Sunny Day

Despite 50+mph winds, the loudest thunder ever, and the Arc floating by our house about 4am last night, it's a beautiful ,sunny, and breezy Florida day. For some reason, husband feels the need to be out in the garage pricing yard sale stuff. I seriously HATE yard sales. The pricing, the packing it up, the setting it up, not to mention the droves of strangers at my house- that part bothers me the most. I'm always convinced that there is going to be some creep in there that's just scoping out the house to see if they can break into it, or something sicko like that. The worst part is that that isn't so far fetched that it doesn't ever happen. :( I have to admit that I was royally spoiled in this department by MIL- we used to go through the house about once or twice a year, gather up TONS of yard sale stuff, take it to her and she would sell it. Mainly because they own a business (car garage) and so they had heavy traffic and could sell better. Not to mention that she would usually make us about $1000 that we would use for vacation money. Living in WV, some people live for yard sale season. No, seriously. One of my ever-thrifty family members did her Christmas shopping at them. Yikes. I keep trying to convince husband to just send the yard sale stuff back with MIL when she comes down next month for son's bday. It would be sooo much easier, and she could even just keep half the money.
So anyhow, back to the task at hand. Husband is out there on this glorious day pricing our junk, and I have NO clue how we have so much junk. We just had a HUGE yard sale right before we moved here last May, and yet I have a whole house full of stuff to sell again. Most of it is toys. Given our budget crunch this year, I have no idea how we have so much to sell, when we shopped way less than we ever have before. At least having both kids birthdays early in the year is nice, because I am able to go through old things and have them ready to sell by summer. At any rate, I tried to convince husband to make poster signs with prices for common items rather than price each and every item individually, but he doesn't listen, so, waste his day he shall. At least the house is somewhat quiet since the kids are out there "helping", though someone comes in or out every 2 seconds and really pisses me off. Can I just relax for TWO seconds? Thanks. :)
We've come to learn that once you have more than one kid, or a kid for that matter, vacation seems to take on an entirely new price range.Son is almost 2 and will now require his own airline ticket. Husband used to do a lot of traveling for work, and they always stayed Marriott. So for several years, we have had enough Marriott points to get nearly free vacation stays. It's been sooo nice. This year will be the last year we can do that (or whenever we use the points) because he doesn't travel nearly as much, and we'll be out of points. The good news is that we have points for some really fabulous vacations- namely Mexico, Aruba, St Kitts, etc. Living here in FL, it's kind of hard to plan a vacation. I think most people go to the mountains, but we came from the mountains and we don't ever want to vacation there ;) 26 years was enough for me for awhile. So we kind of want to do something exotic, but it's a hefty price once you have to buy 4 airline tickets instead of 3 or 2. The taxes alone are just ridiculous! We've found tickets for around $600, which are then over $1000 by the time you add taxes. Just ridiculous I tell you! So, we may end up vacationing somewhere here in Florida, which seems weird but it may be our only option this year. Stupid credit and recession and crappy economy and...
Ok I'm off to either a)clean the house, or b) sit here and watch 50 First Dates. I would like to go for the movie option, but SHOULD go for the cleaning house option. We'll see which one wins ;)