Things are Shaping Up!

In more ways than one!  This past weekend we were uber productive!  S had Friday off of work and I took a half day off and we got everything staged in the garage for our massive garage sale that weekend.  We set up tables, priced and grouped everything, put out signs, got change, bought bottled water and soda to sell, advertised on craigslist, etc. 

On Saturday we got up bright and early at 6:30 am, ate a quick avocado and egg sandwich to shore up our energy, and then got to work getting everything in the garage and the house out onto the driveway, all while fending off the early birds that kept sneaking into the garage and nosing through our stuff when we weren't looking (no, that motorcycle is NOT for sale, go away and come back at 8:00....).  We had a LOT of stuff! The morning from then on was a flurry of activity and we wound up selling about 75% of our stuff by noon!  The entire morning was busy and hectic, but we were grateful that the weather was so accommodating (cloudy, 80 degrees, no rain!) and that all of our stuff seemed to be selling so well!  By the end of the sale we only had one car trunk-full of other random leftovers that we immediately took over to Goodwill to donate and one set of big furniture left (a bedroom set).

We posted the leftover bedroom set on Craigslist that night and it was sold by 2pm on Sunday afternoon!  Everything we needed to clear out was officially gone at that point!!  We spent the rest of Sunday organizing and cleaning all of the other parts of the house that we'd neglected while getting ready for the garage sale (dirty dishes, huge pile of cans and bottles that needed to go to the recycling center, and general tidying up) and then proceeded to actually start to organize and unpack the mounds of stuff from my move last month!  All of my gift wrapping supplies and art supplies are now stowed away in the new IKEA wardrobes and there is actually visible floor space in the guest room!  We still have a ways to go, but just being able to make a dent in the piles feels SO good!

Now that the major time commitment of moving all of my stuff and having the garage sale is out of the way, we're finally taking some time to a) relax, b) exercise, and c) go out and have fun again.  Yesterday we did a p90x X-stretch video to warm our bodies up and we plan to start exercising more regularly again now in addition to continuing to eat healthy.  We're anxious to take time to start reading books again too (we're both normally voracious readers, but we never had time when we were constantly driving back and forth between my place and S's house) and to get back into our hobbies like art (me) and working with cars (S).  S is finally going to teach me to drive stick shift too!

Aside from me planning to cook more now, August is also the month of Houston Restaurant Weeks, so we're looking forward to heading into town and trying out some new restaurants with the restaurant weeks deals too.  So far our top contenders are Caracol, Sonoma Wine Bar, The Union Kitchen, and White Oak Kitchen, but none of those are set in stone.  Looking forward to some tasty food (and a new exercise routing to work off said tasty food) this month!

(picture from here)