millions.co where people can buy his merch. I looked him up afterwards and found we share the same birthday and that he was born about a year and a half after Mother, making him 78 years old. He was before my time but as a fan I really appreciate the sacrifices the older players made to elevate sports to what they are today. They did not earn much but did it for the love of the game and the fans.
We did have one unpleasant event occur - on the last day we had a good crowd and a lady asked if we had a bathroom. I apologized and said no, we have two barking dogs inside. Somewhat later, a man asked how late we were going to be open. Melinda said 3:00, are you coming back? He said oh yeah and then left. All of a sudden Melinda said something smells really bad, that man passed gas. We could smell it too but figured it would dissipate eventually. It did not and only seemed to get worse. At least 10 minutes later I went out to the driveway to put some of Mother's items out for sale and I saw a huge pile of diarrhea on the driveway right in front of where the garage door closes and very close to where Melinda was sitting. I was so surprised that none of the customers pointed this out to us and were all shopping normally. That was no fun to clean up and we had to lose a pair of good rubber gloves in the process as we did not have any disposable gloves on hand. At least it was not too far away from the drain so after I scooped everything up the water had a place to go. We both said this is just like at the estate sales!
Rachel and John visited for about two and a half weeks prior to and including Thanksgiving. I was not able to be a very good host due to everything going on but I think they enjoyed themselves. We ended up getting the Costco Thanksgiving dinner. I know this is un-American but Thanksgiving food is not my favorite. I like turkey and eat a turkey sandwich nearly every day normally. All I eat at Thanksgiving is turkey, stuffing and dinner rolls. I thought the Costco turkey breast was great, the best I have had at Thanksgiving in a long time. The stuffing was good but very salty. All they had available at the Costco were Hawaiian rolls which I like well enough. My companions went a little overboard and got an apple pie, pecan pie and tiramisu. None of these desserts are appealing to me but I did help with the apple pie which was good warmed up. Unfortunately someone in the household got a little overzealous and threw away the entire pecan pie and the rest of the apple pie. I hate waste so this causes me anxiety.
Kuochun purchased this mini freezer from Wayfair as the current freezer drawers do not hold much. Food seems to spoil more quickly here so it makes a lot of sense to use frozen food. There would have been plenty of room to store the pies here until someone was ready to eat them. Now we have both a mini refrigerator and mini freezer in the garage. We tried to sell the refrigerator but there was no interest so we kept it and it holds extra drinks that do not fit in the kitchen refrigerator, such as the three bottles of orange juice we buy at a time from Costco. The handyman had a little extra time so we had him put together the stand I bought last time, it is great to have the refrigerator elevated. The setup is a little elaborate though so when these conk out I think we should get a combined unit.
Preparing for the sale and estate sale work has taken up most of the time this past month but we were able to get a few other tasks accomplished. Kuochun and I signed up for the senior center fitness room once again and have been doing our best to get there three times per week. I have stayed on the treadmill with a level 7 out of 20 and moderate speed, 20 minutes on a rolling course and 20 minutes on intervals. Kuochun does 20 minutes on the treadmill on a rolling course at level 1 but a higher speed and 20 minutes on an incline machine where you move your arms and legs. Last time the TV on the end only played old Westerns which I hated. I did not think it could get much worse but this time they were playing super creepy paranormal stories from the Travel Channel which I do not think is appropriate. We did say something and it has been changed to game shows which is awesome. The other TVs have a mixture of daytime talk shows and HGTV which is good as well.
Mother and I went to the Old Brick House pop-up in Mesa which we just love. This time we went Wednesday evening because the handyman was coming the next day. The weather was pleasant but the line to get in was a block long. The parking lot was jammed so we had to park two blocks away and that was lucky to find because Mother has a handicap placard for the car. We waited in line and finally got in but it was so crowded, it was difficult to manuever Mother around in the wheelchair. I ended up placing her in an empty space and walking around myself. It was the first time we did not buy anything because although it was gorgeous as always, it was 90% Christmas decor which we do not need. It is already time for the next pop-up sale next week! From the e-mail photos there is still a good amount of Christmas decor but other items too. We will probably try and find time to go.
We finally made it to the local fabric store called Boca Bargoons which seemed to be like Loomcraft at home. We were looking for some fabric to cover the chair seats of some dining chairs Mother bought from Old Brick House at only $5 each last time to fix up. They were having a 50% off sale but the prices are way higher than Loomcraft. We did end up purchasing some fabric but it was the only one in the store that we liked. A lot of the fabrics came from well-known design houses but were outdated. We will not be back again.
I did a little Black Friday online shopping to take advantage of some deals. I have not had the chance to use this product at home yet, but since it was 30% off I ordered another AquaPure as well as a veggie washer for here. AquaPure is a pesticide purifier that very thoroughly cleans produce. I ordered a veggie washer for home (a total of two) and was not happy to find that the company decided to do a 50% Cyber Monday discount.
I love my Beast Health blender for smoothies but the blade is not easy to clean. I was really happy to see that they have come up with a couple of accessories for cleaning and scraping the smoothie down from the sides of the container at a little discount for Black Friday. The cleaner works great and I am going to use the silicone scraper to get the last of the product out of jars such as pasta sauce and pesto.
Hulken specializes in foldable bags on wheels, they are so handy for schlepping stuff around. They had a 20% off sale on their black bags so I ordered both medium and large. I have them at home but the black in medium and silver in large. Once I took the silver one to the post office to mail packages and a lady asked me if I was doing a food delivery!
Although they are pricey, I enjoy Simplehuman products. We have the large garbage can with lid here and I have the automatic soap dispensers at home. I purchased this paper towel holder with built-in spray bottle for cleaner during the Black Friday sale. The white color looks great in the kitchen. The cleaner has a very pleasant scent and comes in tablet form. It mixes with water right in the bottle. Someone who shall remain nameless knocked my automatic soap dispenser which was here on the kitchen floor and it no longer works. I was going to order more but was not thrilled about it. Then I discovered they have regular dispensers that only require one hand to dispense! I ordered two for the kitchen and two more different ones for the upstairs bathroom. They were not on sale but I am so happy to have them and these products are making life easier.
Finally, I have been using Z Skin products for a few years, ever since I saw the owner of the company pitch them on a Shark Tank-like show. The sunscreen especially is the best! It does not even feel like sunscreen going on. The prices are very reasonable even at full price but I stocked up during the 50% off sale. They are handmade and organic and take a while to receive but are worth every penny.
We also spent a lot of time at Cox which is the local cable TV and internet provider. It is not pretty but Kuochun now has a TV in his room. We got him a stand on Amazon because there is no wall to place the TV on. It is acceptable for now until I have the second floor remodeled, then we will probably switch rooms and I will go without a TV. It took a couple of go-arounds but we were able to upgrade the TV equipment. We have a tiny nearly wallet-sized receiver on every TV and no large DVR box. I also upgraded to be able to record six programs at once, it was only two programs before and Kuochun's House Hunters recordings kept bumping off my recordings. On our last visit, in order to save money on the cell phone and Cox bills, I moved Kuochun's phone, my phone and the business phone to Cox. Unfortunately we can no longer use my old iPhone XS Max as a business phone because it has a physical SIM card. But I purchased a TCL phone for a low price and I will plan to sell the iPhone.
We have not had time to eat out much other than the occasional Chipotle bowl but did make it to California Fish Grill which we both really enjoy. Babbo Italian Eatery is always on my short list and I hope to get there soon.
Next week the plan is to recover from the downsizing sale, get the car back in the garage and move my photo studios down now that the weather is cool enough to work there. I am so glad I chose a home with a real garage as opposed to a carport, business storage would really be a challenge without it. I will be sending the jewelry caravan out to a couple of local estate sales so I need to prepare for that as well. I am very behind with posting items online and unfortunately missed the Vendoo deadline and lost the 25 listings for the month that I paid for. But I saw that I can sign up for a "coffee talk" session with Vendoo and gain 20 of those listings back.
I am definitely looking forward to things getting back to normal, as much as they can be. Mother will be starting two different rounds of therapy, each twice per week for 8 weeks so there will be many more appointments to take her to.
Until next time!
]]>The next pop-up sale will be our downsizing part two in Scottsdale the weekend after Thanksgiving. This time I am not going to open the house or backyard and keep most things to the garage. I will be listing the larger and key items individually on Facebook Marketplace to see if I can clear any space prior to the sale start. I definitely learned from the last experience - when I opened the garage door, lots of customers came rushing in and it was very difficult to pull the clothing racks onto the driveway with all that going on. Plus the driveway slants down towards the garage so I was working against gravity trying to get them in place.
We have had amazing experiences with landscape maintenance and housecleaning providers recommended through some of the local Facebook groups. They both do a wonderful job for a reasonable price. I was hoping for the same success finding a handyman but no such luck. I probably already spoke about the person I had come to the home for an initial meeting earlier this year. Long story short, he was a complete disaster and very unprofessional. Another person was recommended as being the best craftsman in Phoenix and I contacted him regarding the handyman work plus remodeling the laundry room but no response. I then took to Google and found that Ace Hardware has a handyman service and the reviews were excellent. We love the staff at our local Ace Hardware. I actually wrote a Google review about them and it sort of went viral because so many people found it helpful. I filled out the online form and received a call the next day. The lady on the phone thought my tasks could be completed in a half day but I am not so sure. At any rate, the handyman is scheduled to come next Thursday so my homework will be to clear the areas in the garage so he can work. Priority order will be to hang the shelves, electric fireplace and large decorative hook made of rebar. Then we will see if he has time to repair the hole in the wall and switch out the electrical sockets in the kitchen. I will probably have to schedule more time to finish the rest of the to-do list but this will give me a chance to see if the work is good first.
For the longest time, these photos were the oldest ones in my phone. I purchased this shelf system from one of our estate sales, it was a condo in Mount Prospect way back in February 2012. They do not look like much in the photo but they are cute in person, vintage with a bamboo style edge. I have had good intentions to put these shelves up all this time but it never happened so I ended up moving them to Scottsdale after I lost all of the built-in cabinets in the garage due to a summer flood. The shelves make a "U" shape with shorter shelves on each side and a long shelf across the top. I misplaced the long wall tracks somewhere along the way but I still have the shelf brackets. I went to Amazon to search for replacements but ended up getting floating brackets in white which do not need the tracks. This will give me more flexibility with the design and also modernize the look. Light and bright does well here in Arizona so eventually I would like to paint the shelves white. This has been a long time coming so I am excited about it!
The home came with this electric fireplace in the dining area which has a grey limestone surround and a pine wood top. The first thing the designer wanted to do was remove this fireplace. I thought I would have no trouble selling it, I tried at more than 75% off retail for two years but no luck. I have decided to see if the handyman can hang it up in the garage. This may seem silly but in the early morning of the sale days it was cold in both December and February. Sales start earlier here than in Chicagoland. I push the envelope as much as I can by running my own sales from 9:00-3:00 but I believe the community garage sale started at 8:00. Kuochun noticed last year the early birds were out shopping by 7:00. The fireplace should warm up the room a bit and add to the cozy atmosphere. It changes colors and has "embers" made of crystal so that goes with jewelry. I am going to see if it can be installed in the empty space in the center of where the shelving will go. If all goes well, it is going to be such a great feeling to have all these parts and pieces up off the floor in the laundry room and garage and hung up!
I am also thinking about sending this black storage cabinet to Scottsdale. I really no longer have a use for it in Mount Prospect as I am downsizing my costume jewelry collection but I could really use it in Scottsdale. It would be a great way to store jewelry and photography props. I tried to sell it at my pop-up sale and on Facebook Marketplace but surprisingly there was no interest. I am going to see what a mover on uShip would charge to bring it out here. It is tempting to send my two IKEA glass display cabinets as well but if they break that would make for an expensive repair.
After catching up with my license plate sticker at home, lucky me - it was time to renew the Arizona license plate sticker as well. Deb who was keeping an eye on things groaned and said before we arrived that "ADOT" came in the mail. Now I know why! Their price for one year is about the same as I paid for two years in Illinois with a vanity plate. They do have a multi-year option and although it was a big expense I decided to go with the five-year renewal because I will save at least $500 - and if the price goes up I will save even more. Wow, nearly $2,000 for the license plate renewals but I will not need to renew Arizona until 2028.
We have eaten out a few times since we have been here but mostly quick bites like Chipotle and Jimmy John's. Mother is still on Lean Lifestyle so she is not eating out. We knocked The Local Donut off our to-do list - this is not our order but I did choose the blueberry old fashioned. Another memorable one was the Ferrero Rocher which had one of the candies in the center.
While at The Local Donut, we noticed a new restaurant next door called The Eleanor. It looks like the owners did wonders with this mid-century modern building which used to be a dry cleaners. It was buzzing with activity. We knocked one off the list and added another! We tried going last Saturday but the parking lot was completely full and a bunch of people were lurking around waiting for spots. Kuochun does not like to wait so we ended up going to US Egg.
We had never been there before but it is right near the car wash so we could get that taken care of as well. I did not have high expectations but I really enjoyed it. Every time I go to a "pancake" place I am torn between ordering something sweet and something savory. I most always go with something savory. At US Egg, they have the Half & Half - two smaller versions of their specialty protein pancakes which have blueberries and granola in the batter and a small skillet with one egg. I have never seen this at a restaurant of this type and it was perfect for me! The food and service was really good and we actually ended up going a second time. I am ready to go somewhere new now.
We have made many trips to Tempe Marketplace since we have been here, mainly to Cox (cable and internet) to get help with Kuochun's new TV for his room. Thankfully this is all worked out now. I have to pay a little extra but we can now record up to 6 programs at the same time. We could only record two at a time before and my programs kept getting bumped by the millions of episodes of House Hunters Kuochun records. In order to add a fourth cable box for Kuochun, we needed to switch out the equipment. The big box in the living room is gone and we have four wireless boxes which are a little bigger than a wallet. Kuochun says "game changer!" Cox is actually about a year behind Xfinity as far as new technology goes so when we come back we are going to do the same switch at home.
Tempe Marketplace is one of the best shopping centers around, it has everything you need in one place. I truly feel the Randhurst developers could have taken a cue from Tempe Marketplace. It is what Randhurst should have been. There are lots of great restaurants in addition to stores. We had one lunch at Mad Greens which is a salad place. This was our second time there and I loved it both times. Another day we tried King's Fish House which reminded me of Shaw's Crab House. I tried the shrimp taquitos appetizer as my lunch along with a side of macaroni and cheese. We had a great server and she said the taquitos are not ordered enough and she did warn me about the spicy sauce drizzle but I did not love them. They were too spicy and the shrimp on tails were inside the taquito shells which was kind of weird. I loved the sourdough bread and the mac and cheese though. The sauce was very light which made it a little more guilt-free. I suggested Kuochun try the New Orleans BBQ shrimp which he really enjoyed, he ate every bit. On another trip in the evening we went to Portillo's. Every time we go it seems to be pretty popular which I am happy to see. They recently opened a sit-down Lou Malnati's which I would like to try as well. The logo is different and the building is much more modern than the ones at home. We have a carryout Lou's only 5 minutes away from us but I always prefer dining in, everything is hot and fresh.
Mike has been working hard packing up lots of jewelry for Mark to ship to Scottsdale for the pop-up sale. I now have the vintage and new Native American, Buffalo Dancer and new Mexican pieces with me. The hide and leather photo backdrops and the tabletop mannequins are on the way and should arrive next week. I did take inventory of what I have online to be sure everything is accounted for. Even though I have not been able to get back to jewelry purges or online postings yet I still sold several items out of my store through eBay and Etsy.
I have come leaps and bounds with the online store but having the pop-up sale at home did set things back. I will definitely be very prepared for the holiday season in 2024. The jewelry purge items are piling up and the plan is to post a great purge next Sunday. Once the handyman hangs everything up, I can get to work staging the room for the pop-up sale. I am going to try staging Mother's Christmas items in the front entry to free up space and keep things separate. I am not worried about theft but I will be able to close the iron gate at night to keep the goodies secure. Mother has a lot of garlands to sell so maybe we will be able to hang them on the gate.
As usual, so much to do so I will end here!
]]>Wednesday was Kuochun's birthday and he chose Boston Fish Market in Wheeling. It was our first time to visit this location. We have carried out from the Des Plaines location a couple of times but have not dined in because I am not a fan of crowds or community tables. I also will never forget the time the owner was slurping up a huge platter of cooked dandelion greens while we were waiting for our food. So gross! Kuochun took friends there who were visiting from Boston and they dined out on the patio which has individual tables.
The restaurant decor in Wheeling was a cute nautical theme. The huge parking lot was totally jammed but the restaurant was not too busy. We were not sure where all those people went. I selected the pesto gnocci and shrimp special which as $39 was the most expensive entree I have ever ordered but was on the lower end of the menu options. It was good, the pesto sauce was very smooth which was different. Anyone who knows me well knows pesto is one of my favorite foods, I do not eat condiments but I use pesto on my sandwiches and of course on pasta. Kuochun enjoyed his red snapper which was a huge portion with Greek potatoes and roasted vegetables. He was able to stretch it into two large meals.
I gave two of my five shrimp, our remaining family-style Caesar salad and a piece of garlic bread to Mother as she did not join us. We ran the food right over to her and she loved it. She was not up to going but I took her to Mariano's earlier in the day for a flu shot and she picked out two birthday cupcakes from the bakery for us. They were pretty good, yellowish cake with frosting in a floral motif but I think their chocolate is better. If I compare Boston Fish Market to Bob Chinn's, as a person who will only eat shrimp or fried calamari I would say Bob Chinn's is a better value and experience. Their garlic rolls beat Boston Fish Market's garlic bread for sure!
Kuochun told me he feels full of life and is ready to make this a great year! I am very proud of the way he is tackling his medical issues head on. A recent visit to a lung doctor resulted in wonderful news - he does not have lung problems and the coughing he has been experiencing is due to allergies. He is trying out some over the counter allergy medication as well as a nasal spray. Something that has also helped in this arena are Sans air purifiers. I learned about them through Faceboook ads. They look attractive as far as air purifiers go, are super quiet and are portable with a built-in handle at the top. Earlier this year I purchased two, one was to go in each of our bedrooms but I ended up letting Mother have the second one. She needs it more urgently than I do. This machine has greatly reduced the sound level of Kuochun's snoring and when he cooks, it springs into action to clean the air of cooking odors. I just purchased one for Scottsdale and received an offer to purchase a second one for a big discount so I took advantage of that. One machine covers about 1,500 square feet so we will use one on each level. Eventually I will get one for my room in Mount Prospect as I hope it will help me with my allergies.
Thursday it was my turn to have an annual checkup, flu shot and mammogram. Everything looks good health-wise but the flu shot made me kind of ill and I ended up really bruised and with a big lump and sore arm from the blood draw. This has never happened to me before. The bruises are fading but my arm is still sore. Hopefully by this time next week it will be back to normal.
On Friday I had to run to the Secretary Of State facility in Schaumburg to bring my van's license plate sticker up to date. I tried to renew it at a currency exchange but I missed the 2022 renewal so they said they could not give me a 2023 sticker. I do not recall receiving the notice last year and I did not receive one this year but know my renewal month is October. Last winter no one drove the van but now we have Alan helping us with pickups and he has been using it. I needed to get this squared away before I left. The penalty for missing 2022 was less than I expected at $20 but paying two years with a B truck and a vanity plate came to $358. I could have given up the vanity plate and gotten a new license plate but I could never do that, as I have had it since I was 15 and Dad got it for me. I also packed and shipped one box of vintage Native American jewelry to Scottsdale so I could continue to sell it. All of the pieces in the box are online.
Saturday I ran around like crazy to put the house in order but was not able to do much with the garage. We would have stayed another week or two but needed to go back a little early to make Mother's important doctor's appointment next Monday. I will need to ask for help to get all the jewelry I want to Scottsdale and put the remaining tables from the pop-up sale back in place. Luckily Mike is an online seller and knows how to pack things. He will be coming on Monday to help out. This worked out well because we are having a moving sale in the town where Mike lives this week but they cannot have us start the setup until Tuesday. The priority will be to ship the rest of the vintage Native American jewelry that is currently online and the pieces that are new to me that I have not processed yet.
I will see how much selling space I have to work with and go from there. I do have a lot of vintage sterling in Scottsdale which needs to be polished and priced. Once I complete that I can ask for more to be sent. It was a big goal for me to catch up with the vintage sterling but since I bought more now I will just take things step by step. In June I shipped about eight boxes home thinking I could get it all online but that was way too ambitious. I should have known better with it being the height of the estate sale season.
Because I have so much Gem Show jewelry Kuochun is suggesting that I take a year off from buying. I would still like to take a trip to Tucson though because I really enjoy visiting and was so sick most of the time we were there last year. We missed going to Tubac which we all enjoy. From where we live, Tucson is an easy drive, similar to driving to Milwaukee. Now is the time to book a place to stay before all of the best places are snapped up. Kuochun and I loved our stay in the Oro Valley area, the only drawback is that it was nearly 40 minutes north of the shows. I am definitely going for a single-family home this time, it will be way more comfortable for 3 people and 2 dogs. I have my eye on a home which is closer to Oro Valley but not quite all the way up there. It looks to be about 25 minutes away from the shows which is helpful. The home is beautiful and has a nice fenced-in yard.
It is really desert style in Tucson, I had to eliminate quite a few places because the entire grounds were nothing but dirt. They did not look comfortable for the girls to run around in. I am also considering this home in the Sam Hughes neighborhood which is supposed to be one of the best in town. The house is older and very charming but the furnishings are not as beautiful as the Oro Valley home. The location is in great proximity to the gem shows and I really like that there is a parking pad for the car inside the fenced-in yard.
We were shocked to find that when we arrived at O'Hare Saturday night that there were hardly any passengers there! Both the ticket counter and security had very minimal waits. It was a lot to travel with three people, two dogs, three large checked bags and Mother's carryon, two personal bags and oxygen machine but we focused on getting the girls safely through the process and Mother received help from the airport staff with wheelchair transport. The flight was very efficient, strangely enough the captain never spoke to us but the tradeoff was we left a little early and arrived early. It was a challenge getting all of our belongings to the ride share area but I did it in shifts. Luckily there could be a person on each end to keep an eye on things. Overall things went way more smoothly than they have but were not without hiccups. Vivi was stressed out and completely chewed through the chest strap of her harness, which is thick with two layers of Velcro. She also cried as we made our way through the terminal in Phoenix. Somehow she knew to keep quiet at the most critical times - going through security and while onboard the airplane. We never heard a peep out of Margot.
What we did not anticipate when we finally arrived home was that we would be locked out! I mentioned it several times including while I was at O'Hare waiting for the flight to take off but the caretaker still forgot to unlock the door from the garage to the house for us! I was very specific each time to say this is when we were coming and we had no keys. I was so upset, I did not take the situation as well as Kuochun and Mother did. At least we were able to get into the backyard because there is a lock box there for the landscaper. I called and texted the caretaker but she did not respond. She lives in the neighborhood so Kuochun walked over there and knocked on the door, again no answer. I then called a locksmith who said to stay alert because someone would be calling. We waited 45 minutes, no call. Mother called the police but there was nothing they were willing to do to help. I then called another locksmith who thankfully had someone dispatched fairly quickly. It took him all of 3 seconds to pop open the door with a tool which kind of looked like a drill. The charge was $179! Great line of work if you can get it but I can understand the potential danger of being an overnight locksmith. We finally got into the house at 4:00 AM Central Time.
We were worn out but on Sunday the Bears game definitely cheered us up! It took a lot of figuring but Kuochun found a way for us to be able to watch the games. We can watch them here but using our Xfinity DVR from at home. We do need to wait until the game is over before we can begin watching and although we can fast forward through the commercials they do not move along so we have to guess at where to stop. But after missing a few games last season we are grateful to be able to watch and it was a great game to see! One time I would like to try going to a local place where Bears fans gather and watch a game in public. There are so many Chicago transplants here.
The plan for next week is get back to a normal schedule of posting jewelry purges and unsold pieces online. Also, I would like to get right to work preparing for the next pop-up sale. I was very surprised to see tons of dust in the garage and sitting area between the front gate and front door. I have my work cut out getting everything cleaned up. Melinda kindly offered to come over when she returns and lend me her power washer as well as the Elfa storage she is driving home from Chicago. It will be a great way to display all of the Christmas decorations Mother has for sale. I also need to get in touch with the super handyman to put the finishing touches on the garage, such as installing the shelving which has been unused for 12 years! I will post updates on the process as it goes along.
Hopefully by the community garage sale in February the laundry room will be complete as well. It is still unfinished from the remediation needed after the water damage in 2021. Melinda is bringing out the leftover cement tile from the breezeway (nearly four full boxes) for the laundry room floor. I was able to find the tile through a Google image search and it is still available for sale so I should be able to buy the remaining tile I need to complete the task.
See you next time with jewelry news!
]]>Kuochun wanted to go back to Pinstripes for Sunday brunch and although I was hesitant because we have plenty to eat at home before we leave, we ended up going. This time we did not make it there until 1:00, brunch ends promptly at 2:00 with the restaurant continually open straight through dinner. I preferred our experience going earlier as there were lots of kids this time and adults that were acting worse than the kids - grabbing food with their hands instead of using the provided utensils. A guy just ahead of me dropped bacon on the floor, thought about picking it up and then just kicked it under the table. On our way out at just after 2:00 we noticed that the staff piled all the food on top of each other, for instance throwing all of the pieces of pizza on top of other food in a warming tray. It appears that they just throw everything out which is really a shame. There are so many employees there you'd think they would love to have a free lunch but I have never worked in a restaurant so I do not know what the protocol is. I think this is a place where once or twice a year is good enough. I am up a few pounds for the first time all year after being able to maintain but Kuochun's birthday is next Wednesday. We will need to have one more dinner out before we leave!
Mother has been on Seattle Sutton ever since she came home from rehab and it seems to be going very well. I noticed that they have added some new meals since we last subscribed and they look great. They do so many things well - at breakfast the sweet options like the Orange Berry Waffle above are amazing as well as the yogurt and granola combinations, lunch has delicious salads like this Curry Chicken Salad and I enjoyed most of the dinners. Some of them have too many cooked vegetables for my taste but I get it. I would not touch a regular pot pie but their Turkey Pot Pie is really good. It is a very light sauce with tiny cubes of turkey, pearl onions, carrots, celery and peas.
I will probably subscribe again once we come back as it is so wonderful to have nutritious fresh food all ready to eat and I just go down the street a little past the post office to pick it up twice a week. The only drawback is you cannot choose your favorite meals but I understand why they do that. They do not repeat a meal for five weeks and the menu is very balanced, for instance they alternate sweet and savory breakfasts. Now with every pickup they include a suggested plan for eating the meals each day. They said this is to balance the calories out but this is an excellent idea. I used to eat my favorite meals first and then be left with the least favorites to eat all in a row. It may seem pricey but I tried making a grocery list to make a couple of menu items and the list was a mile long!
I did some research this past week on Phoenix-area meal prep companies for Mother. They have so many choices, way more than here! But in the area where we live people have a lot more disposable income and are totally into healthy living so it makes sense. I found Lean Lifestyle which is heart healthy and low sodium which is how everyone should eat but especially Mother and Kuochun due to their heart issues. I thought the food looked attractive and there was a much better variety than some of the other companies I was considering. I filled out a questionnaire which asked about food preferences and every meal can be chosen or we can let them make the choices. There was very little Mother wanted to eliminate (she has an aversion to kale for some reason) and we will try their selections to start. One difference is that Lean Lifestyle includes beef and pork while Seattle Sutton does not. They are going to deliver three times per week in the late evening, it could be as late as 1:00 AM but I am always up. Kuochun is thinking about signing up for some meals as well and I hope he gives it a try. A tidy kitchen will equate to a peaceful household! For me, Lean Lifestyle is too cooked vegetable heavy so I will put together some different healthy options for myself. This time I will definitely use the breadmaker and Heritage Flour to make some wholesome bread.
Switching gears, we needed some of the supplies I used for the pop-up sale for our estate sales this week so the pop-up is a bit dismantled but I am offering appointments through Wednesday of next week. The plan is still to pack up all of the Native American and Mexican jewelry, new and vintage and leave all of the estate jewelry in Mount Prospect for the caravan. This should be more than enough to put online this winter. Unfortunately many of the boxes of jewelry I shipped to Mount Prospect should have just stayed in Scottsdale because I did not have time to get to them. One more trip cross country and that will be it! Please remember that no matter where the jewelry is, I am happy to ship for no charge.
I was able to do some jewelry cleaning this summer but not as much as I hoped. But I cannot be too hard on myself, I also bought a ton of silver jewelry while I have been here! Hopefully I will be able to clean and price some more for the caravan next week. I will bring the rest with me and send it back eventually but will likely try to sell it at the holiday pop-up sale and winter garage sale in Scottsdale before I do. We will see how our estate sale schedule goes but so far most of the potential clients contacting us are looking to have sales this year. There are many more events around Chicago than Phoenix so if needed, I will send the jewelry home!
I am looking forward to getting back to more of a regular schedule with the combination of estate sale and jewelry work. I think it has been about a month since I have posted anything online. I sold several pieces this past week on eBay, Etsy and Poshmark but I would like to get some new pieces out there and keep things fresh! The Native American jewelry is starting to back up, I have some amazing pieces to show coming up including an incredible beaded necklace.
Until next time!
]]>After slight reflection now that the sale is complete, most likely this will be the last pop-up sale in Mount Prospect, at least one that focuses on costume jewelry. We will see what next year brings. It was definitely a challenge to set up the sale mostly on my own. I did bring Mike in to help refresh all the jewelry cases and set up the tables for the sale on Monday. I was able to post way more photos to the ads than usual but did not have time to finish setting up the breezeway with costume jewelry and fill the display cases in the main room with better pieces. Although what I presented was pretty organized, I felt bad that I was not able to present a completely staged sale.
In a previous week, I shared a photo of this area of the breezeway that Mike had set up for me, loaded with sparkling pieces of vintage rhinestone costume jewelry. This is what it looked like at the end of the day Thursday! It was unintentional but the pop-up sale ended up marking the beginning of the liquidation process of the costume jewelry. This will take some time because even though I have sold a lot over the years I had tons to begin with, going back to the days when we owned our brick and mortar stores.
At the end of the day on Sunday in addition to selling a lot more of the rhinestone jewelry at my cost, I let go of a lot of the costume jewelry that I have had on consignment for nearly two years. The remaining consignment jewelry will be separated by client and divided into wholesale lots. I am going to try a Facebook group I learned about and if I cannot receive a reasonable price there I will post the lots to Vendoo and then crosslist to eBay, Etsy, Poshmark, Facebook Marketplace and Shopify. I will post updates on the wholesale lots here!
I placed a number of furniture and shed items on Facebook Marketplace to coincide with the pop-up sale and had excellent success. I sold the rosewood furniture, the black metal stationary storage shelf, the pair of silver color rolling storage shelves and the silver color store display walls. I even sold a card table which had gotten rained on for $10. As the buyer carried it through my yard, I watched a trail of rusty water follow her. Hopefully it will wash off the patio the next time it rains. We are supposed to get lots of rain next week.
Since costume jewelry has always been most popular at my pop-up sales over the years, I am not sure what the future will hold once I only have sterling jewelry to offer. I will probably have a "pop-up going out of business sale" either next spring or fall and sell any extra furniture and displays in the main room and shed. I will keep the breezeway as it is because I love the way it is decorated. It can continue to serve as a workspace and place to showcase jewelry by appointment.
It took any free time I had for the better part of a month to prepare for this sale. Looking back I think the time would have been much better spent continuing to post jewelry purges on Facebook and then listing the unsold items online. But I am never one to have regrets and will continue onward and upward from here.
Kuochun learned about the restaurant Phoenix Flame in Rolling Meadows on Nextdoor and he was very anxious to try it. It is a Latin Mediterranean restaurant which used to be in Niles. They moved to a Rolling Meadows strip mall where Jewel is located and I have been to many times taking Mother to rehab. Even though it was the eleventh hour preparing for the pop-up sale we took some time out to go on Monday evening. Kuochun selected the Canadian grilled salmon with potatoes and seasonal vegetables and I chose the skirt steak sandwich with fries as shown above. He enjoyed his entree and I thought the fries were great. I very rarely eat beef but do like skirt steak because it is flavorfully marinated and tender. This version had a good taste but the meat was very gristly. I could not bite into the sandwich without making a mess so I ended up cutting it into small pieces. I had thought of ordering the shrimp skewers but Kuochun mentioned that he was going to make shrimp the next day. Even though there was only one server in the room, she was very attentive and the owner even stopped by to see how we were doing. Overall I really liked the experience, the restaurant was very clean and had a casual yet slightly upscale feel which I thought was nice. Little did I know that we would be back again at the end of the week!
Saturday was my birthday and Mother surprised me with a torte from Central Continental Bakery (with Maureen's help) on Friday. Mother knows that one of my favorites is their hazelnut torte. This particular day there were hazelnut raspberry, lemon and coconut tortes available. I would have liked any of them. My opinion on this hazelnut raspberry torte is that it has a very mild flavor. I would not go as far as to say it was bland, but more non-descript. There was no chocolate except for the little dollops on the top and the raspberry layer was very thin. It was good but I prefer their classic hazelnut which has more chocolate. I am not a chocoholic by any means but this torte needed some!
On Saturday evening, Kuochun and I headed out for our meal of the week at J. Alexander's, this was my birthday choice. The website said men are required to wear pointed collars but Kuochun does not have any here, except for Dad's old Apple Annie Awnings shirt which is 3 sizes too big for him. No one mentioned it thankfully. Chicken Milanese is my favorite chicken dish and J. Alexander's has a delicious one, along with Cheesecake Factory and Cafe Lucci in Glenview. I substituted the smashed potatoes for the wild rice and orzo salad. This salad is simply amazing and is worth the trip to J. Alexander's just for it. We ordered calamari with marinara sauce as an appetizer and it consisted of only the rings which was OK with me. We also split a Caesar salad. The server said but your meal comes with a little salad and I said that's fine, we'll take it anyway! Kuochun ordered the fish special which was sea bass (one of his very favorites) with couscous and French green beans. There were no leftovers for either of us! For the birthday, we were presented with a piece of carrot cake to share. I am not sure if they microwave the cake but it was so hot, when I removed the candle there was only wick left from the portion that was inserted into the cake. The cream cheese frosting was also super melted but we ate it anyway. A couple of little hiccups - we were shown to a regular table instead of a booth, which is why there are shadows in my photo and once we received our entrees we noticed that everyone surrounding us had bread on their tables except us. The other server working the area asked her customers if they wanted bread but our server did not ask us. It was too late by the time we realized what was going on. It was a quick meal, taking exactly one hour from start to finish. The great food made up for the hiccups though.
After the sale ended Sunday, we took Melinda to Phoenix Flame so she could try it. Interestingly they remembered me from Monday but not Kuochun. It is always the other way around! This time I ordered the shrimp skewers and although they were very tender I felt they were not flavorful. The fries were good (in my book it is difficult to mess up fries) but they were different and not as wonderful as the first visit. I saved the Shepherd Salad for Mother because I knew she would love it - tomatoes, cucumbers and feta cheese dressed with olive oil. She did totally love it and mentioned how much more than once. It sounds like we will need to bring her there sometime, it is only a few minutes from her house.
Next week will be the time to catch up with estate sale work and pack up the pop-up sale. Mother decided to go ahead and keep her doctor's appointment in Scottsdale October 23 so I booked the airplane tickets for all of us for the evening of October 21. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I had enough airline miles to cover another one-way for Kuochun and I but I did spent an extra 1,000 miles so we could go in the evening rather than 5:30 or 7:30 AM. I will be glad when the time comes that I have that extra day to make sure the house is in order.
I would have been happy to stay here a few additional weeks since we have only been here four months but this will keep us on track. I am going to have the second part of our downsizing sale the weekend after Thanksgiving and this will give me time to prepare. I had to leave the garage in Scottsdale disorganized because I ran out of time but the house is in great order.
A lot of jewelry will be going to Scottsdale and will not be coming back here. Pictured above is some of the vintage Native American jewelry collection and below are examples of the other pieces which will be leaving. I would be happy to show any of this jewelry by appointment through Wednesday, October 18 before it goes bye-bye. Eventually it will all be online and available for purchase with complimentary shipping.
All of the Tucson Gem Show jewelry will be heading for Arizona including these Native American Navajo-made contemporary pieces.
In addition, the Mexican jewelry from Elysium and The Boyz Silver as well as the hoop earrings and bangle bracelets from Bora will only be available here in Mount Prospect until October 18.
A lot but not all of this amber jewelry will be heading to Arizona. The vintage and vintage-style pieces will be staying as part of the jewelry caravan.
It is not pictured but the Federico collection and bohemian costume jewelry necklaces will be coming with me.
See you next time with a final 2023 update from Mount Prospect!
]]>We went but we know from too much past experience what the ER checks for and that is exactly what happened. Blood tests and then an ultrasound to make sure there are no blood clots. After about six hours of waiting, the doctor said there was nothing to admit her to the hospital for. The leg color was due to the rapid water removal in intensive care and being on blood thinners. Mother was actually really disappointed that she was not going to be admitted! I however was so relieved that there was no necrosis, I was more concerned about a potential loss of toes or a limb. There was no choice but to have Mother go back to Lutheran Home because arranging another location was not possible late on a Sunday evening. The hope is that things will kick into gear with the start of the new week. The breathing machine and treatments are actually helping and the recovery process has been very encouraging these past two weeks.
Because of the Sunday ER stay, I was not able to post a Federico jewelry purge that evening as I had hoped. On Monday though, I was able to post the unsold items from the September 10 lot online. The cute little turquoise ring at the upper left did sell on Facebook Marketplace during the week but the multi-strand turquoise necklace and all of the cuff bracelets except the 3-stone red cuff are available for purchase.
Despite the challenges, I am doing my best to keep my word and go on with the pop-up sale. I spent some time displaying the Czech rhinestone jewelry in one of the large cabinets in the breezeway. I have had this jewelry for years - when I purchased it I was told it was made in the factories in the Czech Republic about 15 ago. Now it qualifies as vintage as it is at least 20 years old! After all this time, I finally finished tagging the rest of the bracelets and necklaces so they can be put out for sale. There is not enough room for everything so I separated out the red and green and will display those pieces with the other Christmas jewelry. The display is about 80% completed and I will get some photos for next time.
I also started photographing some of the small vintage home decor pieces which will be for sale. I tried using my medium size light box but was not liking the results so I took a few armfuls of goodies down to the basement where I could use two Replica Surfaces to create a backdrop and floor inside my large light box. So far, I have used a peach and terrazzo theme for the mid-century items and a walnut and white painted brick for newer pieces. I only have about half of my surfaces here so the choices are sort of limited.
I would like to make collages like this for the home decor items so there are not so many individual photos on the ads. As usual, I wish I had more time but at least I made some progress. Next week I will have a week off from estate paperwork and I let Mother know that I will continue to visit her but do need time to not only complete the breezeway staging but stage the garage as well. The goal is to have everything in place by Sunday October 1. The week of the sale, I will continue to price new pieces and add them to the display.
This entry will be short and sweet as there is much to do. Here is hoping for better news and great progress with preparing for the pop-up sale next time!
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The scheduled test was a right heart catheter, which was the second of two tests the pulmonologist in Scottsdale requested we set up through cardiology. Mother is claustrophobic and has trouble with any MRI type tests or any apparatus which is placed over her mouth, such as those which would be used for a sleep study. Not knowing what was going to be involved with this test caused her a great deal of anxiety. She wanted to cancel it numerous times but I insisted she take it. I am certainly glad I did because the results were so poor that Mother was immediately admitted to the critical care unit. I felt like I was in the middle of a TV show or movie and not in a good way. It was definitely very shocking to go from thinking we were just going for a scheduled test and then back home to a life-threatening situation. It took about 6 hours but the team was finally able to get Mother more stabilized. I stayed at the hospital for a total of 8 hours and then went to Mother's house to take care of dishes, laundry and the groceries she had just purchased the day before. There was no chance to eat anything so Kuochun took me for a late night dinner at Omega. It was nice to have the pesto chicken flatbread and the Caesar salad again even though we were there three months ago. It was the only place I could think of that was still open.
It has been determined that Mother will continue to wear the neck catheter so the doctor can keep an eye on her levels and she will also need to wear a CPAP machine any time she falls asleep in addition to oxygen. It has been quite a roller coaster because in order to get her to wear the CPAP, they needed to sedate her and she did not react well to the drugs. After telling her she has got to be able to wear it without drugs, I think we made some headway. On Saturday, she was moved to a regular hospital room and the next step will be to go to a rehab facility for physical and occupational therapy. We are waiting for an evaluation to see if this will be at the hospital or an external facility such as The Moorings or Lutheran Home. We have been told that it is not safe for her to live alone but I explained the situation to the nurse coordinator. I am not sure if Mother will be able to travel to Scottsdale again but I have not cancelled her appointment yet. Some very heavy decisions will have to be made soon.
The best way I know how to cope with adversity is to keep the other aspects of life as normal as possible, and for me that means throwing myself into work. I considered cancelling the pop-up sale but at this time I am going to keep it as scheduled. I have so much jewelry that I would love to share with everyone and for once I have been working on the preparation well in advance. Rachel flew in to be with Mother so I took some time over the weekend to keep up with estate sale work and continue to prepare the breezeway for the pop-up sale. The jewelry work helped me remain calm and strong for the most part but it also reminded me that I will need to continue the in-person aspect of the business on my own. It would be the end of an era after as we have been working together more than 40 years. To try and cheer Mother up, I said I need you to make me some jewelry cards!
I worked on the far right corner of the breezeway, focusing on more vintage unsigned silver tone pieces. I repriced all of the earrings which had the old silver tags attached to one earring. The pricing is so much easier to read and looks so much better. This took way longer than I expected so I held off on repricing the earrings with the round printed price tags. I set up the Venetian glass hanging display case as well.
I then kept working my way around the room, setting up some newer costume jewelry, mixing some vintage treasures in as well. I purchased the Hedi Schoop figurines on the top of the gold metal shelf at the Nashville flea market when Mother and I visited there for the estate sale conference just prior to the pandemic. I had to take the figurines to Tucson and Scottsdale and then back home again. This was prior to owning the home in Scottsdale. They have been on quite a journey and are now looking for a new home.
There is still quite a bit to do with the breezeway including filling the two large display cabinets and the lighted jewelry case. Instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, I am going to fill the left cabinet with the designer signed vintage costume jewelry and the right cabinet with the Czech rhinestone jewelry as I have had in the past. Heidi Daus jewelry will go in the lighted jewelry case. This will leave the square table, I have not yet figured out what I will put on it. I still have hundreds of pieces of consignment costume jewelry but too much for this table. I will display it in the main room with the sterling pieces.
It was challenging to keep my nose to the grindstone but I still had one more grouping of new to me vintage Native American jewelry to post and I decided to just go ahead and get it done Sunday. There are such interesting pieces in this lot - the necklace in the center and the 3-stone turquoise cuff bracelet are such wonderful quality, the other cuff bracelet to the right is at least 100 years old and I believe it is from the turn of the 20th century and the ring looks super cool on. The combination of cute and mid-century modern is really my style. If it were my size I would have kept it. The necklace in the center and the very vintage cuff were both claimed but neither have been paid for yet. Etiquette in these groups is to pay right away. I used to give people a week but now I am down to 24 hours unless other arrangements have been made. I think there should be consequences for those who claim items, do not pay and ignore messages but I have not seen this happen. Other people asked about these pieces and I told them all they had been claimed. I discovered that the necklace person is also a seller. I would like to ask her how she would feel if someone did that to her.
This interesting piece came in last week, I forgot to add it to the group photo but decided to include it in the group as a bonus. At first I thought it was a child's headband or choker necklace but after trying them I quickly found they were both very uncomfortable. The only other thing I could think of is a hat band, although it is nothing like any other hat band I have seen. They usually operate like a belt with a buckle which allows the size to be adjusted. Surprisingly enough, this piece did sell. I can tell from the design and construction that it is very old and it could have been made before buckle mechanisms were common. However the buyer decides to use it, I hope she enjoys it!
The last piece of consignment jewelry to put into circulation was this absolutely incredible Navajo-made belt. I am calling it the Showstopper and yes, those huge pieces are solid sterling silver, except for their copper slide mechanisms on the back side. I do not think I will find a buyer in the Facebook groups for this due to its price so I will not wait long and get this beauty online. Hoping someone is in need of a very special Christmas gift! I have not been able to post any new items online these past two weeks but did sell several pieces on eBay, Etsy and Poshmark over the weekend, including the bolo through Etsy that two people kept giving me low-ball offers on Poshmark. I do not want to lose momentum and the holidays are coming so I am going to try to post a few new items every day.
Goals for next week are to see Mother transition to rehab wherever that may be, keep up with estate sale work and finish the breezeway staging and photography. I only have two packages to do next week and then the following week a break due to no sales Labor Day weekend and this could not have come at a better time. While looking through my inventory for more Native American jewelry to sell, I came across a bunch of liquid silver necklaces. They are technically considered Southwest Style but I will plan to post them in some of the appropriate groups next Sunday. I just got the largest liquid silver necklace I have ever seen last week, it is nearly as much of a showstopper as this belt! I will post photos next time. Signing off for now...
]]>Wednesday morning was the first round of testing as homework to prepare for Mother's pulmonologist's appointment in October. The test results came back but they are very technical so I am not sure what they mean. It seems that some things are OK and maybe some are not. The big test is next Wednesday - after those results are in, we will let the doctor know and also find out if there is anything else she would like us to do before our appointment. I want to be well-prepared so we can finally move forward with a treatment plan.
Thursday was a big sorting day for jewelry to prepare for Mike's arrival to help get jewelry ready to sell on Friday. I was able to sort just about everything that was priced, finally working in everything I had polished and priced in Scottsdale and shipped here. I also was even able to hand polish a bunch of pieces which had developed some tarnish. The Mexican jewelry definitely looks better polished.
On Friday Mike came over to fill jewelry cases for the caravan. It definitely helped that I was more organized than usual. He filled six medium size cases, two small and one large and was able to set up one corner of the breezeway. I decided on vintage unsigned silver tone jewelry featuring clear rhinestones. It was great to have a different point of view - I would not have thought of just making things simple and displaying everything in the metal and plastic trays but this way a lot more pieces can fit in the space. I did a little tweaking such as raising up the trays in the back so the pieces are easier to see. I knew I had a good selection of this jewelry but the area was not large enough to display everything. There are still a bunch of earrings and necklaces so I will set them up on the opposite side on top of the matching dresser. I took close-up photos as well which I will post to Facebook and include in the newsletter. The jewelry caravan is all set to go with lots of fresh new finds and for now, everything sorted with like items together which was the main objective for the day.
Saturday was a make-up day for our house cleaner - she gets migraine headaches from time to time and although she tried to come later in the morning, she ended up having to cancel our scheduled visit two Mondays ago. It is inconvenient to have to preparing the house for her to come an extra time but I know she cannot help it. Because of the extra two weeks of dust buildup, she only had the energy to do a light cleaning in my room. She will be back to do it all over again in two weeks and hopefully things will be back to normal. It turned out that Mother had her house cleaner the same day along with an at-home physical therapy visit so we were not able to go to her house right away. Kuochun was thinking of going to a park to hang out for a bit but I figured on a Saturday and a nice day all of the parks would be crowded. I suggested we try Oakton Community College because it is close by and they have huge parking lots where we could park away from people. We ended up going to the faculty parking lot because it had a shaded area. It was perfect because not a soul was around for the dogs to bark at.
Once the coast was clear, we drove up to Rammy's Sub Contractors in Wheeling to pick up lunch. I had taken our work group to the one in Elk Grove Village a few years ago and it was awesome. I am always up for a great sandwich. We went to the Wheeling location because Elk Grove Village is closed on weekends. Unfortunately Wheeling was closed this particular Saturday and Sunday so we went to Big Ange's in Arlington Heights since Mother had her heart set on Italian beef. Johnnie's is not too far from her but there are no options for me there. At least at Big Ange's I can get a nice chicken sandwich. We got Mother "Grandma's" Fresh Squeezed Orange/Lemonade and she just adored it! She could not believe it had oranges in it, she said it tasted like mangoes. Kuochun finished off the cup and Mother was so disappointed that it was all gone. I was going to get her the gallon but she said no. Now she said she wants two gallons!
As we were leaving and in the parking lot, all of a sudden a man approached us and gave Kuochun a big hug. It turned out to be the son of the department head at our former company. I remember him as a kid but Kuochun said he worked for the company after I left and they played fantasy football in the same company league. They were so happy to see each other, he said he had just eaten there and saw Kuochun going in, so he came back to meet him. It was meant to be because we were only there because Rammy's was closed. His dad and stepmom (who also worked for the company) moved to Scottsdale a number of years ago and he said he had just visited them. Kuochun mentioned that we are there now too and he suggested that they get together and play golf. I do not think he will, he used to call him C.B., short for Crazy Boss and his wife is no prize. Kuochun called her Dragon Lady. I will never forget what she said to me once. I had a bicycle accident where I broke my two front teeth and my face was messed up. Instead of taking a week off to recover like I should have, I was more concerned with keeping perfect attendance and receiving the $150 annual bonus. When I was leaving the building for lunch one day that week I ran into her and she said to me "oh, did your husband beat you up?" I said a quick NO and kept walking. What a horrible thing to say!
Sunday was a marathon of paperwork due to being away from home or out of commission more than usual but I was able to make a quick post of some of the recent new arrivals. All of the necklaces are spoken for except for the 5-strand Royston on the left and the 3-stone cuff bracelet has been claimed as well. The other pieces are available. There were a lot of great Fall colors represented here and I made the prices reasonable on the necklaces. I did expect them to sell quickly and I am glad that I will not have to put them online.
There is still a ton of paperwork to do as well as Mother's test but later in the week I will continue to work on the breezeway. It would be ideal if I could get it all staged this week so I could start working on the garage next week. I would also like to post some new items online. This past week I sold a unique Navajo ring on Poshmark Tuesday, a cute Navajo butterfly cuff bracelet and an elegant charm bracelet with Navajo and Zuni charms on Poshmark Friday, as well as one of my favorite new pendants by Donovan Cadman, pictured above. I had posted this piece before signing up for Vendoo so it was only on eBay and Etsy but it sold on eBay. One less piece to put up on Vendoo! Then the same Poshmark customer who purchased the two items Friday decided to buy my other charm bracelet with Native charms! I am getting a good number of likes and favorites on Etsy and Poshmark and I want to keep the momentum going.
Until next time!
]]>Back in May, I signed up for a Capital One savings account - I have a business and personal credit card with them and loved the experience as well as the unlimited cash rewards. My purpose for establishing the account was to set up an emergency fund / Gem Show budget and actually earn interest on it. I needed to keep $50,000 in the account for three months and if successful I would receive a $500 bonus in addition to the interest. It was a very long three months of waking up in the middle of the night to check account balances six days a week to be sure everything was in order but I was able to do it and I received the bonus on Tuesday. Now I can freely transfer money in and out of the account with no minimum balance or deposit requirements. I just need to keep in mind that it takes a day or two to transfer money between banks. I do not receive interest on my US Bank accounts and this Capital One account pays 4.30% which may not be the very best but I am happy with it. I have received about $1,100 in interest already including the bonus and the customer service from Capital One has always been top notch with the credit cards and bank account so far as well. When looking online for the bank account rules, I came across an article which said this particular account is a great place for an emergency fund.
On Wednesday I took a little time to organize expense papers which had been in inboxes in the office for several years. I have a little shelf next to my desk and sorted all of the papers which were on there by year, then took them to the basement for storage. It is great to have the extra space for storing jewelry I am working to put online along with the tools I need to do the job such as the measuring tape, calipers, ring sizer etc. I also did the same thing with a lot of papers in my display cabinet and now I have boxes of jewelry lined up in the space that need to go online. I still have more to do but I think devoting a "power hour" to it will do the trick.
I posted the above lot Sunday evening - the photo turned out surprisingly well considering these were mostly the last of the pieces I received back from consignment. I decided to add a few "oldie but goodie" rings for a pop of color. I received so many compliments on this lot and was able to sell the two Hopi cuff bracelets at the left and the Tom Willeto kachina ring in the center. So many people loved the motif of the bolo with the Native American man, eagle soaring above and starry sky but in the end there were no takers. One of the nicest and most knowledgeable people in the Facebook groups identified the artist after someone asked me to provide a photo of the hallmark. She was afraid to sound like a know it all but I let her know how grateful I was for the information. This will definitely help me sell it once it goes online.
The artist is Floyd Becenti Jr., I have definitely heard of him as he is very well-known. His hallmark is very clever - it reads B ¢ T - Becenti.
I posted the unsold items online from this grouping from August 20 and two pieces sold the next day - the brass cuff on eBay to someone I recognized, the most fashionable person in the Facebook groups. I am honored that she is incorporating one of my pieces into her collection! The ring just below and to the right sold on Poshmark at a slight discount, although it is really great quality I thought it was kind of weird-looking and figured this would be my best offer. But within 10 minutes someone offered $3 more on Facebook. In this world, it is definitely first come, first serve!
I also completed this lot from August 27. No additional sales yet but I think it will just be a matter of time before they all find new homes.
The only remaining former consignment item I have left to post is an amazing heavy solid sterling silver and black leather belt. I am going to list this one separately but need a little time to figure out how to take some good photos of it. I am going to try and get a photo on my mannequin, hopefully I can get it to fit her as she is very petite. I do have a silver jewelry buying appointment on Monday evening and the word is there is some Native American jewelry so possibly there will be enough to put one more online lot together. If not there is always plenty to sell, I will come up with something!
Speaking of other things to sell, I got back to the fabulous Federico jewelry which I have had since January. I shot photos of the remaining rings, here are four of them. They are real statement and investment pieces, all made from vintage natural turquoise and solid sterling silver. I delisted and relisted the Federico rings which were already out there, updating the descriptions to the new format and adding hand model photos. I have heard that delisting and relisting is good for items that have been out there for a while and I have my Vendoo account set up to let me know when listings have been up for 90 days. Once I catch up with posting new items, I will regularly do this so eventually all of the listings will have the same description, format and photo style. Looking forward to that day!
As usual, holiday weekends are for paperwork and I completed a lot of that as well. I am looking forward to the estate sales starting up again, the time between Labor Day and the end of the year is my favorite. I know I have been saying I would start staging the breezeway with costume jewelry for the pop-up sale but it has been too hot to work out there as it is not air conditioned. I did round up all of the costume jewelry from the garage and the next step is to sort like items together so they will be easier to display in the cabinets. The plan is to have progress photos / video next week!
]]>As hard as we try, it is impossible to make 100% of the people happy. I wish I could just not participate in Yelp and Google reviews. I am so glad I was able to turn off Facebook reviews. The reviews we receive represent such a tiny percentage of the people we work with and we do not have enough positive reviews to knock out the negative ones. I am not keen on paying "advertising" money to these companies to improve our status. The negative reviews are very disappointing and I am sure hurt us but thankfully we have more than enough business to keep us rolling. The moral of the story is think about what your end goal is before leaving a negative review. Are you hoping the company will go out of business?
On to other topics - that evening I took Mother to her rehab appointment but since her wounds are getting worse the physical therapist was reluctant to perform the therapy. I was about to leave the parking lot when I was called back into the building and the session turned into more of a meeting. It was suggested that we wait until we see the cardiologist Friday to be sure it is safe to push the water out of Mother's legs without it ending up in her heart or lungs. Another suggestion - try to avoid end of the day appointments - the people generally cannot wait to get out of there and go home. I went to get the car and parked it in front of the entrance. All of a sudden Mother started screaming! The therapist put her outside but did not put the brake on the wheelchair and she was rolling straight for the car. There was nothing I could do, she ran into the car but luckily neither she nor the car were hurt.
Tuesday evening Mother had a dental appointment in Park Ridge. Again, rush hour was not a good time to try and get there from Arlington Heights, we got stuck in traffic and ended up 10 minutes late. Mother had her cleaning but felt it was kind of rushed. Lesson learned, no more 5:00 PM appointments! After the dental appointment it was Mother's first home healthcare visit to get help with her wounds. We were lucky enough to have the nurse manager and it looks like for now she will be the one to make the visits. She cleaned and dressed the wounds and applied a lotion / petrolatum mixture to Mother's legs and it was amazing how much better they looked after one session. This is such a blessing because I really felt we needed expert help with this and we are so grateful not only for the help but for the fact that it is covered by Medicare. Thinking about it, I am sure it is much more cost effective to have the home healthcare than for us to go to a facility and have to interact with an entire staff. The nurse said we will be able to schedule at-home therapy as well as a podiatrist and even other services such as a blood draw. After going to endless appointments this past year this is music to my ears!
After Mother was all taken care of, it was a long evening and set to be even longer since it is newsletter night. I publish two newsletters - one for estate sales and one for jewelry. I try to get the jewelry newsletter completed Monday evening and the estate sales newsletter done Tuesday evening. It is very time-consuming, especially when we have a lot of new sales - I need to sign and return the contracts, write and post ads to three different websites, notify our group about the new sales, add the sales to the newsletter and post the sales to Facebook. I recently started tracking all this activity in a spreadsheet which has really helped me stay organized. It is usually an all-nighter so I save some of the activities for daylight hours Wednesday. I am sure our group would not appreciate receiving texts about new sales at 4:00 AM. Kuochun was kind enough to make shrimp pasta for dinner. We basically have different taste in food but this was something we could agree on. He used frozen shrimp from Amazon Fresh, my organic angel hair pasta from Home Goods and dressed it with butter, Better Than Bouillon and garlic. It was pretty good!
Friday morning was Mother's cardiology appointment. We were so grateful that the physician's assistant was able to secure us an appointment so we would not have to wait until October to see the doctor. I remembered that the lung doctor in Scottsdale had requested two tests from cardiology. Things went very well! The doctor determined that Mother no longer has heart failure and he dropped one of her high blood pressure medications as it is known to cause leg swelling. He did not hesitate to say that it is no problem to get on a regular rehab schedule and approved the two tests. One of the tests is more elaborate than the other and requires sedation as well as having to be there at 6:30 AM. That is going to be a tough one, especially on a Wednesday after a newsletter all-nighter! But it will be well worth it if the test helps lead the way towards figuring out what this lung problem is all about.
I continue to work on the consignment items I received back and posted this mixed lot on Sunday evening. This is a combination of former consignment pieces, some new arrivals and a few oldies but goodies. I had a little extra space and filled in with the two pair of turquoise earrings on the right. I tried to sell these earrings in past lots at least three times but this time was the charm! Both pair sold, as well as the very cool vintage petite squash blossom necklace, the 3-stone Fred Harvey era cuff bracelet at the upper right and the 5-strand beaded necklace. I could have sold the beaded necklace five times.
I completed posting this lot from July 30 to all of the online venues and three more pieces have already sold. The ribbon turquoise pendant sold on eBay and is going to Japan and the cluster ring in the center sold on Poshmark.
The vintage pendant at the lower right sold on Facebook Marketplace. I was not planning on selling the chain, it is more of a prop to show how a pendant looks on a neck but the buyer loved it so I sold it to her. She is not local so the set will be shipped to her. I would never have these sales from other venues if it were not for Vendoo. Posting is tedious work, sometimes I am ready to jump out of my skin but I just need to post 3-5 items at a time and not try to do too much at once.
This week it was time to complete the estate sale packages for large sales we had in Chicago, Highland Park and Lake Zurich as well as a smaller sale in Batavia. I worked very hard and was able to get them all completed on time. Melinda went on vacation for the weekend so there was a lot more administrative work to do than usual but Seija was a great help in her absence. The timing was good that Rachel came to visit, she arrived Friday evening so I did not have to worry quite as much about Mother over the weekend.
We did not have any sales materialize for next week. Even though there are four more estate sale packages to complete, Rachel will be here all week so I should be able to keep up with paperwork and finally get going with staging the breezeway for the pop-up sale. It will be nice to see everything I have remaining in costume jewelry all in one place. I have about two more lots of Native American jewelry to post but I may take this Sunday off. I am thinking it would be better to avoid Labor Day weekend and hopefully folks will start to think about holiday gifts once we get further into September. This summer has really flown by which is not something I ever say! I wish you all a great holiday weekend.
]]>Alternatively, we had a great experience with the physician's assistant who is helping us set up home health care for the wound and possibly physical therapy as well. She also fast-tracked us to get an appointment with Mother's cardiologist next Friday, instead of having to wait until October. It has been determined that cardiology needs to determine her care plan. We have come to the conclusion that the service from a physician's assistant is way superior to a doctor as we had the same experience in Arizona. The assistants take action and get things done!
I had to go back to the hospital while it was raining cats and dogs Monday as Mother forgot her phone charger cord there. A hospital staff member was kind enough to run it downstairs for me. I also completed the two estate sale packages from the prior week. It has definitely been a challenge to keep up with everything but I am determined to do it!
I cannot forget about Kuochun - even though Tuesday is newsletter day, I took some time out to go to the Amazon Fresh store in Morton Grove with him as he wanted to check it out. I had wanted to as well. There were hardly any customers there which I loved but I wonder if it will be able to stay in business. The store was spotless, had a great selection of everything and the layout was so easy with simple up and down rows. It would be a great place for Mother to grocery shop, way easier to navigate the motorized cart. Until they open the Arlington Heights location, she can give Schaumburg a try. Kuochun did not like the pricing but I understood it as Amazon owns Whole Foods and they had Whole Foods products there.
After Amazon Fresh, we stopped by Greenwood Deli - New York Bagel & Bialy, also on Dempster but in Niles. I am sure that I have mentioned them in the past but we have been fans for a very long time. When Mother used to work at Talbots in Park Ridge, she would bring a spread to them occasionally. My favorite things there right now are the bagels of course, along with the mini bialys, the dessert bars and cream cheese. A sesame bagel with good cream cheese is a real treat to me. Mother requested a raisin and a sesame bagel and they had one bag of the mini bialys left so I gave her a couple. They make a great little sandwich. I got one of each dessert bar - lemon, raspberry crumble, 7 layer and I forgot what the fourth one was! But they were all delicious. I selected a plain cream cheese as well. The staff is cordial at best but the food is what brings us back. It would have been nice to go to Brunch Cafe as well which is in the same shopping center but since we had groceries in the car we had to head for home.
Since I only had 3 estate sale packages to complete for the week, I was determined to get them done one per evening on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so I could have a weekend off from them. I was able to accomplish this and this allowed me to buckle down and get more items posted online. I just have to understand that this is a marathon, not a sprint and it takes time to properly post items to five different venues, even with the assistance of Vendoo. The most time-consuming and tedious aspect of it is muddling through all of the item specifics on eBay and Etsy. There are so many that do not apply to what I am selling, especially as related to fine/diamond jewelry. I wish I could eliminate those from view. I was able to complete the posting unsold items from the August 13 purge above. There are some great items remaining in this group from budget friendly to investment pieces.
I was also able to post the stunning statement necklace and all of the cuff bracelets from this July 30 purge. We are officially in the dog days of summer so I have not had any online sales other than Facebook for a bit but every piece posted gets me one step closer to getting the inventory out there and in place for the holiday season.
On Friday we did yet more grocery shopping as Kuochun wanted to go to Costco and get some salmon to go with the bagels and cream cheese. He was also interested in going to Caputo's to get some of the chicken vesuvio he got last time. What a difference between going to Costco and Caputo's. The only time I experience anxiety is related to heights but being at Costco on Friday was really giving it to me. From the parking lot to the store to waiting in a long line to show our receipt on the way out, for me Friday is not the day to be there. Things were so lovely and calm at Caputo's but unfortunately they did not have the large pan of chicken vesuvio with the white and dark meat combined. They did not have any dark meat to offer which is Kuochun's preference. However, Kuochun was able to get some roasted chicken from the hot bar which he really enjoyed. He was going to split it into two meals but ended up eating the whole thing for lunch. I was able to get the mini foccacias that I enjoy making a turkey sandwich with as well as pesto sauce which I use for many different things. I stopped purchasing the Costco pesto which tastes great and is a great deal after discovering they mix inflammatory oils in with olive oil to reduce their cost to make it. I really enjoyed the pesto I got from Caputo's the first time but this last time the texture was too ground up for my taste and I am not sure if there were any nuts in it. It is fine to put on a sandwich but I think it would be blah as the star of a pasta dish. I think I am going to stick with Trader Joe's pesto.
This lot made its debut on Sunday evening, a great mix of pieces featuring a variety of stones. I did not sell as many items as I had hoped - the 4-station bracelet with Mine #8 turquoise has been spoken for and the Mine #8 earrings at the upper right and the pretty turquoise pendant below it have sold. For the second time, a lady claimed an item, said she would send a money order and tied up the item for a day, only to back off on the deal. I learned from the first experience not to mark the item as Pending Sale until she told me she actually got the money order. It is annoying but if this is the worst thing that happens with a jewelry customer, I can handle it!
Plans for next week are to definitely start staging the breezeway for the pop-up sale. We are supposed to have a heatwave mid-week so I will probably start staging after that. The breezeway is heated but not air conditioned. I had a plan in mind to complete the breezeway by the end of August and that time is swiftly approaching! It looks like there will be no estate sales Labor Day weekend, the folks contacting us lately would prefer to wait until after the holiday so it will be a good opportunity to make some headway with pop-up sale prep.
Until next time!
]]>I posted a new jewelry lot Sunday evening after missing the prior week. This was the first time using my new larger size backdrop which still has some interest but is not so busy that people have trouble seeing the jewelry pieces. This color combination worked well with the Royston turquoise and orange spiny oyster shell pieces I featured. The jewelry colors are fall-like but there is nothing like planning ahead! I really like the color of the driftwood with it but this piece is really gnarly. I think I will add removing some of the limbs to my handyman to-do list.
The Royston turquoise line bracelet at the top center, the green turquoise ring to the left, the whirling log cuff bracelet at the top left, the coral cuff to the right and the butterfly and lizard pieces at the bottom all have sold, the remaining pieces are available. I rarely if ever see Hopi jewelry which are the four pieces at the bottom right. I was surprised that the earrings did not sell, especially the turtles which are a popular motif and are artist signed. To the online store they go!
In addition to the two large backdrops I ordered, I also started using the small ones from my last order which I think will round out the collection. I love this black and grey one which will look great with pieces of a particular color, such as this white buffalo pendant by Leon Martinez. I do need to return two of the pieces as the white graphite one is too soft and floppy to be a large-scale backdrop and I ordered an aquamarine color which I already had on hand. Luckily the shop has a return policy. I printed the invoice on shipping labels by mistake but I wrapped the whole thing, paper and all around the pieces and secured it with a piece of tape, which will keep everything intact for shipping. I am looking forward to using the brown salt and pepper cowhide as well, I have had such good luck with the black version.
This past week was a challenging one as Mother was not feeling any better on Monday. After four more hours of discussion, I was finally able to get her to go to the ER. However, this is the worst day of the week and time to go, the waiting room was packed. We were told that lots of people come on Mondays and use the ER as a primary doctor - it is not an emergency but they do not want to wait for an appointment with their doctor. It was a very long five and a half hour wait in the waiting room itself, our past experience has been minimal time in the waiting room but much more waiting time in an ER hospital room until a room in the regular hospital is available. I did not stay for the move to the hospital room because it was a very long day but Mother was admitted to the hospital and stayed until Thursday. She was discharged too soon but I have a feeling there was a Medicare limitation on her stay. Unfortunately she missed her cardiologist appointment that we had been waiting months for and we have a message in with their office to reschedule. She also had to cancel rehab for the week and we will need to add two more sessions to the end of her current schedule. At the rate we are going, I hope she will be able to complete the sessions before it is time to go back to Scottsdale.
After discharge and due to Mother's condition not improving, it was suggested that she go to the walk-in clinic in the same office as her primary doctor, as the doctor had her baby way earlier than we expected and is now out on maternity leave until December. We arrived shortly after opening on Saturday morning which is 8:00 AM (a tough one for me!) and the process started out fine until a man came in on crutches screaming in pain. He begged for a hospital bed to lie down on to relieve his pain but they refused. He ended up leaving, I am not sure exactly what happened. After about 45 minutes of waiting, a nurse approached us and said Mother has a note on her chart saying they are not to see her, that she is to go straight to the ER for anything that is wrong. That was really frustrating because Mother was told to go there. Back to square one!
Earlier in the week I had posted a new job on Care.com looking for someone who could help with the daily medical tasks Mother needs. I have been and can take care of the rest but the medical is outside my realm. Like the time before, there were responses from folks who did not take the time to read the job posting and must be responding to every ad out there. However one stood out from the crowd, she lives in Prospect Heights and sounds good so I sure hope things work out. We have an interview scheduled for Monday afternoon.
One bright spot this week is that I found a buyer for Mother's Paul McCobb dining table and chairs set on Facebook Marketplace. It did not go for as much as we had hoped but it is going to a really good home, the buyer was fabulous to work with and so excited about his purchase. Most importantly, Mother is feeling a lot more comfortable with more room to move now that it is gone. Luckily I found all of the table pads shortly before the buyer arrived as some of them were misplaced.
I really pushed myself on Sunday but I was able to get the jewelry lot posted (it sure helped that I had taken the photos the week before) as well as two estate sale packages completed. I will plan to get the other two done on Monday. The following week there will only be three to do so I anticipate having more time to post jewelry online. I also have a goal in mind to take the latter half of August to stage the entire breezeway with costume jewelry in preparation for my October sale. I will not be including costume jewelry in the caravan until then. Because I am on my own as far as putting on the sale, I must plan things far in advance. It will be a lot of work for only a 4-day sale but I will also work on photos and a video that I can post to my website and social media.
Here's hoping to better times next week!
]]>Luckily she started at 7:30 AM because it was time for our monthly house cleaning and when she comes, we need a place to go. It is a lot having two people and two dogs around while trying to clean, especially with me trying to work. We stayed as long as we could but had to head out at around 10:00 AM. When arriving at Mother's, we found that her house cleaner was still there. Both girls but especially Margot is keenly aware when we are approaching Mother's home. As soon as we slow down to turn onto Vail, Margot starts crying. This time it was a little traumatic as we got to the home, couldn't go there and had to keep moving. I had some Amazon returns to bring back to Whole Foods for Mother and the GPS said there was one at Streets Of Woodfield. However we could not find it, headed back to Mother's and again could not go inside. We then went to Randhurst to get some dog food and by that time we were good to go. Those poor girls did not know what was happening!
However it was not long after arriving when our house cleaner let me know there was water in the furnace room and the furnace was leaking. Luckily I was able to have AA Service come look at it in the afternoon. It turned out the PVC pipe was clogged and the condensation had nowhere to go. It was actually quite dangerous as water was pouring through the entire system. The technician said there was 4" of water in the corner of the furnace room. There was some minimal damage to a few belongings which were on the floor. He was there until 8:00 PM cleaning up the water. I was so surprised but they did not charge me because I had just had maintenance done less than a month ago. I cannot say enough about this company, every time they have gone above and beyond. I just shake my head when I think about the other company wanting me to replace the entire system last year when the PVC pipe just needed to be cleaned out. I am very grateful that the system survived the downpour inside.
I did receive the beige and grey string mannequins from Canada on Monday. They arrived so quickly, just as the seller promised - I ordered them on Thursday evening! It was faster than Priority Mail is sometimes. I started with the grey mannequin but I found that in some cases my background remover removed the mannequin as well, leaving a necklace floating in the air. I had better luck when I switched to the beige one. I decided to start with my collection of new Navajo-made pendants that I have purchased from the Tucson Gem Show these past several years. I have not really done anything with them but it is definitely time to get them online. This pendant is an amazing statement cluster by Bobby Johnson featuring Pilot Mountain turquoise. I have this one as well as a second one with the same turquoise but in lighter colors. These are amazing investment pieces and will never go out of style! The Navajo pearls are my personal set but I do have a few similar ones for sale by the same artist, Marilyn Platero. This is not the same as a live model but I think it will give people a pretty good idea of how necklaces will look on. It will give me the push I need to get these pieces posted. Now to just find the time!
On Tuesday, Margot went to The Grooming Lodge for the first time and came back with a strange haircut. Her chest was totally shaved and her legs were medium length. I wish they would have just shaved everything if they had to shave her chest like they did with Vivi. Margot is adorable no matter what and I know her hair will grow back. Going forward, I will ask for medium length which will be easier for us to maintain.
Finally after about a year and a half, we are back to #1 on EstateSales.org. We conduct the most sales by far as well as our sale extensions so the less than #1 rankings have been puzzling. Possibly some of the other companies are paying for extra advertising as the rankings are based on ad views. I do pay a monthly fee which has just gone up due to inflation. Hopefully we can keep up our top position!
I had a night and day eBay experience with two different customers. The first customer told me they might be interested in this necklace but that my photo was HORRIBLE. I thought this was so rude because I do take a lot of care into putting the photos together. I am not the most artistic but I do know what I like and work hard to make them look good to the best of my ability. The night before I had happened to take this test shot and sent it to them with a short explanation. Of course there was no response.
Later in the day, I received a customer question about this amazing Leo Feeney Sleeping Beauty turquoise and blue topaz necklace. She so politely asked if I would consider selling it for $100 less than my asking price. The price did work for me on eBay and she was so kind that I did not even counter offer. I feel that when selling these higher-end pieces, just like with real estate the first offer is typically going to be the best offer. The customer has already received it and was very pleased. I was tempted to keep this one but it was a bit on the shorter side for me. I am very glad that it went to a good home.
The rude customer did get me thinking that maybe my black and white cowhide backdrop is a little busy for necklace photos. I decided to order some more hides from Etsy. I selected two large size pieces, including this brown one which I think goes well with the driftwood as well as a white one with a subtle silvery grey pattern. I like the brown but I am not loving the white. Also, I ordered a smaller piece I already had. I am going to see if I can exchange these two pieces for something else. I am really pleased with the other small pieces I ordered which include a black and white and a saddle brown floral embossed leathers and a brown and white cowhide. I think I have enough variety now but I will check on new styles every once in a while. I started by shooting pendant photos with the saddle brown color. It is a little shiny but overall I am happy with the way the photos turned out.
On Wednesday I had a doctor's appointment of my own, an annual dermatology checkup. It has actually been about five years since I have been to a dermatologist as I had a bad experience the last time. It was a referral from my primary doctor and my first time going to a physician's assistant instead of the dermatologist. I had a very small wart on my hand and instead of giving me a couple of puffs of the liquid nitrogen to freeze it she continually sprayed my hand for about 15 seconds. I had a hole in my hand down to the bone and was in a lot of pain for about 6 months. I still have a scar. She also removed a small spot from my leg which was less than 3mm in size but dragged the scalpel across my leg, leaving a scar about 5 times larger than it should have been. She also made me sign the consent forms after I had undressed and was told to lie on my stomach which I thought was strange.
It took time to get up the guts to see a dermatologist again and the pandemic delayed things as well. I let my primary doctor know about the experience and she referred me to Derick Dermatology in Arlington Heights. I had been there with Mother before we left for Scottsdale this year so I was familiar with the office and treatment. The office is gorgeous and the people are all so nice and friendly. The physician's assistant could not have been better. I had such a professional experience with Dr. Haugen, she answered all of my questions and I came out with a good report. She did suggest that I wear a hat or wear powdered sunscreen on my scalp when I go out. I am not a hat person but the hat sounds a lot easier than the sunscreen. However my one and only hat is in Scottsdale. I told Dr. Haugen that I noticed a lot more freckles on my arms after spending a winter there. I do need to be more vigilant about applying sunscreen. Luckily I have a brand I just love which is organic, handmade and does not feel sticky at all. I did not expect anything to come of it but I mentioned that I have developed a lot of lipomas and there are three in particular which are very bothersome. She approved to have two of the three removed and I will be able to have this done at the Arlington Heights office at the end of September. However by this time next year she will be locating to the Skokie office. It is not a big deal to go to Skokie but Arlington Heights is definitely more convenient. I think I am going to change my Skokie appointment and keep going to Arlington Heights.
From there I headed over to Mother's house as I needed to take her back to her primary doctor in the afternoon. The doctor did not love the way her legs looked and said if things got worse we would need to go to the ER. I asked if Mother could keep her rehab appointment for the next day and she said she could. In the evening, I resumed work on posting these wonderful pieces from the July 16 jewelry lot. All of the unsold items are now online except for the onyx cuff bracelet with leaves at the upper right, the onyx stacker cuff at the upper center and the onyx multi-stone inlay watch on the right. The plan is to get them posted next week. There already has been a lot of interest in the watch on the left but no takers yet.
On Thursday, I took Mother to rehab and when I picked her up, asked her if she wanted to go grocery shopping at Jewel which is in the same shopping center in Rolling Meadows. Since it was our first time there, I checked to be sure they had a motorized cart and they had two but they were quite old. It did the job though. Mother likes to take her time with grocery shopping so when either Kuochun or I take her, we drop her off and pick her up later as she could be there for up to two hours. I had loaded my van with a lot of the vintage silver jewelry which was in large cases to consolidate them to medium size cases again so they are easier to manage at the estate sales. I went back to Mother's house and sorted the jewelry by category as it had gotten mixed up while I was gone. I was happy to see that only five pieces need updated tags but a lot of pieces need polishing. Unfortunately though Mother forgot that the visiting nurse was coming and she missed her visit. I was very apologetic and even offered to get Mother from Jewel but they said they had another appointment and did not have time to wait.
Friday was my first haircut since I have been back to Mount Prospect. Ever since Kerri our previous stylist retired, I have been going to Dana at Bloom Salon in downtown Arlington Heights. She is a very nice and cute girl and does a great job. Plus I totally love the Davines products they sell! They are the best products I have ever used and their scent is divine. I use the Love line which is for curly hair. I was almost out of shampoo and the first time Dana had suggested the curl mask which comes in a tub and I only have about 25% left. She mentioned that it was the annual sale for the liter size products so I decided to get the shampoo and smoothing conditioner. She also used Oi Oil which was so lovely and smelled great so I got that too. The products are on the expensive side but their quality is amazing, they are well worth it. I am still trying to use up the products I already have but will be transitioning to using exclusively Davines once they run out. I also use the leave-in conditioner and the gel oil for styling.
I mentioned to Dana that on my last haircut in Scottsdale one side was left longer than the other (luckily this is not too noticeable with curly hair) and the permanent color did not stick. She said where did you say you live in Arizona again? When I said Scottsdale, she said when she used to work in the city she worked with a girl named Aimee who moved to Scottsdale to a salon with the same products and she also specializes in curly hair. The salon is in North Scottsdale which is about 25 minutes away but the distance is not a problem. Hopefully the price will not be as steep if I get out of the Old Town area but the north side is fancy as well. I am going to give Aimee a chance and since the same products are used, I will be able to keep a consistent hair color. I have not washed it yet, I always give it time before the first washing in the hopes that the color stays true longer. It is very dark right now with a blueberry purple over it. It will probably settle down after I wash it a few times. The cost of the service in Scottsdale is twice what it is in Arlington Heights so for that price I expect it to be amazing. The stylist I was going to is very nice and sweet but is very young and I think needs more experience.
After my hair appointment I stopped by the local jeweler, I had not been there since last year. I had some repairs piling up and needed an emergency repair on a piece I had sold. I ended up purchasing this necklace that I had my eye on for about a year. It is vintage Navajo pearls which were strung with the turquoise and accented with a handmade hook clasp. I am sure I will get a lot of use out of it. I had also purchased a necklace and earrings from them previously that are not an exact match but I think will coordinate well. I also selected a silver necklace and bracelet set from Mexico which looks like a flat watch chain and they had the cutest vintage concho belt which I am having them make into a necklace and three pairs of earrings.
On Sunday Kuochun and I actually tried to go out and do something fun. He discovered that Waukegan has a new casino currently called The Temporary At American Place. Apparently they opened back in February while we were gone. This literally is a temporary location while the permanent one is being built. They have a Sunday brunch buffet for $18.95 and although Kuochun is by no means a gambler, he occasionally likes to give $20 to slot machines and $20 to roulette. I was hesitant to go up there as I am always worried about Mother and all the work I have to do but thought maybe it would be alright to go do something for three hours. The location is at Fountain Square which is near Route 120 and Route 41, very close to where Kuochun used to live in Gurnee. He wanted to drive past his former home as well. When we arrived, we found that The Temporary is in a beautiful tent, even nicer than the ones they use for Tucson Gem Show. Most of the people visiting were VERY casually dressed, like in clothes they would wear when cutting the grass. The setup was very nice inside, above is a photo of L'Americain where the brunch was held. I was not expecting much for the price but the food definitely gave me mixed reviews. The setup was like catering for a party, with skirted red tablecloths. Cold items were placed in containers of ice and hot items had warmers. I decided to get the scrambled eggs instead of waiting for an omelet but I wish I would have done the omelet. All of the breakfast foods were ice cold. I was concerned that they were not warm enough to be safe to eat but luckily I did not get sick. I next put together a simple salad which I really enjoyed - spinach, shredded cheddar cheese, wontons and apple cider dressing. I will definitely try to duplicate this at home. However while I was eating my salad I noticed Mother was trying to get a hold of me. She let me know that she felt she needed to go to the ER for her legs. Unfortunately we could not stay - I did finish my salad and had a quick brownie dessert but did not get to try any of the lunch of dinner selections. Kuochun really enjoyed the spaghetti with spicy sausage and peppers. Drinks were casual with cans of soda and mini bottles of water in an ice bath. We did not get to fully walk the space but noticed there were a pair of vintage Airstream trailers which I think had coffee and snacks for sale. It was not a bad drive - 25 minutes on the expressway so I would be willing to go again when we have more time. Fountain Square Mall had been abandoned for a number of years so this is really great for the local economy.
After 3 hours of encouragement, I was not able to get Mother to go to the ER on Sunday after we rushed back to attend to her. I do believe she needs to go so I will try again on Monday.
]]>On Tuesday, Mother had an appointment with a new podiatrist in Arlington Heights to have her foot checked. It was a large and beautiful office, bustling with activity. She had been going to a podiatrist in Elk Grove Village and never had a problem getting a medical pedicure but this doctor said Medicare does not cover this and was not going to trim her nails. Luckily he did do it this one time but we will need to find a medical pedicure place and get both of us on regularly scheduled pedicures. I have been working on it for years but have not been able to get Kuochun to go for a pedicure yet. One of the shows I watch is Doubling Down With The Derricos, they are such a nice family with 14 kids and they live in Las Vegas. They have a set of quintuplets and it was their birthday. The three girls wanted to go to a nail salon but of course the boys totally did not want to go. Their dad actually gets pedicures and encouraged the boys to give it a try. They did it for their sisters but ended up loving the pedicures so much they cannot wait to do it again! I told Kuochun about it and he might be a little closer to giving a pedicure a try. Although nothing can beat Medi Pedi Scottsdale and Kat's masterful dry pedicure, I am sure we can find a runner up around here.
It is really important to keep Mother's creative mind going (and I could use the help) so I gave her a project to do. Last year we ordered a bunch of Mexican floral-themed stamps on Etsy which actually came from England. Mother turned them into the most beautiful cards for the Tucson Gem Show pieces and it really makes them look special. I ordered some more stamps from the same shop, including these darling birds and leaves. I also selected four leaf clover and horseshoe stamps which I thought would be so cute for the Southwest Style jewelry. Mother started experimenting with the stamps and was so proud to have ordered a set of colored pencils on Amazon on her own which arrived the same day. I said I have that Amazon delivery time beat! I ordered a clothing steamer, Bic ballpoint pens and Bic whiteout tape (by the way, I totally recommend the whiteout tape, it's so much better than Liquid Paper!) a little after 4:00 PM and everything was delivered to my front stoop a little after 7:00 PM. Amazon Prime is the best!
I digress but the purpose of the project is to create amazing cards which coordinate with each cowhide or leather sample I have to use for product photos. Here are the experiments so far. The birds are really cute and have names like Ferdinand and Betty. I am looking forward to seeing how the lucky stamps turn out but the ball is in my court. I need to make these cards on my Cricut machine in various colors. These are Mother's photos which I cropped a bit so her entire dining room was not showing.
There were five estate sale packages to complete this week so instead of diving right in with the "new" stash, I decided to post another small lot, this time with Southwest Style pieces. Most of these pieces are new arrivals and I added a few pieces from my personal collection which I love but have never worn. It seems like these days I am not getting out much other than going to doctor's appointments and errands for my loved ones. The hope is that things will get better on that front but in the meantime I plan to pare down my collection to my favorite everyday pieces here in IL and the most interesting and special pieces in AZ because there is much more of a chance to get out and explore the area there. I had such a wonderful time at the Heard Museum show in March and adore the jewelry I purchased there. Lately I have been passing on cute pieces I would have purchased in the past and I will be saving my pennies for next year's show.
I thought this was such a cool, unique lot of Southwest Style jewelry. The pretty pin inside the dragonfly necklace was an oldie but goodie but it did sell to a repeat customer and the rest are awaiting new homes. Mother said don't worry, they'll love these pieces in Arizona! The dog days of summer selling continue. Note to self - it would be a good idea to take the month of July off from lot posting from now on.
I just had to highlight this awesome pin by Albuquerque artist Grady Alexander. I was not familiar with his work but when I received it I knew it was very special. This piece is not online yet but is available for sale. As far as pieces that are now online, I was able to finish the Leo Feeney lot of jewelry and get a good head start on the brilliant blue turquoise lot from July 9.
It is amazing that I was able to get any jewelry work done because Mother had seven appointments to go to and Kuochun's 8:00 AM with the cardiologist made eight. The early bird appointment was worth it though because he came out with great news, his blood thinner has been discontinued. Fingers crossed that he will be able to stay off it as he was bruising and bleeding from the smallest cut so easily.
Mother had two rehab sessions for her legs and she is striking up a rapport with her physical therapist, Tom. Luckily he felt it was OK for her to proceed with the rehab because he was not sure during the consultation. She has already felt some improvement. Tom said it will be a lot of work but he feels the edema can be put under control. Unfortunately there were no openings so she is not scheduled to go back there until August 3. She is on a waiting list in case something opens up.
The rest of the week was predominately estate sale paperwork and my other usual estate sale tasks but we took some time out to have a get-together on Saturday at The Southern Kitchen in Arlington Heights. It was Kuochun's idea to thank the folks who helped us out on the homefront while we were in Scottsdale. Everyone ordered something different and seemed to enjoy their meals! I am watching my calories so I ordered a simple breakfast of a Belgian waffle, two scrambled eggs and sausage. I have heard that Belgian waffles have a lot less calories than pancakes. Kuochun could not resist the "Gumbo-laya" once again and his report was it was very similar to the one in Roselle and they are both good. He was tempted to get the catfish but they only had fried and he has been very good about avoiding fried food as much as possible. Although now that I think about it his dish probably has a lot of butter in it.
After the get-together we went to Wheeling to another store where I have jewelry on consignment. It is a new store - shortly after they opened they had a devastating flood on Christmas Eve and had to completely rebuild. It took four months and they are open again and almost have all of their displays back in place. I picked up my payment for a ring that had sold and was able to sell some sterling silver non-jewelry pieces to a collector who happened to be in the store at the time. These pieces were so pretty and I did not want to scrap them so I am glad they went to a good home. The storeowners said they are now off to a good start and within the next two weeks they will set up another display with a lot of my items. I am looking forward to seeing what they can do! They are very nice people and I wish them every success.
That is all for now, see you next time!
]]>This past week there was a lot of estate sale paperwork to do as I was finishing up the six packages due the week before plus the five due after that. They take a lot of energy to accomplish so I do not do more than two per day. Between packages and helping Mother I worked a bit on jewelry. On Sunday I posted a small lot of mostly new arrival statement pieces with a couple of prior pieces mixed in. The Santo Domingo turquoise necklace, turquoise and onyx Zuni Dishta necklace and the three onyx cuff bracelets are all spoken for, the other items are available. I purchased this big piece of driftwood at one of our sales while I was gone and finally got it into use. Thankfully it fits inside my light box without having to cut it down. One thing I did not expect was for it to be back heavy and tip backwards when I put jewelry on it. I tried putting a small vintage glass on the piece on the right to balance the weight which worked but it was showing in the photo. I then tried a small bag of dog treats and that did the trick! I angled it in the corner for support. The things that go on behind the scenes! I wish I had my larger piece of cowhide that I have in Scottsdale so the background does not show. This is the first purchase I made from this Etsy maker - I selected a placemat, coaster and napkin ring. I think I will sell this set and check out the the other vendor I have been purchasing backgrounds from lately. This pattern is a little busy and it is sometimes difficult to see the details of the jewelry sometimes. I just cannot do a boring white background though! Someone got mad at me last week because I was selling a watch with a cowhide band and even though the band is way more white than black, she could not tell where the band ended and the background began. I referred her to my individual photo which I shot on a piece of wood but as is typical with rude people, there was no response.
I cannot model the jewelry I sell - a lot of times vintage cuff bracelets and rings are too small and earrings do not always look right on me. On and off for about a year, I have been trying to shoot outdoor photos of necklaces on my mannequins, both in Mount Prospect and Scottsdale but I am not having success. The quality of the photos is just not the same as the ones I take in my light box. This past week I had a light bulb moment and realized, why not try to create the mannequin look inside my light box? My first go-to was Etsy and I found some torso tabletop mannequins. They are kind of expensive because they are shipped from Macedonia. The shipping cost is almost as much as the mannequins themselves. They are having a buy two, get one free special and I was about to do it, even though the seller will not ship one to AZ and two to IL. I am glad I double-checked the measurements because they are too tall for the light box. She has a few other styles that would fit but they are not as exciting as the taller ones. What I did not expect was that I cannot find anyone else selling similar mannequins. Most of what is out there are plastic '80s style props in black or white that do not fit my aesthetic. This one is muslin with a burlap corset which I thought would be cute with Southwest Style jewelry. The shorter one is just plain burlap which is not nearly as interesting. I may end up getting the plain one and maybe I can dress it up with a little jacket. But I left the jackets in Scottsdale!
In the meantime, I did have some success when looking for creative ways to display how earrings would look on. I found these wooden jewelry models on Etsy, one is for freeform earrings and the other is for earrings that need a background for stability. I did not have much time to play around with them but tried them out with some Federico earrings. The first go-around I used all silver earrings but I like the colorful earrings much better. I made a quick collage and I like the color palette!
I also had good luck with a prop I already had, this black ceramic hand. I tried a few Federico rings with it and I like the way they came out. But I will still be on the lookout for something in brown tones which will go better with the jewelry. The wooden ones I saw on Etsy are not quite right.
I unfortunately did not get the chance to post any new jewelry to the online marketplaces but the plan is to get back to it next week. July and August are the dog days of online selling but the goal is to post as much as possible this summer so I will be ready for the holidays.
I was able to polish a bunch of budget-friendly sterling silver pieces including rings and earrings as well as some vintage sterling silver statement jewelry. I have not priced any jewelry since I have been back from Scottsdale but I did ship a bunch of priced jewelry before I left. We do not have as heavy of a sale schedule next week but I would like to make a new case for our upcoming Arlington Heights sale. First step is to change the labels in the printer from shipping to jewelry barbells but every time I think of doing it I sell another piece online and need to print a shipping label. Not a bad problem to have!
Mother needed to go for lab work Wednesday, a week prior to her ultrasounds appointment. I have been bothered by how the numerous doctors we have been to see cannot help her with her leg swelling. It has stuck in my mind how our neighbor who is keeping an eye on the Scottsdale home while we are not there mentioned that her daughter is in the field of lymphatic massage. She has been a snowbird between Scottsdale and Utah and has now decided to make the move to Scottsdale full time. She is in the process of opening up a studio for her practice. I did a little online research and the short answer was this does work. I thought that we should not wait until the fall to get help so I tried to find someone local. There are a few massage places around the area who do this but it is not covered by insurance. I also feel since there are medical issues involved medical care is needed. I then found out there were such places called lymphedema clinics. I tried to find one near us but had no luck. Then I thought to just see if Northwest Community Hospital had one and was thrilled to find they do! It is covered by Medicare Part B and happens to be in Rolling Meadows, where Mother had her stroke treatments. I really liked the approach - first step is a reduction phase and the second step is a maintenance phase and transition into self-management.
Since we were already at the primary doctor's office building, we went upstairs to leave a message for her, asking if Mother could go to the clinic. She came back with a referral the same day! It was difficult to get through to the right person to make appointments for physical therapy, we spoke with about eight different people and none of them had ever even heard of this department. But luckily someone did, she had to call back later but we were so surprised to be able to get an appointment for the next day.
We met with a physical therapist for a consultation on Thursday - he has a low-key personality but really seems to know his stuff. He is thinking there might be an infection but we need to keep an eye on it. He drew a line around the area of redness to have us check to be sure it would not spread but the pen wore off right away. If there is an infection, it is more dangerous to move the fluid out of the legs because we do not want it to settle into the lungs. The next appointment is next Wednesday so we will let him decide if it is OK for Mother to receive the treatment. It looks like future treatment will involve another at-home machine but if it works it will be so worth it. I am mentioning all this in detail because it is important to know that there is help for those who need it, you just need to know what to look for.
That is all the news for this week, see you next time!
]]>I thought I was being called from the Palatine location but it turned out it was the Northbrook location. For some reason they had my phone number but Mother's name and previous address in Northbrook. I needed the HVAC maintenance to be done and the toilet in my second floor bedroom had not worked since we came back from Scottsdale and I was ready to have it fixed. I went ahead and scheduled the appointment.
The Unique technicians in the past have all been nice but never spent more than a half hour working on maintenance. The technician from AA Service spent about 3 hours cleaning and checking everything. I was really impressed and told him so. He was very humble and said he will always perform his job to the very best of his ability. What a way to be!
On the plumbing front, the head plumber was not all that familiar with my type of toilet (I have a wall-mounted version, with flushing buttons on the wall to save space) but he gave it a go. He was able to pop off the cover, take the parts out, reinstall them and it worked! I was very appreciative because it had been such a pain to run down a big flight of stairs every time I had to go. They performed a whole house inspection and found that the line from the house to the village had standing water in it and was quite clogged with tree roots. This is the price to pay for having such beautiful maple trees surrounding the property. I believe I am the only remaining corner home in the neighborhood which has all their original trees. They also worked very hard to have the line jetted out (as opposed to rodding it out.) The machine is so powerful it slices the tree roots and flushes everything out to the village. The camera fogged up when they first examined the line due to the standing water so the plumber said he would come back once the camera dried out to be sure everything was pushed out to the village. My sink upstairs has been draining slowly and the plumber suggested Green Gobbler, rather than paying big money to have the line rodded out. I ordered it on Amazon and it is due to arrive next Tuesday. The product is very highly rated with nearly 25,000 reviews. I am looking forward to giving it a try. I was only charged for the jetting job and the HVAC maintenance. The whole experience was impressive and I would definitely recommend AA Service.
In the evening, I decided to resume sending the C'est La Brie's newsletter. The last newsletter I had done was this past October, just before we left for Scottsdale. It was such a whirlwind while we were there I did not get into the groove of continuing it. I do have new subscribers from my Shopify store and not everyone is Chicago local anymore. I would like to keep everyone up to date, especially since I have gotten the online store going.
On Tuesday, in between working on the estate sale newsletter, I started to go back in time and post unsold items from past vintage Native American jewelry purge lots to all of the online marketplaces. The photo above represents the May 7, 2023 purge. All of the unsold pieces are online except for the turquoise pendant necklace with red spiny oyster shell beads. I do not know its origin so I will include it in the jewelry caravan. I was told it is Santo Domingo but I think it is non-Native, falling into the category of Southwest Style.
Since we have been back to Mount Prospect, we have not had time to do proper grocery shopping but after checking on Mother, decided to take a trip to Trader Joe's. I picked up ingredients to make some items from scratch including chicken salad (but with Greek yogurt as I do not care for mayo,) granola, chocolate peanut butter energy balls, naan pepperoni pizza and organic ciabatta rolls for turkey sandwiches. I also bought some items for quick meals such as turkey burgers, sweet corn and burrata cheese ravioli, gluten free breaded shrimp for tacos and Mexican style roasted corn. Also a bag of arugula which goes with just about anything! For dessert, I got the very popular dark chocolate peanut butter cups and chocolate hazelnut sandwich cookies. My favorite shortbread cookies with the chocolate centers were nowhere to be found!
Leave it to Kuochun to be unconventional - after buying all the groceries, he wanted to go to Potbelly and carry out lunch to take home. I splurged and got a meal deal with a Cookie Butter shake. All beef meatballs are not my favorite but Potbelly uses beef and pork so I got a meatball sandwich and regular chips. Kuochun decided to get a Cookie Butter shake at the last minute too. I said are you sure??? I enjoyed the sandwich and chips but preferred the Oreo shake I had gotten from Potbelly last time. The Cookie Butter shake had a very strong flavor of Salerno butter cookies and they even put their version of one on the straw of the shake. The woman behind the counter was moving so fast she gave me two cookies. I do my best to avoid artificial flavors and colors and it tasted artificial to me so I will not get the Cookie Butter shake again.
Our estate sale schedule this week had an unusual element as we had a condo sale which ran from Wednesday-Friday due to association rules. I was busy helping Mother get to another follow-up appointment with her primary doctor, catching up on her laundry etc. While waiting for the laundry I polished a bunch of nice quality sterling silver rings (54 in total1!) and I am planning to get them priced and into the jewelry caravan next week. I also polished some fun sterling silver Southwest Style jewelry which I will make a jewelry purge with and then post unsold items online later. I have a feeling though that these items are going to be a big hit! I also got started on polishing the hundreds of budget-friendly pieces I have purchased since I have been back including earrings and pendants.
On Thursday between estate sale work, I took a little break and made homemade granola for the first time. I baked up a storm as a kid so even though it has been a long time, baking is like riding a bike. It all comes back to you! I found a recipe for Insanely Good Granola and thought that was the one to try! It has rolled oats, pumpkin seeds, sliced almonds, coconut, cinnamon, salt, coconut oil, honey and peanut butter. The recipe called for dried cranberries as well but I ended up not including them. They forgot to say how to incorporate them and it did not make sense to me to bake them. They are not even needed as the granola was fantastic! The ingredients all come together, no particular ingredient stands out. It just tastes good! Every other day for breakfast I have been eating a yogurt parfait with the granola and blueberries. On alternate days, I am drinking a Ka'Chava shake with organic milk which is also delicious and has lots of fruits and vegetables in it. The recipe made enough to fill two medium size Ball jars and one of my medium size 1940s glass canisters. Sadly, Mother is not interested in trying it but that means more for me! So far, so good with my meal planning. I do not need a great deal of variety so I have been eating the little turkey sandwiches every day along with the lentil and potato curls from Trader Joe's. I have been having one mini peanut butter cup after lunch and one hazelnut cookie after dinner. I figured Friday night is a good time to make the pepperoni naan pizza and Saturday the ravioli. Sunday night is crunch time with posting ads for estate sale extensions and jewelry purges so it was a quick dinner of rice and turkey breast. I have been recording everything in a calorie counter app called NutraCheck, I had to switch to a new one since the free one had become too buggy. The planning and recording is extra effort but worth it!
On Thursday and Friday, I posted the unsold items from this jewelry purge lot to all of the online marketplaces. I originally posted the purge April 30, 2023. They are all out there except for the second paperclip chain necklace. When I originally shot the photo, the two necklaces were linked together. I sold one and need to shoot a new photo with the single remaining necklace only. I also need to find the earrings at the lower center. I had them sold but the buyer flaked. I know I brought them home with me, they are somewhere! I was also able to use a Google image search to find the artist on the badger paw belt buckle. This will definitely help get it sold now that it is identified.
I posted two jewelry purge lots Sunday evening - the first one was a portion of my Leo Feeney collection since I was so inspired by selling the earrings in the online store last week. All of these pieces have brilliant blue Sleeping Beauty turquoise in common. Unfortunately there have been no takers so far. In my opinion this time of year is the slowest for online sales but I keep going because I want to be ready for the holiday season. I see last year I did not post any jewelry purge lots between Memorial Day weekend and mid-July. I did check eBay completed items for Leo Feeney and every listing was successful so I know these pieces will go into the right hands once I put them online. I have more Leo Feeney pieces coming including two Christmas tree pins, two pendants, two cuff bracelets and a pair of gorgeous peridot flower earrings.
The second lot was vintage Native American jewelry as usual, a mixture of new arrivals and a few oldies but goodies that need to go into circulation. The watch with the large Sleeping Beauty turquoise encrusted watch tips has sold, the other pieces are available. The person who purchased the watch will repurpose these fabulous tips into an Apple Watch band and resell it. She made an awesome choice, it is going to turn out beautiful!
I am going to wrap things up here, this is more than enough to report. I do not think I will have as much time to work on jewelry as I have six, five and five estate sale packages to complete over the next three weeks. I want to keep the momentum going so I will do my best to fit jewelry work in. See you next time!
]]>Last week I mentioned that this week would be busy but it turned out to be even busier than expected. Monday kicked off with Kuochun's colonoscopy. Everything went well with just one small polyp discovered which was removed. He does not need to have another colonoscopy for seven years. The doctor mentioned that it would be his last one. Kuochun would be 79 at that point so maybe they are not typically done for folks over 80? He also had a CT scan of his lungs on Thursday and we are so grateful that it came back clear. This, combined with continued excellent results from his prostate procedure is all such amazing news. It was a completely different story last year. Next step will be to have Kuochun's primary doctor refer him to a pulmonologist to see if there is anything that can be done about his chronic coughing. We have a message in and are waiting for a response.
Since Kuochun was doing well Monday evening, I went ahead and scheduled a jewelry buying meeting at Mother's home. These sellers are going to take some time off so it will be the last chance for goodies from them for a while but in the meantime I have more than enough to do! I chose so many budget-friendly sterling silver pieces including rings and earrings. They are so popular that I will make a point to get them into circulation as soon as possible. I also have more cool vintage Native American pieces including a concho belt with turquoise and coral. One of the little coral pieces is missing so I will have it fixed.
On Tuesday, I filled in for Adam while he was on vacation and went to meetings at two Lake County homes to see about potential moving sales. The first meeting was in Highland Park - I absolutely love this 1928 home a stone's throw from downtown but in such an idyllic setting. What a great balance of keeping the original interesting features while making modern updates. We look forward to conducting this sale in August! I am not sure if the other sale will go through, the man of the house is skeptical about the process and we have not heard back from the couple since the meeting. I reassured him as best as I could, I never put on any pressure so we will see what happens. Everyone I met with was delightful!
On Wednesday, I started to post the unsold jewelry from last week's lot using AI to create the descriptions. Although the descriptions were wordy I went with it. After sleeping on it I thought I would try and refine the descriptions more. I spent a lot of the time working out the kinks to come up with the exact query to use for generating the descriptions using AI, ideally without having to make any manual changes. By the end of the week, I was able to get things 99% the way I wanted and will go back to update the listings I first started with so everything is consistent going forward. I decided to limit the description to one paragraph and instead of two groupings of bullet points I condensed it down to one. I also decided to use the same description for every marketplace (with a few tweaks here and there to follow each marketplace's rules) as doing a custom query for every item for five marketplaces was turning out to be very time-consuming. I have too many items that I would like to post! The only thing I could not get AI to do was add extra line spacing between sections. No matter how I worded it, the spacing remained the same. But now that there is one basic description, I just need to correct it once. I am excited to move forward with new items!
I was continuing to work away on Thursday evening when I heard an unexpected "ka-ching" from my phone at about 8:00 PM. This stunning pair of Leo Feeney southwest style earrings sold directly from the online store! I was absolutely thrilled that the customer trusted me enough to purchase these earrings for $650. I actually had them in the queue ready to cross post them to all of the different marketplaces. I also purchased quite a few amazing Leo Feeney pieces at the last Gem Show and have not done a thing with them yet. I am definitely motivated to get them out there now!
Friday I was planning to continue my online store work but I received an unexpected call just before 10:00 AM. Mother had tripped on her oxygen cord and fallen right on her replacement knee. Somehow she cut her toe and because she is on blood thinners, it was bleeding like crazy. Thankfully the visiting nurse was scheduled to pay her a visit at 10:00. I rushed over and the nurse was able to get her cleaned up and bandaged. She said possibly urgent care could help as opposed to going to the ER but I know from past experience her maladies complicate things and the ER would be best. It was not terribly busy this time so we were seen pretty quickly. A lot of X-rays were taken and they came back with no dislocations or broken bones. The doctor gave her a numbing shot in the bottom of her foot so she could trim her toenail. Then her foot was thoroughly cleaned and wrapped up. I was at home with Mother for a while after that and turned my back to leave - next thing I know she was flat on her stomach in the kitchen. Her hospital sock had started to come off her other foot and she tripped on it. It took about an hour to get her back on her feet and step by step over to the couch. She is pretty banged up and sore, she was fearing the worst but I explained that when I have fallen in the past, I was sore for a few days so this was normal.
Later in the evening Kuochun and I stopped by, I located the walker for Mother to use until she can feel more confident walking again. We are contending with an extra dining room set in the living room right now but I cleared a path so there is room to get through with the walker. Once things settled down we decided to get something to eat. I suggested heading over to the corner of Golf and Algonquin because there are a lot of restaurants around there. I was thinking about Noodles & Company since we had not been there for a long time. I gave it up when I found out that they use cheap inflammatory oil in their pesto sauce instead of olive oil. It was not meant to be because when we showed up to the Rolling Meadows location it was gone. We are finding a lot has changed around here in eight months! We went to Chipotle instead. This time the food was not warm enough and although the restaurant was pretty busy considering it was an hour before closing, the employee working the floor would not let me sit where I wanted to. She said go to the bar stools which I do not feel comfortable sitting on so I went to the opposite side of the room and she proceeded to come over do all her work right around us. All the chair moving, cleaning tabletops, mopping etc was really annoying. I think she did it on purpose! We will stick with the Randhurst location and carry out.
Saturday evening we checked on Mother and I brought her all of the first aid items she needed. She has been following my instructions and is feeling a little better. I still would like her to take it easy for a while and not try to do too much. Kuochun wanted to go to Jameson's Steakhouse, we have not been there in ages. I used to get Shrimp DeJonghe there, a Chicago specialty. I also remember that they are one of the very few remaining restaurants that serve both soup and salad. This time I decided to go with something different. I am not really a beef eater but there was a special of filet mignon sliders with a parmesan crust and grilled onions. It came with soup which was chicken tortellini. There are not too many soups that I eat but that one was acceptable! The sliders were OK, I think the buns were King's Hawaiian which I like but they were cold. The topping was very crunchy which made the whole thing taste weird. Kuochun ordered the Greek-style sea bass. He loves sea bass and ate the whole thing. I did not think it looked appealing and it smelled kind of fishy. Also, the restaurant does not have the upscale feeling of years past. The lights were turned all the way up and there were noisy families in larger groups with kids all around us. I do not mind a lively restaurant but something about the overall environment was not the same. Our server was "old school" as Kuochun called her, clearly a career server and was very lovely. However, there are so many choices for restaurants I will not be in a hurry to be back.
On Sunday I posted a new lot of vintage Native American jewelry, mostly new arrivals with a couple of oldies but goodies mixed in. I was not thinking that many would consider this the holiday weekend, looking back I should have taken the night off from it because there was next to no interest and no sales. But I am on track now with a procedure to start putting unsold items from these lots up starting on Wednesday, when I get a little breathing room between estate sale tasks. I took some time to go through past lots and pull items currently not online but are ready to go with write-ups and photos. Although I have been feeling like I am in quicksand trying to get the vintage collection posted I am finally on the right track! I have set a goal to catch up with it by the end of July. Summer is the slowest time of year for online sales so I do not expect items to sell right away but for once I would like to be prepared for the holiday selling season!
]]>Since I had a rare week off from estate sale paperwork due to no sales Memorial Day weekend, I was able to get back to jewelry work. I posted some new arrivals of vintage Native American pieces - some without stones and others with onyx or jasper. The onyx lariat necklace, the earrings on the far right, the coil cuff bracelet at the lower left and the heavy cuff bracelet to the right of the pendant all sold, the other pieces are available. Since I am working with my other set of props which includes the first cowhide piece I purchased (a placemat) it took longer than usual to get the pieces nicely in the photo without the left or right sides of the placemat showing. I am happy with the way it finally turned out. I thought the naja pendant and feather barrette would sell for sure but no such luck. As I have said before, turquoise rules! The plan is to post the unsold items from this grouping online next Wednesday.
This week was the time for both Mother and Kuochun to visit their primary doctors. It was Mother's turn on Monday, we saw that her primary doctor is expecting and looks to be 4-5 months along so Mother was glad she was able to see her before she goes on maternity leave. Mother had some lab work done at the same time to be sure her levels are staying normal and there will be a follow up in a couple of weeks. She will also have a different type of ultrasound done to try and figure out why her legs keep swelling and the "water pills" are not doing much good. It seems though that we will need to do our best to keep Mother's health under control until we can get her back to Arizona and to the lung doctor in October.
Unfortunately though we missed her cardiologist's appointment on Wednesday. It was completely my fault, I had put the appointment in the calendar under Mountain Time instead of Central Time. We will now have to wait a couple of months until we can get in again. The lung doctor in AZ ordered a couple of tests through the cardiologist here so luckily we still have time to do our homework.
On Thursday it was time for Kuochun to visit the doctor. He had been seeing my primary doctor for a couple of years but could not get in to see her or Mother's doctor this summer so he decided to go back to the doctor he last saw about seven years ago. It had been so long I forgot that he had a doctor he was happy with and the office is not far on the north side of Mount Prospect. Kuochun has been coughing like crazy ever since he quit smoking over a year ago so he is scheduled for a CT scan of his lungs to see if there is anything that can be done about it. Praying for good news! He also wanted to schedule a colonoscopy because he was overdue. When we returned home in the afternoon he got the call that he could go next Monday, or wait until January when we will not be here. Monday it is! I am really proud of him for continuing to take charge of his health.
After Kuochun's appointment, we decided to visit the new grocery store in downtown Mount Prospect, Angelo Caputo's Fresh Market. It is on the first floor of a brand-new condo building on Maple St, south of the railroad tracks. There is street parking as well as a convenient parking garage. The store is about the same size as a Trader Joe's and is bright and spotlessly clean. There is an entire aisle devoted to refrigerated heat and go meals. We selected the Chicken Vesuvio. We also got some crumbled mild Italian sausage I could pair with some organic angel hair pasta from I picked up from T.J. Maxx and Rao's four cheese sauce. I cannot resist Italian bakery cookies, my favorites are the double cookies with frosting between. I also selected a slice of chocolate cake with white frosting. It turned out the frosting was whipped cream. It was so fresh and amazing! Kuochun chose a couple of different cream puffs and I requested a Nutella cake roll slice for Mother. However Kuochun ate the cake roll before it could make its way to Arlington Heights. They had Racine Kringles - even though they are not from Mother's neck of the woods in Wisconsin we still like them. I picked up raspberry as a change of pace from almond. Finally from the bakery I grabbed a bag of four foccacia rolls with tomato hunks on top. I used them to make turkey and muenster sandwiches with a spoonful of their homemade pesto sauce. They were awesome and really filling. Next time I will put some arugula on it too. We picked up some hot food as well - I tried the cheese lasagna and a couple of mini arancini and Kuochun got the cream of broccoli soup and a croissant. We really loved Caputo's - Kuochun especially adored the chicken vesuvio and it was great for us to share because it was a mixture of dark and white meat. The meat literally fell off the bone which was very rare to see with chicken. He was able to make 3.5 meals out of it and I had one, which was very economical considering the whole pan was less than $17.00. These are specialty items with next-level ingredients so pricing is higher than Mariano's but less than Sunset Foods. I wish them well and hope they are accepted by the community. We will definitely support!
After lunch, we paid a visit to our two Glenview sales as we had some homeowner jewelry to deliver to one. It was great to see everyone working at the sales and I was able to meet two people for the first time. The two sales were so different - one was in a mid-century home totally loaded with tchotchkes and the other was in The Glen with beautiful but more minimal decor. Both sales were a hit!
Friday I decided to switch gears and work on some costume jewelry. It has been such a slow process to try and get the vintage Native American jewelry completed, namely because I keep buying more. So I took a look at the higher-end vintage costume jewelry I had on hand in the garage and selected pieces worthy of posting. My collection is starting to dwindle because I have not been buying any costume jewelry but I still have a good number of quality pieces remaining. I decided to start with pins because they are the easiest to do. I am so very pleased with the props I found on Etsy for the costume jewelry. I bought a bunch of Lucite coasters from an artist last year and this was my first time to use them. The backdrop is leopard print cowhide, also from Etsy. I just cannot do a plain white or black background. I feel this combo definitely captures the era of the jewelry. Because this piece was larger, I used the entire coaster but on smaller pieces, I experimented with just using a portion of the coaster, as shown below.
Depending upon the shape of the piece, I was able to place them in any of the four "corners" of the coaster for interest. The pieces I have posted so far are in the new collection: Vintage Costume Jewelry.
I experimented with using AI (Artificial Intelligence) to write the item descriptions for these pieces. I was blown away by the results - I wrote the title and the system wrote the descriptions, optimized for each online marketplace I belong to. There was very little that I needed to change and I just added some pertinent information, such as measurements. It sounds like me but on steroids! Overall it does take more time but the descriptions and titles are customized for each marketplace and hopefully the extra effort will lead to more sales. I am realizing in a hurry that to do this right, it will be a long process. But it is a dream come true to get to this point. So far I have had one piece of costume jewelry sell - the Weiss butterfly above. It sold on eBay about 10 minutes after I posted it. There were some technical issues with posting to Etsy which should be the best place to sell vintage costume jewelry. I am in the middle of an online chat with Vendoo so hopefully this issue will be resolved soon.
On Saturday I received my order of nine more backdrops which are either embossed leather or printed cowhide. I also found the rest of the Lucite coasters which I shipped home from Scottsdale specifically to use with the costume jewelry. I am looking forward to experimenting with everything. As well as this has all worked so far, I found big disappointment with the plain colored Replica Surfaces I purchased last year to use with the coasters. They looked so dull and the shadow of my phone kept interfering with the shot. I will definitely be listing them for resale. I have definitely had the best luck with the wood-look Surfaces. It has all been a process of many years and overall it has been very rewarding to finally get to this point where I have products in an online store and the listings look like "me."
Next week will be extremely busy with helping Kuochun and Mother, as well as two estate sale meetings on Tuesday and another on Wednesday. It will be time to get back to paperwork too but the hope is I can carve out a little time to get some more jewelry posted. It is important to keep the momentum going so customers stay interested!
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