Doing the Math(ish) - Week Nine

In less than twelve hours the auctions for the toys will start to conclude. Hrrmmpph. At present, there is only ONE bid for any of the auctions. Only ONE, and it is the last one to conclude, about 30 hours from the time I write this. Am I complaining? You bet. Do I feel bad for complaining? A little. Can I break my complaint down into mathematical elements? Uhmmmmm, that might be a challenge.

Actually, my complaint is mired in a small amount of jealousy. You see, this past week there has been frequent mention of a certain eBay™ item. A certain item that, as of my writing this, now has a bid of $15,700. Nice. Even nicer is that it still has over six days left until it concludes, at which point 100% of the proceeds are going to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. On one level I celebrate this, yet on another level it brings up feelings I don't really want to deal with at the moment. On one level I applaud The Today Show and Meredith Vieira's efforts (as well as Meredith's husband, Richard) on increasing the awareness of MS. On another level it really bites that I am not celebrity enough to garner the attention of enough people to get ten things under ten bucks a piece sold, in order to raise a measly $40 to $50 for my local chapter of NMSS. Let's see, that'd be in the neighborhood of .3% of what The Today Show can give the home office if their auction concluded within the same time frame at its current bid. Gosh, that makes my efforts seem a pittance.

I know what it is. They are giving 100% of proceeds, while I am being a selfish little person and only giving 75% of proceeds, mostly because I don't have a multi-million dollar budget behind me to promote my stuff, and would appreciate being able to keep some costs down in order to do nice things. So that 25% difference is what makes only 10% of my items sell? No. It's more like they have one item and I have ten, but it made for interesting math, which is the purpose of these posts, mostly. If I can raise that percentage of items sold to at least 25%, then I might not feel the bad feelings.

As bad.

When all else fails

Between losing time and losing talent, I am ready to shrug my shoulders and rely solely upon the blog to host the entire online antics of the project. OK, I also seem to have lost some tenacity. Might be a result of the ongoing interruptions of a maternal nature during the last couple of weeks. The inability to focus upon the challenge has made it easy to not attempt finding the solutions. Hence, my current decision to use the blog for a portion of what I really want to see on an independent site, one that keeps the cold hard facts from the warm fuzzy discussions. Something like that, anyhoots. So, here we go…

One Room At A Time: The Attic Storage

One of those rooms with which I have a love/hate relationship, the attic. My favorite genre of literature and film contributes to why the little hairs raise up on the back of my neck each time I go into an attic space. Anyone's, not just mine. At the same time, the attic is a place of glorious treasure, as it tends to be THE place for storing stuff. As can be seen in these pictures, my attic storage space is full of glorious treasure, as well. Let's take a tour and see what we can find.


Boxes are the staple of attic storage. As you can see, no shortage here. Heck, some of these boxes may well be older than me. I have been known to keep the original boxes from things long after those things have disappeared from my house. However, it isn't the boxes (full and waiting to be filled) that make this a revealing picture of the current state of the attic, nor is it the child's rocker with one broken leg or the shelves we didn't use with the kitchen sink cabinetry. Nope, it's that patch of white just under the christmas tree. It's not snow, or loose insulation. It's drywall. Odd sized cuts of drywall from the various "improvement" projects I've tackled in the past, some of which I actually completed. Wonder if that would sell?


A better view of the drywall pieces. Want to guess what is in the IBM box? Yep, even smaller pieces. Besides more boxes, there's a bannister rail (which I salvaged from a home demolition) that will eventually go up for the attic stairs, and the door to what now serves as my clothes closet in my bedroom. My initial exploration of the boxes found some potentially valuable things, fragile in nature, of which I will be interested how valuable.





Way in the back is where I have put Dad's G-scale train stuff until I can find people who will appreciate them more than I ever will. Not so much because they were Dad's (that's a long story), but because G-scale is really big, and requires a bit more space than I would ever be able to provide for it. In the foreground is the yard sale storage. Yes, that is an old school skateboard. Want it? Send me an email, I will post it on eBay™ in a flash. In fact, see anything in these photos that you want, send me an email.




Finally, a different angle on the attic, with a different view of the yard sale items. That blue basket? That's the infamous 'Free Stuff' basket I set out at the yard sales. It still has stuff in it. Go figure. That pile of boxes in front, well, they are empty. The other boxes are full, especially the ones way in the back. Not only full, but heavy. Probably full of magazines that "I am going to read some day." Yeah.






So, there is a tour of the first official room for One Room, the one the throngs of people voted upon. I'll update the pictures as I progress along, and after I get it finished off the way I see it in my chaotic brain. Might even get that silly web site up and running before I finish the room.