A Really Long Weekend

My weekend started last Thursday.  I got up early before it got too hot and loaded up the truck with junk from the barn to haul over to a garage sale at Jesse's. Not too long after I finished loading stuff, my friend, Jay, who used to have a blog called the Extended Table, came and cleaned my carpets. He did a fantastic job and made my house smell much better than it had been smelling in this summer heat. It was only slightly toxic. Next, I packed my stuff for several days and headed to WF. I had several errands to run when I arrived there - things like getting Mom's hearing aids fixed, depositing her checks, etcs. I got to Jesse's in the late afternoon to wait on my sister to arrive from Amarillo and help out with the garage sale - Yay! The plan was to sell as much of Mom's stuff (with some of my stuff thrown in) as we could and donate the rest to some charity place.

After my sister arrived, we went to Fuzzy's Tacos for supper.  My sister had already eaten, but she had a beer and visited with Jesse and me while we ate our tacos. Next we went by the grocery store to get supplies for the garage sale, and then waited on my SIL to join us. We made a plan of attack for the garage sale and set it in motion. Keep in mind that it was around 8 PM by the time we really got going. We drove to downtown WF to get a key to a storage unit. Then drove across town to the unit. We laughed and giggled as we drove around and around in the storage unit place trying to find the right storage unit and then make the key work. Finally we got in the unit, which was packed with Mom's stuff and my brother's stuff. We loaded the truck up. There was much laughter and silliness at this point. Women carrying and loading furniture can be funny. Getting back out of the storage unit place was comical too. Did I mention that it was still pretty warm in the late evening? It was a good thing we started so late, or we would have melted in the heat. When we got back to Jesse's we needed showers and refreshments.  I had a grapefruit beer of some sort, which my sister had bought. It was interesting. There was more laughing and visiting before we went to bed. We needed to be up and at 'em early.

Friday morning we were out working on setting up our garage sale by 7 AM. People started arriving soon after. We were not ready for them. Our plan and advertising said 8 AM, but they kept coming! At one point, people were like ants all over Jesse's garage, saying, "How much do you want for this?" and flashing stuff at us. It was crazy hectic. Then the Otto (my dad) came out in me. Using my teacher voice I said, "Not everything in the garage is for sale. We are not ready yet. Get out of the garage now." I was not ugly, but I was firm and serious. Everyone moved out of the garage (a couple left entirely, which was fine by me), and we were able to get our boxes out and put up a barrier so people would not go into Jesse's garage and go through her stuff. The garage sale did not slow down until close to noon. By then I was hot and tired and hungry.

My SIL volunteered to get lunch, but we had to decide on what we wanted - always difficult for several women to decide on. I said I wanted Whataburger with a large iced tea. My sister said she was hot and thought a taco sounded good and light - maybe Casa Manana.  Are you kidding me! I used my sister voice this time, "I'm not eating no stinking taco. If you wanted a taco, you should have eaten one last night!"  I was actually kind of horrified that that came out of my mouth, and I had pulled rank on my sister. But geeze Louise! Fortunately everyone else hated Casa Manana as much as I do and no one else wanted tacos (again).  I got my Whataburger. After we ate our burgers, Jesse said, "That was so good, I feel kind of drunk." That girl always makes me laugh, but I knew what she meant.

We worked hard at the garage sale until 5 PM. It was a long hot day. You wouldn't believe what kind of weirdos show up at garage sales.  After showers, we went to eat with old friends who happened to be in town. That was a real treat! Later at home, we did a little watercolor, since I am doing the World Watercolor Month - a painting a day.  Then we started over on Saturday. With temps in the 100 + range, we shut the sale down around 1 PM on Saturday, took everything leftover to Faith Ministries and called it good. Toby went to see his Mom and I packed up the truck.

As it turned out, Toby's mom was having some serious health issues and they took her to the hospital. I did the usual Saturday Sam's run on my own, and then went to check on my mom. Seeing her in the late afternoon is not always good - she is tired and grumpy and non-responsive. But she did set up and showed me where she supposedly fell. She is not capable of really telling us what and when this happened. She had two golf ball sized knots on her chest. Good grief! How did we miss that?! I showed the nurse, who said she would tell the doctor when he came by on Sunday. She did not get the message to the doctor on Sunday. The doc is supposed to be back by today. Hopefully he will get the message to see Mom today. It has me concerned.

I got home around 7 PM on Saturday evening. Toby was still with his mom at the hospital.  When I walked into the house, it felt really hot - as if Toby and set the air conditioner up. I cranked it down and took a shower, since sweat was pouring off of me. When I got out of the shower, it was still very hot - not cooling at all! Finally I called Toby and got instructions on flipping the breaker for the air conditioner. It was 83 in the house at 8 PM. I was hot. Then my older brother called. He was on the road from NM to WF and accidentally stayed on I - 40 on into OK. So he decided to come to Duncan and spend the night with us. Due to a malfunction of his GPS, he did not arrive until 10 PM. Toby had arrived home around 9 PM. It was a late night, and we still had Sunday to go.

Sunday found us headed to see Toby's mom in the hospital after we got my brother off to Austin. Of course we packed up furniture and stuff to send home with him for his daughter. Yay! We got rid of more stuff!. We spent the day at the hospital. Toby's mom is better and is being taken care of, but she is old and tired. I'm feeling a bit old and tired myself. It was a really long weekend.