Cha-Ching!

Last week was the time to complete my annual medical needs with a checkup on Monday and mammogram on Wednesday. My blood work looked great except that for the second year in a row, my calcium level was a little elevated. Later in the week, the doctor's office called and asked me to not take calcium supplements (which I do not do) and drink more water, then come in for another blood test a week later. I still have a big bruise on my left hand from where they took the blood on Monday, hopefully they can use my arm next time. I record everything I eat in MyFitnessPal and looking at trends, I am not going over on my calcium intake. So I am now avoiding milk for another week (after avoiding it a week while I was on the antibiotic after my dermatology procedures) and drinking as much water as possible. I am hoping I do not have to go on medication for whatever this issue is as I have made it this far in life medication-free.

Monday was supposed to be cleaning day but our house cleaner hurt her foot and had to postpone until Saturday. Even though I was very sorry she got hurt I was glad I did not have to leave for the day when I had my annual checkup. I did not realize that I was on my last jar of silver polish and ran out, and could not get an Amazon delivery for it until Sunday. However I was able to get the silver dip delivered on Friday so I was at least able to do some preliminary cleaning Saturday while we were at Motel 6. One of the pieces turned the clear silver dip bright yellow, it must have been a dyed stone piece. It is unfortunate that that happened with a brand new jar of silver dip but it is still doing the job even though it is a weird color.

Tuesday I felt under the weather so I was out of commission until the evening, when I pulled myself together enough to write the weekly estate sale newsletter. I was glad that I did not have to go to the mammogram until Wednesday. My doctor's office is only two minutes away and for the last couple of years, I have been able to do the mammograms there as well. Prior to that, I had to go to Lutheran General Hospital. This facility is great - they only take one mammogram at a time and there is a private dressing room.

I was not able to list much this week with lots of estate sale work to do as well but with the holidays approaching I decided to start work on my Heidi Daus pieces. I have been trying to sell them as part of the jewelry caravan on and off for a number of years and sold quite a bit but it is now time to retire them from the caravan. So far, I posted the HollyDays brooch above. I also have a First Day Of Christmas brooch (partridge in a pear tree) but noticed that the chain was twisted on both sides. Unfortunately I do not have my jewelry tools with me and I need to open the loops on each side in order to straighten out the chain. It will have to wait until I get back to Scottsdale. In the meantime, I will post necklaces starting with the two turquoise color beaded necklaces and the bib necklace. One of the necklaces has a matching cuff bracelet. The Heidi Daus pieces will take some time to research as they will sell better if I can match them up with their official names. It took some time to come up with a main photo for the HollyDays brooch I liked using the materials I have. I ended up with this photo which to me looks like a desert Christmas theme. It worked because it sold only 8 hours after posting!

As we work our way through fourth quarter, which is naturally the best for online selling, I was very pleased with this week's sales. In addition to the HollyDays brooch, I sold this gorgeous Navajo belt buckle on Etsy, the Rosella Paxton purple heart ring on eBay, a Delbert Doss cluster pendant on Poshmark, the turquoise money clip on Etsy which is on its way to France, the John Hardy earrings on Mercari and the James Avery cross on eBay for Mother, a heishi choker with fetish bird on eBay and Navajo hoop earrings on Etsy. I was also thrilled to receive an order for two Blue B Western style embroidered sweatshirts directly from my website. Because I keep the ringer off on my phone most of the time and do not get to enjoy the cash register sound when I make a sale, I let Kuochun know by yelling out "cha-ching!" He loves it and every day asks me if I have packages to take to the post office on our way to the fitness center.

There was not much time to post new items but I did post this heavy vintage link bracelet with a large two-sided religious medal attached. One side features Our Lady Of Guadalupe and the other is the Sacred Heart Of Jesus. I was able to use Google Translate to get the English translation from Spanish. Guadalupe Day is easy for me to remember because it is Dad's birthday, December 12. We have not been around for several years but I do remember seeing lots of people walking in the cold over to Maryville Academy in Des Plaines making the pilgrimage that day. I thought now was a good time to post this beautiful piece with the day coming up in about a month and a half.

The only other items I was able to post were these earrings for Mother as well as the necklace and earrings set by Billy Betoney I mentioned last week. I highlighted the set in the Facebook groups along with the purple butterfly rings Sunday evening in the hopes that someone will be looking for a special holiday gift or to treat themselves.

The Vintage Cowgirl Cases orders came in to Scottsdale Friday, Rachel is in town for her anniversary and was there to take the packages in. She said they were very heavy which I do not doubt! I am really excited to see everything and eventually share all of the goodies here. Even though I will only have two and a half weeks to prepare once we return to Scottsdale, I think I will go ahead and have a sale the first weekend of December as I have the past couple of years. Except for new arrivals, everything is priced and just needs to be loaded into cases and organized. Rachel let me know that there appeared to be a community-wide garage sale this past weekend. For some reason I was left off the new distribution list, a new person is now running it and they mentioned to the previous person that they wanted to have it in October or November. There are no rules against garage sales in our community, we are just not allowed to hire a company to hold a sale. If there is room in the car I am going to load up boutique clothing to sell.

Also on Friday, Kuochun and I went out to lunch with Sue G., as she was in town for the day before heading to Mexico on Saturday. We wanted to take her to Chandler's Chophouse in Schaumburg, as we enjoyed it on our first visit and I thought she would as well. It was a late lunch so there was only one couple in the dining room. The section of the restaurant with a view was closed so we opted to eat outside. We got there at 2:55 and the lunch specials ended at 3:00 or I would have gotten a shrimp or chicken Caesar wrap. But it was either order on the spot or miss out and I wanted to take a minute to look at the regular menu. The server did not come back to check on us until 20 minutes later so I missed out. But they did have a pork schnitzel sandwich special which I opted for. Kuochun and Sue chose specials too - Kuochun had the wahoo and shrimp dinner, and Sue had a beef sandwich with mushrooms. We ordered a couple of appetizers, pork egg rolls and calamari. I helped Kuochun with his Caesar salad. We got a white chocolate bread pudding for dessert. It was good but I did not see any evidence of white chocolate. Everyone enjoyed what they ordered but the service was so painfully slow! The good thing about the slow service was it gave us more time to talk, and for Sue to feed the birds her french fries. Also, Sue excused herself early on to let the staff know we both had birthdays but they did not acknowledge it. Kuochun did not look at the receipt so he is not sure if we were charged for the dessert. I bet we were.

We brought Sue back to Park Ridge just in time for her to go out for pizza with her family at Fellini's in Mount Prospect. I am not sure if she had room! I have never had the pizza there but we have had dinners a few times over the years. The "new" owner kind of knows us as he owns the carpet store in town and we used to be about a block away at our second store. Kuochun calls him Carpet Father because his daughter owns Katie's Kitchen in Des Plaines. He was always very chatty with the customers at both restaurants, even sitting in the booth with them and we would just prefer to eat in peace. This kind of turned me off to going to either restaurant.

The plan for next week is to hopefully list more items. We only have one estate sale in Park Ridge but there is lots of paperwork to do. I will need to switch gears again and I will probably work on the 2024 Federico pieces as I have until November 2 to use my remaining 17 of 25 listing credits for the month.

Until next time!