Happy Birthday To Me

Yes, it's my birthday today! I love being born on this day with lucky 7 as my date. The weather is usually ideal and this year it seems like it will not disappoint with a forecasted high of 73 degrees and sunny skies. I really follow the Libra personality traits of being balanced, idealistic and a perfectionist as well as the dislikes of violence, injustice and confrontation. Kuochun is also a Libra which is said to be a perfect partner match. He is more of a free spirit than me but this character trait has rubbed off on me over time. It is an interesting mix with his desire for balance. He is always saying not to let my emotions go too high or too low. This is very good advice for the estate sale business especially. Kuochun has a milestone birthday coming up on the 18th!

As usual there is so much work to do but I am hoping to squeeze in a good meal. I would say for the past 10 years or so we have been going to my favorite restaurant, The Noodle Cafe in Wilmette for my favorite meal which is Caesar salad, garlic bread and handmade pesto pasta. Yes, a lot of what I eat is the same color. I am not sure if we will make the trek to Wilmette for carry out, we have quite a few great mom and pop Italian restaurants within a 3-mile radius.

Our Fall pop-up sale was this past weekend and I would like to sincerely thank all of the old and new friends who visited. Your patronage means the world to me! Understandably, Mother is steering clear of crowds due to coronavirus so she was not at the sale over the weekend but she helped me set up and Sue stepped in and helped me out at the sale Saturday and Sunday. Four of the furniture pieces which have been in the refinishing queue since January were delivered on Wednesday afternoon, the day before the sale so it was a scramble for Mother and I to get everything looking presentable in time. We received the bar / cash wrap which was stained a medium walnut color on the top. Trim was added to the edges and bottom and the balance was painted black. Casters were added on one side and skids on the other so it is way easier to move now but it will not roll away. It is taller than it was before due to the casters but I have gotten used to it. The only difference is we can no longer put the cash register on top, it made it top heavy and we were afraid if anyone put a hand on the bar the whole thing could topple over. We put the cash register behind us on one of the rolling shelves. It is not visible from all sides as before but still looks cute back there. I also received three pieces which were painted black on the exterior and lined in a pink hydrangea color paint which is in our signature floral fabric - a display cabinet with three glass doors, a china cabinet and a locking display cabinet with glass shelves and a bottom drawer. I am loving the color combination! We unfortunately did not have time to fully stage all of the areas but I can tell that going forward items we display inside are going to pop. Still to come are the large storage cabinet with drawers where we will display our collection of beads and back stock jewelry and the 1950s Asian-style TV cabinet which will be repurposed into a storage cabinet. The plan is to have the renovation and redecoration in place by our next pop-up. Tentatively it will be scheduled for March 4-7, 2021 but there is a possibility that it will be pushed back to later in March. I will keep you posted!

Due to preparation for the pop-up sale, I was not able to post any new jewelry online but I am hoping to get back to it this week. I have so many amazing pieces that I would like to show. I would like to give the vintage silver jewelry group a try with some non-Native American pieces. For some reason things have shifted and this now seems to be the most active of the groups I belong to. I think the folks who believe purchasing new jewelry directly from Native American artists is the only way to go and that resellers are scammers are starting to influence the others. That is really a shame because there deserves to be a place in the world for all of us.

I am going to be a bit brief this week, it is late and I still need to write this week's newsletter. Until next time!