I Won't Do This Again.....

We are friends with a nice guy who works at our big local thrift store in the county. JD ran into him the week before I hurt my neck and he gave us keys to "the lodge" to go check out all the stuff that they had tried to sell at a big indoor yard sale. When I hurt my neck, I returned the keys without going but told him that I'd give him a call if we were able to make it over. Since my sister and brother were here today and we were looking for adventure, we thought we'd go take a look, so I gave Bill a call. He told me that they had just packed it up, but they'd bring it to my house for us to look through. I reluctantly agreed, but was regretting that decision a few hours later. Here's what Debs, Alei and I dug through for several hours.

Oh, and here's more -

This was towards the end when we were really regretting agreeing to this. My neck was aching and poor Debs was trying to wrap up with Julia and Elijah's help. What you can't see too well is the dog and three cats under the bench eating Elijah's hot-dog remnants.

We set aside some doozy (is that a real word?) outfits that we were going to put on just for a photo op. I found Alei a bright orange, polyester, one-piece pantsuit that the likes of I've never seen in my life-time, but we were so sick of ugly clothes by the end that we just shoved them all back in the last bag. Kind of a shame since Debs and I had coordinating shirts.... In the end, we did get some good stuff; I just think I'd rather fork over $20-30 at a thrift store than go through bag after bag on my front porch.

As for a crazy end to the day, JD, Elijah and I set out on a little walk; really little since walking hurts. We barely made it down our driveway when we discovered that the new guy who bought 69 acres next to us had put in what appeared to be a driveway. We wanted to see if there was a house-site, so we headed down it. It kept going and going, we couldn't believe it. It was too hard to push the stroller, so JD carried Elijah. Every corner we came around, there was one more bend. After some time, I sat down with Elijah and JD ran to the end and back. The end seemed to be 69 acres back. At this turn around point, JD had been carrying Elijah for quite some time, my neck was aching and our stupid, stupid cat Slurpee did his usual stunt of walking all the way to the turn-around point, then laying down and refusing to walk back. I was sure if I left him in the woods he'd be eaten by a coyote, so I carried him. The problem is he'd fight, scratch me, I'd put him down and he'd lay there and ignore me calling him as we walked. So eventually, we did what any reasonable cat owner would go. JD ran home and brought back the 4-wheeler with the cat carrier bungied on the front rack. So, Elijah and Slurpee both got their first 4-wheeler ride! I'm quite confident that Elijah enjoyed it far more than Slurpee. I only wish I had gotten a picture before we let him out! Next walk, he gets locked in somewhere.