Turquoise Is Back

It was challenging because we are so busy with estate sales but somehow I managed to post a jewelry purge Sunday evening. This was the first new purge in a month. I started with the most popular pieces on hand which are blue turquoise but did not quite have enough to fill the space so I added in some great jewelry without stones. So far the screwback earrings, watch band with sterling tips and the Zuni needlepoint watch at the lower left have sold, the other pieces are available. The necklace in the center is a real showstopper! I included a close up photo of it above.

What a busy week! I was definitely glad tax day was the 18th this year because I needed the time to finish it up. The workbook I purchased on Etsy was definitely helpful but I found errors in the monthly and therefore annual sheets. I could not trust the totals and had to do queries on each category and then copy the totals to another sheet in order to get the correct amounts. I found that when I did a query in the transactions sheet and tried to total a column there, I was given a total for all of the records, even though many of them were hidden. Also, I found that I did not have the 2021 files on our computer here. I must have done last year's taxes on the other computer. As a result, everything took a extra day to complete. Thank goodness the Phoenix post office normally has a final drop off for the day of 9:00 PM but in the worst case I would have had to pay $24.95 for an electronic state return. There were lots of last-minute folks at the post office and the police were blocking the drive up mailbox so I had to go inside. Maybe the mailbox was full or they were just trying to control traffic.

When I returned home I still had to do the estate sales newsletter but I kept it to an abbreviated version by not posting up any new sales and just focusing on the two for the week. I will catch those up next time.

It was not good timing to schedule the U-Box for pickup this week. It turned out that U-Haul needed to delay the pickup to Wednesday and I did not have time to load any additional items until Wednesday morning. After about 3 hours of sleep I got up early to try to fit in what I could. I thought they were coming to pick up between 10:00-12:00 but they ended up coming at 8:40. I was able to get the flat screen TV, dog bed, half the Replica Surfaces collection and some small empty plastic bins in but that was it. I spent most of the time trying to fit any dining chairs in but nothing was working. So I have 6 dining chairs, a set of china, dog steps, the fourth chair to the patio furniture set and some other stuff that I did not have time to load. I know it would be hundreds of dollars to ship these items FedEx but maybe I can find someone through uShip who could do it for less. I wish U-Haul offered a half size box for half the price.

On Wednesday after our workout we took a trip to Sam's Club. The closest location is in Gilbert which is about 25 minutes away. This is interesting because we are so centrally located to everything else. But Kuochun was notified that he was being charged for a premium membership so he wanted to downgrade it. The main reason we have a Sam's membership is to purchase the thank you bags for the estate sales. Of course while we were there we purchased some groceries. This location was older and not as nice as the Phoenix Costco but has a better selection of certain items like bakery and snacks.

After Sam's, we decided to grab something to eat before heading home. I did a quick search on "restaurants near me" and found Flancer's, which was described as incredible sandwiches and pizza. I love a good sandwich and it was less than a mile away so we headed over there. It is an unassuming place in a strip mall and has table service instead of quickly ordering from the counter but we gave it a shot. At first I was not sure what to order because it seemed like green chile sauce or something else I thought I would not like was on everything but I settled on the prickly pear chicken caesar salad and a side order of parmesan garlic bread. It was a great salad, the chicken was fabulous and the garlic bread was amazing. Garlic bread is one of my all-time favorite foods. Kuochun chose a shrimp sandwich which was the daily special along with sweet potato fries and he just raved about it. We carried out a prickly pear chicken sandwich for Mother and she loved it. Prickly pear is not a fruit but a cactus! It was my first time to try anything with it but Mother loves it. Flancer's is definitely worth the trip and next time I will be getting the cobbler as well! We just did not have time with groceries in the car.

Unfortunately most of the assorted cupcakes we bought at Sam's melted during the time we were at lunch. The only ones which looked normal were the cookies and cream flavor. The chocolate lava, strawberry and lemon still tasted good but did not look great, especially the lemon. It looked like a waterfall of frosting. But I do recommend these cupcakes! They are not quite as good as Mariano's but very good for the price.

On Thursday I took a little time to start to organize the garage. It looks like 90 degree temps are here to stay and I want to get the car in. While I was in the middle of organizing, Kuochun announced that he wanted to go to Taco Bell. I had never eaten at Taco Bell in my life and I do not think Kuochun ever did either but ever since Mother made hard shell tacos with ground beef at home, he has had a real taste for them. There is a nice location right down the street so I tagged along to give it a try. Kuochun really loved the hard shell tacos and enjoyed the seasoned fries. He is not a cheese person but even ate the nacho cheese sauce with the fries. I chose a steak quesadilla with potato and spicy ranch and it was surprisingly really tasty! I enjoyed the fries as well. We tried the twisty cinnamon sticks and they were just OK. Kuochun has now decided Taco Bell has his favorite Mexican food and wants to have it every week. Oh boy, he was doing so well with no McDonald's for more than a year.

After going back and forth quite a bit, Mother and I decided to go to Junk In The Trunk Vintage Market on Saturday. I was not sure if it was going to be vintage enough for us, I had heard it is a lot of vintage-inspired items plus "mombies" (mom-zombies who are always in the way with their children in wagons.) Also, it is not inexpensive - $10 to park and $10 each for the lowest admission cost. Mother was really wanting to go out and do something so we went. It was actually really nice - a great mix of true vintage, vintage-inspired and handmade items. Most all of the vendors put so much effort into their displays - they each looked like little boutiques. We were not able to take the wheelchair into most of them but we got the gist of it. The moms were in force but actually the worst offenders were those walking around on their phones. I do not understand why they were there, if only to look at their phones and not at the show.

The organizers did a super job of not having too much to offer of any one category. I only saw one vendor with a few pieces of Native American jewelry. It is tempting to apply for next year but without a large enough vehicle to transport everything to the venue and having to do everything myself it would be a bit of a daunting task. The show was very well-attended and the people were definitely looking at the jewelry. One thing I noticed was that most vendors had all their merchandise out, leaving them totally open to theft. But I could see that the few that had their jewelry in cases were not getting the same amount of traffic.

I bought a couple of wood props I can use for jewelry photos including a really cute wooden heart in ombre colors ranging from white to turquoise as well as a brass peacock for decoration and Mother bought a hand stitched horse picture for her bedroom here. One vendor had the most amazing decorator look handmade pottery which was right up Mother's alley but she did not buy. Neither of us are in a big buying mode right now, although I thought the prices were reasonable. Overall, Junk In The Trunk was a very nice surprise. Unfortunately Melinda could not go with us because she had a friend visiting from out of town but we can all go next time for sure.

After the show, we needed to go to Whole Foods for an Amazon return. The foldover bag hanger punch I recently purchased already went kaput and I was able to exchange it for a new one. Mother has been working every day to organize the beads into packets. Her work area looks like a tornado hit it! I do not like to work that way but have not had time for jewelry pricing work so I have been avoiding the area. I will need to face it sometime soon though!

After only three days of having a working dishwasher, it has gone out of commission again. We are all so disappointed but Kuochun especially. He is ready to buy a new dishwasher next fall. I, on the other hand would like this expensive new dishwasher which matches the other appliances to work. Since this happened Saturday, we will need to wait until Monday for help.

Also, the cable went out on my TV and Mother's. We can watch anything on streaming services. The cable company is coming out on Monday to fix it. In the meantime, Mother is traveling to the living room to watch American Idol. It sure would be nice if we could have everything working all at the same time! In spite of everything, it is so great to have Kuochun on board with being here. I think the idea of missing Chicago winters is very enticing to him. He is talking about getting a grill in the fall in addition to the dishwasher. We will see what happens. I would love a grill but would like to get a built-in one since we have the perfect space for it. It is a big empty planter, our original idea was to grow an herb garden but Mother no longer has the energy for it.

Next week there is not quite as much estate sale paperwork to do, although we do have four sales to keep us busy. Since the weather is heating up I would rather stay home in the air conditioning as much as possible. I am hoping to carve out some time to work on jewelry. We really did a lot but I have resigned myself to the fact that we are not going to get to everything. I have decided to leave behind anything I cannot get to and resume work on it in the fall. I would like to switch gears and work on the costume jewelry collection over the summer.

See you next time!