Prayers please. I need your prayers. This weekend will be historic for me because I am taking my love of second hand to a whole new level. I am participating in the worlds longest yard sale. Although I would love to shop I’m going to be selling this year.

World’s longest? For Real? 

Yes, for real. The tradition began in 1987 and the sale stretches across the 127 highway from all the way up in Michigan down to Alabama.

That’s a 690 mile trail of trash treasure (depending on how you look at it). My little 20×20 space in all of that mess will be at Heritage Fellowship in Florence Kentucky. Sale starts at 8:00 am on Thursday, August 1 and runs through Saturday, August 3rd. I’m not sure when we’ll shut down in the evenings, but we’ll probably keep selling as long as their still shopping.

How did The Messy Mom get into this Mess?


The short answer is that the church I grew up at and currently attend is renting lots out.

And while I thought we got rid of tons of stuff before we moved

My popular Don’t Just Drive “Buy” sign from our moving sale

we still had an excessive amount of excess. We rented and filled the biggest moving truck we could find when it came time to get what was left in Texas to Kentucky. In the past year and a half most of that stuff has been in storage. After watching each season go by, having a baby, and moving into an apartment it has become clear that we really don’t need all that STUFF! So, we’ve pulled out the trailer, boxed, bagged, and tagged half of it up in hopes that we can get a few bucks for it.

The Prayer Part  


I like having yard sales for the most part.

You get to meet a lot of interesting people and see your beloved memorabilia find new homes. You are forced to haggle, which can be intimidating, but it’s also empowering and gets the adrenaline pumping. Plus, you inevitable declutter, so it’s always a win.

I am so nervous though. I am nervous about the magnitude of the event,
and whether I have the stamina to run my “shop” by myself for 11 hours a day all weekend long. I have read and heard so many legends of how well people do at this sale that I am worried about getting my hopes up. We are investing about $100 into the sale because of renting a space, buying materials, and gas. On top of all that J is taking 2 days off of this construction job that he has been doing. I wonder if this is going to be worth it in the end or if we would have been better off taking our stuff to Good Will and having the weekend free. I know that these fearful thoughts are not from God. It’s just a yard sale! KEEP CALM right?

The Plan

I spent the majority of Saturday sorting and pricing. Wednesday night is set up, and execution begins Thursday at 6:30 am. J is going to swap with me briefly twice a day so that I can breastfeed. In Texas it was like things came to a halt at noon, but from what I hear, there is a steady flow of traffic all day long for this shindig. Once again, pray for me pleeeease. If things go well, we’ll be getting a new TV with the earnings so that we can replace this one that is on the floor. We tried balancing all of it’s back breaking heaviness onto our media table, but it was too big and there was a good chance that it would fall off and crush one of our children.

Nobody wants that. I make it sound like a charity case, but seriously we could also use some black out curtains for the kids room, and eventually we will probably get a  microwave too. Out with the old in with the new. That’s my strategy.

 I will let you know how things pan (btw we’ve got pans at bargain prices people) out.

Summer Orzo Salad
inspired by Caity’s summer Orzo salad

Ingredients:

The Salad

16 oz Orzo
1 1/2 cups or 1 small package of cherry tomatoes
2 ears of fresh corn on the cob
8 oz of fresh mozzarella cut into bits
4 tablespoons of pine nuts (toasted optional)
1/3 cup of chopped fresh basil

The Vinaigrette

2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
2/3 cup of olive oil
2 tablespoons of dijon mustard
1/2 teaspoon of salt

Directions:

Cook pasta according to package directions and set aside to cool
Boil corn for 4 minutes and slice kernels into a medium sized bowl
Mix all the ingredients into a large bowl
Whisk together all of the vinaigrette ingredients and stir into the salad
Refrigerate until ready to serve

Serve as a side, a light meal/snack, or even add grilled chicken for a one dish dinner.

This is my new favorite salad for the summer. I found the recipe on pinterest (of course) then I went to make it and the directions were written pretty much in paragraph form and there were no quantities listed. 

For example: “Lots of fresh basil, cut into chiffonade (Pronounced the French way—like “shif-o-nod”. Rinse and pat or shake the leaves dry. Pull them off of the stems and put into small stacks. From the short side of the leaf, roll the stack tightly, then with a nice sharp knife, cut as thinly as possible into beautiful, delicate green ribbons.)”

So I appreciate the recipe, but too much information (yet not enough). I had to guess how much to add of every single ingredient and I am not a natural in the kitchen, so I like to have an idea of quantity, especially when I am grocery shopping. That’s why I decided to post my version. That way when I make it again I will remember what I modified and how much I need of each ingredient. 

And while I am on the subject, I often find with these online food creations that the ingredients, back stories, and personal preferences are all intermingled in the blog post, but I really just want the recipe. The other day I was creating a meal off of a blog recipe and I had to scroll down constantly (with icky gooey cooking fingers). The reason was because they had huge pictures. Pictures of EVERYTHING. Add 2 eggs and there was a picture of the eggs going into the bowl. Scroll down, now add a dash of salt, along with a photo of salt sprinkling onto the eggs. Then add two tablespoons of water and I am not exxagerating THERE WAS A PICTURE OF A SPOONFUL OF WATER. It was really annoying. If you were to print this recipe it would have been 12 pages long!

I remember totally botching up another online recipe one time and J was wondering what had happened. My response, in defensive tired mom tone, was “If I didn’t have to read an interjection in the middle of the recipe about how the cook was planning a birthday party for her one year old who already likes steaks etc. etc. then maybe I wouldn’t have skipped that part!!!” 
That was my excuse for the night and obviously I  have a pet peave. I like to look at blog recipes the same way I would find them in a cookbook, but that’s just my personal preference. That’s why I chose to leave all this rambling for after the recipe in case someone else looks up this summer salad and gives up because of my longwinded rant about not liking blog recipes. Huff puff. So, as I was saying, it’s a really good salad. 

***If the the cooks that created this recipe happened to trace the link back to this post just know that I like to joke around, but your blog, photos, and format are all wonderful. I would hate to offend someone just because I am grumpy and in a hurry. 🙂

My friend used to have this sign in her room.

The apartment we are in is about 800 square feet. That’s half the size of our old house, so that means half the cleaning. This should be easy right? Well, there are advantages and disadvantages. The disadvantage is that there aren’t as many places to keep things, which makes organization more challenging. That is why I am super committed to getting on a schedule and being more structured than ever, because there isn’t much wiggle room around here. Being a little laid back about cleaning could turn into a big head ache fast. So I am turning to Fly Lady to keep me straight. I hope it works. So far (as in yesterday) it’s going well.

We’re still getting settled into our apartment. It’s been a bigger project than I anticipated. MUCH bigger. But I know it is all coming together. I probably wont be posting many pictures until it’s complete, and when that happens get ready for a thorough, over the top tour, with more details than you ever cared to see. I just have a feeling with all the time and energy we are putting into customizing our tiny space I will be able to write a book about it. I just might.

It’s not all about moving though and I’ve got lots of photos to prove it. There is a summer to be had and little ones to enjoy it. First off let’s hear it for the red white and blue.

Here is SJ, Z, and one of their cousins at our church’s annual celebration.

Next up we have our 4th year to dress up for Chic Fil A’s cow appreciate day.

Oh and this shot shows off Z’s absent front tooth.

 Maybe it’s just a phase, or maybe she will be a swimmer. She has a long way to go before she can actually swim on her own, but every one comments (her instructor included) on how fearless she is. It scares me a little, but it does not surprise me one bit. She is my little adventurer. I’m anxious to see where this trait takes her in life.

At 8 months he also started clapping and he was trying to get around a bit more, although not full blown crawling.

 Lastly, he still has those baby blues. When Ezie was 2 months old I blogged about how his eyes seemed strikingly blue, more than just the blue all babies are born with. I waited to see if they would change, but as each month passed it looked more like the color was here to stay. Sure enough he has blue eyes just like his name sake. I guess they could still change, but it is highly unlikely. I am going to officially announce that we have a blue eyed baby boy.

I have been employed by major international corporations. I have a legal marriage. I’ve flown overseas.  I have owned a home. But of all of these things, I think that maybe the most scrupulous screening process I’ve gone through was for my Ohio drivers license. Before I begin my rant, let me just start by saying I think it’s great that the government is doing what they can to ensure our safety and catch criminals and terrorists, yada yada yada. God bless the USA. Seriously. I mean it. But now that I’ve gotten that out of the way let’s start with the eye exam. 

We did our research (or so we thought) and found out where we needed to go and what we needed to do to change our Kentucky license to an Ohio drivers license. So the five of us (kids included) went to the DMV where they sent us to another office, which is also run by the state, where they conduct the eye exam. We decided this would be easier to do without the kids so we went in one at a time while the other parent stayed in the car with the kids. We took turns getting the eye exam, filling out some papers and after that was all done we drove over to the place where we actually get our ID. 

I can see J from the window, waiting in line with his big manilla envelopes. Once it was his turn he started unloading all of the paperwork that he was asked to present and after looking it over they were ready to give him a drivers License. He comes out tags me and gives me a blank check, because they don’t take debit and he can’t remember the exact amount that I’lI owe. When I get to the counter I begin to pull out all of my papers. They needed to see
My old drivers license- check 

My Social Security card- check 
My birth certificate- check
My marriage license (because my name on my drivers license is not the same as my birth certificate)- check
Then they want an energy bill, which is no problem. Even though we just moved in we made sure we had something like that. The problem was that it was addressed to J and the lady tells me 
“I’m sorry this won’t work for you because I need a piece of mail with your name on it”
 I tried to be really calm, because I know that they’re just doing their job, but I said 
“I have my marriage license and I live with my husband.”
 The problem is it’s not good enough. They needed to see mail with my name on. She asks me 
“you don’t have anything that you’ve received in the mail?”
We JUST moved here and I don’t know about other house wives, but I don’t get a ton of mail. I’m not exactly the paperless queen, but it is 2013. Come on.

 So I leave the office defeated. However, there was a glimmer of hope as J looked through the stack of documents we wrangled up he found renters insurance that had my name on it! At this point I scoop up all the papers which are no longer neatly in the envelope  and head back into the DMV. Just then a gust of wind comes through. So right there in the parking lot a blank check, my social security card, and birth certificate just go swirling through the air away from me faster than I can catch it. People started helping me gather all the flying paperwork, but I kid you not when I say I would catch up with one thing and another thing would fly out of my hands. Imagine trying to catch a flock of Geese. Or imagine gathering the 5 most valuable pieces of information that you have on paper and then throwing them over a bridge. Eventually I had it all gathered and as I clutched it to my chest I marched back into the DMV. After waiting in line I slam my papers down onto the counter and show them that I really do live where I really do live! Needless to say I wasn’t feeling all that chipper when they counted to three and snapped the picture. 

Ahhhhh! A day in the life

. 

You’ll never guess where I am right now. Really. Right now I’m driving. I know, texting and driving is bad. but blogging and driving is REALLY bad! Don’t worry though, because I’m not typing. It’s been a week since my last blog post and I have really wanted to update, but just as I had predicted I haven’t had the time. So since I have a new phone upgrade I thought I would put one of my favorite new features to good use and write this post with the voice to text option. So here I am just blabbing away as usual only this time I am multi tasking. I feel very Jane Jetson here talking to myself while the phone transcribes. Hopefully I’ll have time to actually sit down and type again. For that matter hopefully I’ll have time take shower because it’s been a while now and I keep on thinking I will have a chance to get to it later. But the good news is I can slick my hair back and my bangs will stay back without a headband. Yuckers. Not quite that bad, but yes it’s bad. 

We have officially moved to Ohio, but we are up to our eyeballs in boxes. I have not had a single moment to myself. So, so busy with all the packing, and unpacking, and sorting, and setting up. Anyway I’m at Target now. I am about to go in and pick up some shelf liner, so I’m going to sign off and maybe add some pictures to this blog and that’ll be that. Well…this has been… fun.

***Full disclosure here, I had fun with this experiment, but for the record I did do some editing at home before I posted it. The phones accuracy was actually, not bad, but I ramble a lot so I cut out some and added just a couple sentences. I never actually said the word “yuckers”either, but I liked it, so I kept it that way. ***