Author: peterb51

16th April 2025

Kelli spent yesterday collating all the sales of the Star Wars figures that she sold on eBay.

She meticulously labelled all sales against the different buyers, packed and boxed them ready to take to the post office.

She had a late payer, so she went to the remaining figures to pack them, and to her horror she notices one figure was missing. Panic ensued, she looked all over the sunroom where her packing station was, but there was no sign.

I even made the same pathetic attempt to find it.

We even looked in the rubbish bin, nothing, the only place left was the recycling bin outside.

This was a long shot, but she did remember throwing a box and some packaging material away.

I was conscripted to go outside and delve into the large recycling bin.

As it was the week for collection it was full, but as I lifted the orange lid, I saw the small box and the pieces of packing sitting on the top of the pile. To my relief I saw the missing figure half hidden inside the small box. I was relieved, because the alternative was to tip the bin over and pull all the contents out, and spread them over the driveway.

Kelli was relieved and happy that the figure had been rescued, she quickly packed it and added it to the large pike to be taken to the post office.

All this happened before the expected person arrived to look over what stock of projects we had to work on.

I had printed out pictures of similar pieces to give her a better idea of what the finished furniture would look like. The lady was interested in the cedar chest, and the two side tables that I had deconstructed from the desk we collected recently.

She said that she would return in about a week with some paint  that could be used to paint the side tables. 

Once she had left, we could go back to our breakfast and my cold coffee.

Later I got on with stripping the rocking chair, whilst Kelli continued to paint the large larder unit.

We were expecting a visit from someone to look at the curved fronted dresser. Just after five they arrived. They were a couple that have bought furniture from us before, which is always fun.

They agree to buy it, but wanted the studs from the drawer handles cut down. I agree to do that, and would let them know when that was done.

Another job for the angle grinder.

15th April 2025

The dogs have a good life, they roam around the house at their leisure. Each has their favourite place, and it’s a safe bet that that’s where we will find them.

Phoebe likes to lay in the sun and bake, that is until she has reached maximum temperature, then she’s searching for a cool place to rest her hot tummy.

Dharma on the other hand like the cosy feeling of a fleecy blanket to sleep on.

They have built in clocks that tells them when it’s time to eat, they also know when Kelli is preparing food for dinner. They hover like vultures hoping for a morsel to fall to the floor.

What surprises me is they instinctively know when we want to take them for a walk. They start rushing around excitedly right up to the time when I place the leads on, then they stand motionless until we’re ready to go.

In the evening Phoebe will lay next to Kelli and Dharma takes her place next to me. Although she doesn’t stay, she’s up and down all evening, she just can’t make up her mind.

And so this is the daily routine, interrupted by the occasional barking at any one who walks past, or the Amazon truck making more deliveries to our house.

 They are part of our family, crazy as that sounds, would they protect us from intruders? Not sure I want to put that to the test. If Atila the Hun broke into our home carrying a bag of dog treats, he would instantly become their best friend.

I managed to finish all the small repairs to the tall dresser, getting it ready to be viewed, and hopefully collected tomorrow.

The long drawn out saga of a low white dresser that we sold to a lady back in February, but agreed to hold it till April, as she was in the process of moving. It got a bit more complicated when she decided that it wouldn’t work for her, and wanted a refund.

Now we do not do refunds, and this was explained to her, but we never got a response from her. Suddenly she made contact and wanted to visit and see what other furniture we had, in case she wanted to do an exchange.

We had a few things in our stock, so I pulled them out ready for tomorrow. If she doesn’t find anything, we would offer to repost her piece and when it got sold, give her a refund.

I also continued to strip the rocking chair, there is a lot of surface area on it, so it will take a couple more days.

14th April 2025

Sometimes I stare at a blank page seeking inspiration, is it world affairs? is it my own mortality? I try to take stock at the end of each day, and try to make sense of it all.

I listen to podcast that try to explain the reasons for all the conflicts that are happening around the globe. 

Society is split into several categories, the experts, those with opinions, and those who think they know it all, but know nothing.

There is so much to consider, with the climate, the poisons in our food and electric vehicle mandates.

I have my opinion on all of those, but does it ruin my life? The only one that I worry about is the quality of food, that I can take action on.

As it was our food shopping day I take particular interest in what is on the shelves.

Nature’s Market as the name implies is healthy natural food, nearly a third of the store is given over to supplements. We do buy our vitamin D gummies there, and I take them religiously everyday, do they do anything for me? I bloody hope so at fifteen bucks a bottle. 

We get other organic produce at Aldi, it’s not a bad place, but alongside the “good” things are the crap, how this can be teased out of the food chain will be a massive undertaking, but more people need to take control of their own health.

I was keen to get things done to the dresser that we posted yesterday. I think there are three people interested with someone coming to look at it on Wednesday. I did some veneer repairs to the top and refitted a repaired drawer runner.

The drawer floor panel that I repaired needs a bit of tweaking, but I have a bit more time with that.

I also started stripping off the loose paintwork from the rocking chair. It was not as old and precious as the owner thought, in fact it was made in Indonesia, good old fashioned Far Eastern hardwood.

13th April 2025

We dragged our latest furniture piece outside to take pictures, there were still things I needed to fix, like a floor in the top drawer and a runner on another, but these could be fixed quickly. Kelli was keen to hit the Sunday Marketplace scrollers, so that’s what we did.

All day her phone was making noises as the bids came in for Star Wars figures. These sounds were getting more frantic as the deadline came closer.

At the end of the auction,she had a total of over three hundred bucks for a twelve buck investment, not a bad days work.

After our ice cream feast we had to pop over the road because a neighbour, who we had done pieces for her before, had a couple of chairs that she wanted stripped back. The largest was a rocking chair that had a damaged rocker bit, and it had flacking paint all over it. The smaller chair was quite ordinary, but there was some sentimental attachment to it. We gave her a quote to remove all the old finish, which was certainly more than we would get sell them, so I need to fit those in to the rest of the workload.

April is always a month of birthdays where Amazon comes in handy, but although I dislike using it, I get lured back with its convenience. 

I’m curious how the US tariffs will effect that business as the majority of products ultimately come from China, as are ninety eight percent of things sold in America, it’s going to be interesting to watch developments.

12th April 2025

We had a busy day ahead, there were two furniture pieces being collected and a birthday party.

We had an old friend of Kelli’s come to look at the long cabinet we finished yesterday. Their friendship goes back a long time when they shared the same church. She wanted the piece for her basement to store grandchildren’s crap in when they stayed over, this piece was perfect for that. So with the money handed over the collection time was agreed for later in the day, a good start of the day.

On top of that Kelli was monitoring the eBay auction of all the Star Wars figures that she posted. With the auction finishing tomorrow there seem to be almost constant bids being placed, it could be that buy all those figures really was a fantastic idea.

The party kicked off at 2.00 pm, Kelli had baked a giant chocolate chip cookie cake that was served with ice cream, a novel idea that went down well with all the family that attended.

These family get togethers run to a strict time table that lasts about two hours, we rarely get hangers on, it’s like they are all roped together, when one leaves, they all do.

Not that we complain, these events are often exhausting, not sure why, but it’s good when we can throw our shoes off and relax.

In the evening, the second piece was collected, this had been bought earlier in the week, but now it was gone, leaving space in the garage for the next pieces on the repair production line.

It had been a sunny day, hopefully a sign of things to come, but knowing Michigan, it could all change tomorrow.

11th April 2025

I had my first look at what Kelli had bought yesterday. Appearing out of the gloom was a large steel framed cabinet with a metal top, wooden side panels and wooden louvre doors.

It was sold by World Market, a store that specialised in furniture made in India and south east Asia. It had an industrial look that Americans like, so she did good. The catalog price for furniture like this is over five hundred dollars, so there a level of confidence in flipping this piece.

The other piece, from the same seller was a tall dark stained curved fronted dresser, that was in good condition, with the exception of loose drawer bottom panels. This is also a flip piece, once I do my part.

We decided to repaint the steel top of the long cabinet, and give it a good clean. There was plaster dust over all the louvres which is a bitch to wipe off. I gave it a wipe with a damp cloth, and within minutes the dust was still there.

I eventually battled on and got it to a reasonable condition to take pictures, and Kelli posted it. 

Within a couple of hours we had a bite with someone coming to look it over tomorrow.

10th April 2025

The first job of the day was to disassemble the drawer from yesterday. I manage to do it without damaging anything. I decided to make a new back for the drawer box as the existing one was warped, which might have been contributing to the problem. 

Once I reassembled the box I was able to check the fit in the carcass. Then it was a matter of tuning the floor panel to give me the desired fit.

Thankfully it all worked and the drawer sat in the carcass perfectly, I was happy with that.

My beer tasting session returned, it was good seeing Lloyd again, we had a lot to talk about.

Kelli in the meantime had driven to Douglas to collect two pieces of furniture that she hoped to flip, she had forgotten my meeting with Lloyd, and roped in Cameron to help her, I bet he won’t want to do that again to soon.

9th April 2025

Today was Kelli’s birthday, something to celebrate, but we didn’t, mainly because she didn’t have good night. 

We then had a postmortem, was it something she had eaten the evening before? 

As we had a tilapia coated in a cheese sauce that could have been the problem. Although we have had the same dish several times before, we had disregarded it, but this time we went a bit deeper.

Kelli noted that the salt content was high, and that could have been the reason for her troubled sleep. This started to make a lot of sense because other food that was high on salt, had a similar effect.

This won’t stop us having tilapia in the future, but she will make her own sauce. 

We had to go and collect an electric heater from somewhere in Zeeland. Our old one had crapped out, so this came up at an opportune moment.

On the way we stopped at a bakery to treat ourselves to a Dutch pastry.

Kelli had chosen a traditional Dutch biscuit thing that resembled a wall tile, I think it tasted a bit better. I chose something safer, a blueberry scone.  I was quite impressed, it wasn’t sweet and sickly, and I devoured it quickly without guilt.

The journey to pick up this heater was long and protracted, I hoped it was worth it.

As it was, it wasn’t. There waiting for us was this little thing, more suited to a bloody dolls house. From its size, I would expect the heat output to be the equivalent of blowing air from your mouth into your hands.

But we took it, I can’t wait to try it.

I did a bit of work in the garage, I rubbed beeswax on the top of the dresser that should be picked up tomorrow. I was concerned about the top drawer, it was sticking proud on one end, and it bothered me. I took it out and checked its squareness, it was out on the side that protruded. I was not happy to let it go, so I looked to see if I could rectify it.

The long and short of it was I decided that it needed to be rebuilt, not a popular decision, but I would rather delay the collection by a day than to let it go as it was, so that will be my first job tomorrow.

8th April 2025

There were snow flurries this morning. I had to drive into town to pay my phone bill, and there it was falling from the sky. I couldn’t believe it, bloody April and it’s still winter.

This was the only excitement of the day, I drove home where Kelli was working through the Star Wars figures, sorting them and taking pictures before posting them on EBay. There were about forty different characters, and even Greer wanted some of them, to buy, of course.

I went out into the cold garage to finish priming the pantry unit that has been bought by the lady down the road. I also worked on a small child’s wardrobe, that Kelli had procured whilst I was away. Most of the work was filling holes and making the inside look decent.

We had been given a cedar chest by another lady down the road, but it had two damaged legs. I also managed to make new ones for that.

I feel like my dentist, speeding from job to job, but maybe that’s the answer, roller skates.

7th April 2025

I had a dental appointment, not my most favourite place to be, but I believe oral health is important, so I button up and take it like a man.

It was a thorough examination, to check how my teeth are compared to a couple of years ago. It was reassuring to hear that things haven’t changed very much. I did have a bit of an infection around one tooth that required attention, but hopefully an antibiotic will cure that. I also had an inspection by the dentist who sped in on his roller skates, a quick ten seconds look, then he sped off again.

Then the cleaning began. The sound of a sharp metal tool on my tooth enamel is not a pleasant sound or feel. It sounded like scraping an old boiler, it lasted for ages. Then the polishing began. I was given a choice of different flavours, I wasn’t bothered, but the one that was chosen didn’t taste like any of them.

In total I was in there for over an hour, hit with a sizeable amount, but as I said, it’s a small price to pay.

We then had to collect a free desk from the north side. It was one of those big double pedestal types that weigh a ton. With a struggle we loaded it into the truck, it just about fitted, then we drove off to do our shopping. From last week it moved back to Mondays, I’m sure soon it will move again.

We finally sold the stripped dresser to the daughter of the lady up the road, although we did have a couple of “watchers” on Marketplace.

Whilst I was having my mouth attacked, Kelli went to Goodwill and bought up four bags of Star Wars figures, these are in demand all the time by collectors, so she should be able to make a tidy profit from those.

I expect there is some young kid in the Holland area calling to their mother “ Have you seen my Star Wars figures mom?”