Surprise! Hot and humid, possibility of rain… kinda like yesterday. So more of the same, and then possibly some tropical storm stuff coming. Joy.
Spent the rainy day indoors mostly doing auction stuff. I watched two auctions with good stuff that had very poor sales. One failed to sell anything on my watchlist, the other sold only 1/3 of the items. Both had higher starting bids. The prices were still discounted, and probably where the items would have sold, but buyers don’t like high opening bids. They want to feel like they’re getting a real deal, and they won’t if they are the only bidder. They will feel like they paid too much if no one bids against them. Turns out there is a lot of psychology to sales. (That should be obvious, but the sellers continue to bang their heads against it) I ended up buying stuff at two other auctions, mostly $1 and $2 lots of industrial stuff, or household stuff. There was a lot of stuff that went very cheaply.
The specialty tool I bought from amazon arrived, and it was clearly an open box item. Not sold that way, of course. It was cheap, and in fine condition, but I’d have expected to pay even less for it, if I’d known. I will likely only use it once or twice a year, just like whoever used it once and returned it.
In between the rain drops, I harvested another 1/3 cup of blueberries. I’m very pleased with the harvest from the skinny little twig ‘bushes’ this year. Goes to show that the best time to plant fruit trees was 5 years ago… so get something planted. It takes a while to develop.
Later today we’ll be taking child 1 to GS camp for the week. That should make it easier for me to do stuff, with just one child at home to keep occupied. I really hope I can do some of the stuff that needs doing.
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On this Independence Day, take some time to reflect on how far we’ve come away from personal independence, and think about any areas that you can improve your own independence, in whatever area you think you can. And teach your children well.
Of course, having a pile of resources helps maintain independence in a number of areas, so keep stacking too.
Celebrate what we had, and what we still have more of than almost anyone else on earth. If it turns out that these are ‘the good old days’, let’s make them as good as we can.
nick