Sunday Stealing: The Seriously Random Question Meme (Part II)

Another Sunday, another round of Sunday Stealing :-) This is the second part of a meme known as "The Seriously Random Question Meme"


21. Have you ever had a garage sale?
Well, we call them "yard sales" here in New Hampshah, but, yes, I grew up in a neighborhood of annual yard sales.

Funny story, actually ... one of my neighbors had a huge box of books left over, and she put them out on the side of the road with a sign that said "FREE". I, of course, went over and started perusing.

They were all the sort of romance novels that are pretty much soft core porn throughout. I brought the box home and read them. I think I was six or seven. This explains a lot ;-)

22. What color is your cell phone?
I have a Droid 2, so the "color" is actually based on the case. I've been through a red case and a blue case (I'm very hard on my phones), and the one I have now is a different type. It's black, which is fine, but it's all rubbery and awkward-feeling. However, after breaking two of the hard plastic cases from dropping my phone (a lot), this ugly case has the benefit of actually protecting it.

23. What is the last alcoholic beverage you had?
Captain and Diet.

24. Are you happy right now?
I just woke up ... I'm neither happy nor unhappy. Let me have more coffee, then I'll decide.

25. Who came over to your house last?
Probably a friend of my mother's. I live in the attic of her barn (heeheehee), so I don't exactly have people over a lot.

26. Do you drink beer?
If I'm in the mood for it, or if it's one of those "we're going to hang out at a bar for a long period of time and you don't want to lose control and/or do anything stupid" since I tend to drink the hard stuff really quickly and beer is more of a sipping kind of thing.

27. Have your brothers or sisters ever told you that you were adopted?
Not that I know of ... we had far better ways of tormenting each other ;-)

28. What is your favorite key on your key chain?
No offense, but that has to be the dumbest question I've ever seen on any meme anywhere. I have a car key, a house key, and a classroom key. They are what they are. I don't favor one over the other. Do most people?

29. What was the last movie you watched at home?
I haven't watched a movie at home for eons. I wanted to watch Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome last night, but I fell asleep on the chair watching a DVRed NCIS episode instead. I think the last movie I watched at home was Star Wars (A New Hope).

30. What is in your pocket?
Nothing ... I'm in my pajamas.

31. Who introduced you to your bf/gf/husband/wife?
I'm single ... is it really necessary to rub it in ;-)?

32. Where do you hurt?
I really don't hurt anywhere, which is kind of surprising since I slept in the recliner last night. Maybe I should do that more often :-)

33. Has someone ever made you a build a bear?
Um ... no. We're more of a Vermont Teddy Bear family.

34. What’s something fun you did today?
Well, I've only been awake for an hour or so. I cuddled with Belle (on the recliner, when she jumped on me to wake me up). That was pretty fun. And drinking coffee, that's always a magical experience ;-)

35. What is your favorite aisle at Target?
I like to randomly walk up and down aisles at stores like Target or Wal-Mart. My sister and I actually turned this into an art form when we were younger. You find random tacky crap that you can't believe a store would actually sell, you laugh at people ... great fun :-)

36. When is your birthday?
October 26, 1976. I am a Scorpio (and, yes, I am a Scorpio lol).

37. Is there anything hanging from your rear view mirror?
Nope.

38. How many states in the US have you been to?
The entire eastern seaboard (from Maine to Florida) and a little bit westward. That's about it. I haven't had enough coffee to count them.

39. What kind of milk do you drink?
Simply Smart skim milk (it's in a green carton and doesn't taste like skim milk ... it's pretty cool stuff :-)). Because of my stupid pancreas, I have to be really careful of my fat intake.

40. What are you going to do after this?
Drink more coffee, take a shower, take Belle to have lunch and go to the movies with her father, go back home, write final exams, go to the cemetery and share the love via flowers, work on the summer reading website, call my father at some point, find various ways to procrastinate ... you know, the usual ;-)

Yard Sale-ing is Evidently a Verb

I'm curious to know what your thoughts are on yard sales.

My neighborhood has an annual yard sale, and some years we participate and some years we don't. This year we did, in large part because Addie had gone through a monster growth spurt and designer duds from Hollister, Abercrombie, and Aeropostale were overflowing the house. What bothered me, though, was that the people that came in droves (and once word of the teenage girl clothes sitting in piles on a table in my driveway broke, the droves were intense) did not appear to be people that couldn't afford to shop at those insufferable stores.

However, the article from my local news station linked above made me think about it a little bit differently. Maybe the people that shop at yard sales are the smart ones--they're able to make it look like they went to the "right" stores (and I don't just mean the teenage apparel stores, although I'm moderately appalled that I've raised a material girl) without spending the requisite money.

I was raised by a mother who thought shopping at a yard sale was akin to begging for change in the street. I've found that, despite steps I've taken to educate myself and open my mind, the values I was raised with are still there, albeit down pretty deep. Still, this report made me think.

Some of my friends "go yard sale-ing" for fun in the spring and fall. I might just join them this year ... after all, you never know what you might find.