A Marathon, Not A Sprint

The week did not start off on a good note. The potential caregiver who we scheduled an interview with on Monday afternoon did not show up or call, despite her insisting I had to be present at the meeting since I posted the job on Care.com. I did not bother to contact her but I was very unhappy because she not only wasted our time, but now we do not have any at home help for Mother. Her wound is getting worse and she urgently need daily help to care for it. Since her primary doctor is on maternity leave, we made an appointment with Kuochun's primary doctor for Thursday morning. We also made an appointment Thursday afternoon with a physician's assistant at Mother's primary doctor's office as a backup. It is a good thing we did because after two minutes of speaking with Kuochun's doctor, he let us know that he was not accepting new patients. He suggested that we make an appointment with his partner and put in an order for a podiatrist but in the end we decided it would be too complicated to go to another network and hospital, even though all the records can be seen in MyChart.

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!