Yard Sale Moments - (click on the first word for background music)

One lovely gentleman tried to convince Kate to put her signs in different places.

Kate might have done most of the work but Big Dave did the hard work!

What - you think this is a circus tent?

So, did you know that tonight, Saturday, July 7, 2012, will be longer than any other day since January of 2009?  It is true.  I am not making it up.  Saturday night will stretch longer by a second.  Sort of.  It will be longer by a leap second.

I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not because of the yard sale.  That made for an entirely long weekend – and yes, Kate, I know that you did MOST of the work.

Supervising from my retirement chair.  Thanks SAU # 6 Admins.

Saturday night is longer based on a combination of factors including Earth slowing down a bit from the tidal pull of the moon, and an atomic clock that’s a hair too fast.  This means that timekeepers periodically need to synchronize the official atomic clocks, said Daniel Gambis, head of the Earth Orientation Service in Paris that coordinates leap seconds.   And Kate thought that being the coordinator of a yard sale was hard work?   – Can you imagine being the coordinator of leap seconds?  Of course he probably has employees that take direction better than her mother.

My new learning today informed me that the time it takes the Earth to rotate on its axis -- the definition of a day -- is now about two milliseconds longer than it was 100 years ago, said Geoff Chester, spokesman at the U.S. Naval Observatory, keeper of the official U.S. atomic clocks. That’s each day, so it adds up to nearly three-quarters of a second a year.   And they say:  “Time Flies”.  Little did we know how fast.

Well, parts of the weekend did not go by fast – but it went.  And stuff went.  Every time a piece of the Woodard Furniture went, Kate would ask me if I was doing okay with that………..We have had that stuff for a long time.  The boys had the maple table and chairs with toy soldiers painted on them.   That went to a young mother – I hope she will refinish the set and that her children will have many years of use out of them.  The white table and chairs went to a teacher that I know.  They had been Kate’s and at one point in time had Raggedy Ann and Andy painted on them.  When King Louis came to visit, my sister had them scraped down and refinished without the pictures.  Lou was not that impressed, but the cousins used them quite a bit.  The two bookcases went and one of the lamps.  I wish I had taken better pictures.  Kate came in and told me that gentleman purchased the second lamp.  She told him that it was not in the greatest of shape but that it could be refinished.  He told her that it could be – but that it would never be the same as the owner of the company was “no longer around”.  He used to work with the Woodard family and many children in the area enjoyed the beautiful furniture that they made.  All we have left are the toy boxes…maybe next yard sale, right, Kate?

I had it reaffirmed that people are social beings.  There were some that you instantly connected with.  One young woman fell in love with my Teddy Bear Sweater. …and no, that is not one of my famous sweaters.  It is (was) – however – pretty funny.  I wish I had taken a picture of it.  The young lady fell in love with it.  She wanted it badly.  Her mother asked her if she was going to wear it as a dress.  I told her that it was a Mr. Roger’s sweater – and we laughed.  I then introduced myself as Mrs. Rogers – and she then really had to have the sweater.  I explained that I really was not Mrs. Rogers, but that I had bought that sweater to go to a Rosenshontz Concert where I got to introduce the wonderful performers.  They had been to many of those concerts and she remembered losing her Teddy Bear there on the 4^th of July.

Some of the things that went absolutely amazed me.  And the fact that my precious cat plates that I bought for Kate when I like cats amazed me even more.  Finally, one lady bought two.  There are four more left – all holiday designs and with the authorization number on the back.  Kate did not believe that I would be able to locate them on EBay – but locate them I did.  There must have been some other silly people besides me.  They are there – but do not appear to be selling there either…should anyone want to purchase one, send me an email.  I continue to believe that they will be worth big bucks some day.

I am sad to say that most of the coffee pots are still here…. but there is always tomorrow!  However, my two new ones look lovely on the shelf.  Sorry, David.  Sorry about the coffee pots and am sort of sorry that the man believed that your truck was for sale for five dollars.

Tomorrow is the last day of the yard sale – there is a God!  She says that she needs $70.00 to make her goal.  MMMMMMM – 4 cat plates left.  I need four people to touch base with me and I will give them each $17.50…as long as they buy the damn cat plates.

So, I am glad I had an extra leap second today and wish that we could all have more of them.  I wish that all of those leap seconds slowed time down so that we would have more time to enjoy the things that we so often miss.

As the keeper of the atomic clocks said:  “ So today you get an extra second.  Don’t waste it.”  I didn't - did you?