Casting Off Stuff

I've now used Craigslist twice to get rid of stuff I no longer wanted or needed. The first time I used it was when I was moving a little over a year ago. I was going from a 1 bedroom apartment to renting a room in an otherwise furnished house. So I took the opportunity to get rid of a lot of furniture I'd gotten really sick of. The stuff I was selling went quickly - the loveseat I had went to a girl just out of college who loved it, and the fainting couch went to a cute lesbian couple. But the stuff I tried to give away free was a hassle to actually give away. I had a lot of people say they were coming to pick something up and then never show up.

Since moving in, I've acquired a number of new items. The day I closed on the house, I replaced the stove. My dad and I hauled the huge, old gas stove into the garage and moved in a standard-sized smooth top electric that I'd gotten used. A friend of my sister's gave me a papasan chair. The cushions smelled vaguely of ferrets, and didn't really go with my decor, so I replaced them. When I took the old cushion off I thought "this would probably make a good pet bed," so I hung onto it.

I finally got around to posting my 'for free' ad yesterday evening. I have a lot of work to do at home today so I figured that if I had some no-shows I wouldn't lose time sitting around waiting for someone to show up. But it went really smoothly this time. Within the first hour of posting the ad, I had 3 responses to the papasan cushions/pet bed ad and 1 response to the stove ad. The first lady who contacted me about the cushions came by and picked them up this morning. Hopefully Mac, her sheepdog, likes his new bed. The stove just was hauled away as well. Evidently it's circa early 1960's, and is a collector's item. I know nothing about stoves, so I didn't even know what era it was from, though I was guessing '70's. He was only interested in 60's and earlier, but decided to come by and look at it just in case. He got really excited when he saw it, so I knew I'd be getting rid of it then and there. The guy single-handedly loaded this behemoth of a stove into his van. Hopefully his back will still work when he gets the stove home.

My faith in giving away stuff on Craigslist has been renewed.

Weekend in Review..

First off, I feel inclined to share one of my favorite sites at the state fair this year, from the Creative Arts building:



and


(parasitegirl, for some reason these made me think of you.)

The fair was really fun. I've never been to the state fair with little kids before, and it slows you up a lot, but I have a lot more fun watching my nieces on the rides than going on rides myself. (I like the 'Crazy Mouse' ride, which is more of a roller coaster. But most of the fair rides are really spinny, like the tilt-a-whirl, and those just make me feel ill.)

Kiera is a daredevil, and would have gone on the most daredevil rides on the adult midway if she'd been tall enough and her mama had let her. Being not quite 3 yet though, she was only tall enough for rides at the kidway. She ( went on a motorcycle merry-go-round )

She also went on an ( alligator raft ride )

She and Molly both went the big slide at the kidway, and the really big slide by the regular midway. ( (Picture of Molly on the smaller slide. )

Whereas Kiera was all about the rides at the fair, I think Molly was more about the food. As soon as we got into the fair, she asked if she could get a corn dog. It's not hard to find corndog stands at the state fair, so that was acquired pretty quickly. An hour or so later, she said she wanted another corndog. My sister was about to go to the first corndog stand she found, but Molly (who could readily read all of the signs on all of the food stands) pointed to a different stand and said, "No, I want a Super Corndog." So, a few minutes later, she had herself a corndog that was about as long as her little sister's arm and looked pretty satisfied for having come by it. ( Pictures of Molly with her Super Corndog (tm). )

One of the things I really like looking at when I go to the state fair is the crop art in the agriculture building. There are some incredible portraits done using seeds. There's also always at least one really political piece, which I think is cool. This year there were a couple. ( This one was my favorite. )

There was also some seed art that made me think of Chiara. ( Octopus. )

We also went to the Miracle of Birth barn, where a cow was in the middle of giving birth and where I got to pet a 1-day old piglet. After my sister took off with the kids, my parents and I stopped by the Leinenkugel's booth and then sat and chilled for a bit. My mom and I did some shopping at the International Bazaar, and then we tromped through the aforementioned Creative Arts building. In addition to the monkey dresses, there were a whole lot of amazing quilts. There was also a beautifully inlaid wood kayak. Once we'd made our way through the Creative Arts building, it was time to find ourselves something to eat for dinner and then go take our seats for the Garrison Keillor show. He didn't do on-air messages this time. :( The musicians on his show are always kind of hit or miss for me. One of them this year was a complete miss for me. (Tommy Mishke, whoever he is). The other was the Dell McClurry(sp?) band, which was a decent bluegrass band.

The rest of my weekend I've pretty much been holed up at home. Saturday I went out in the evening for soundingsea and ironchefjoe's game night. Sunday I volunteered at the bird rescue, then came home and made potato-cabbage-green bean curry. It was the perfect dish for a chilly, rainy evening. Today has been beautiful. I did some yardwork and walked over to the hardware store near my house to pick some things up. Sadly, I think I'm coming down with a cold, so even though it's not that cold today I've piled on a sweatshirt and am drinking tea as I type this. I think I will heat up some soup for dinner and go to bed early.