Well, it looks like doing book sales at the Caspar Community Center monthly breakfast is probably over for me, it's been almost a year since I did one and I don't have a wish to do one now. I did them for 11 years. A lot of people, when I tell them that I'm no longer doing books sales, they say something about all the lifting and toting must be hard and get old. Actually that's one of the things about the sales that I miss the most, that and talking to friends and people about books. The exercise involved in lifting and moving 50 or 60 boxes of books 4 times during the course of a sale & afterwards made me really strong and flexible. I'm 73 and it's still easy for me to move boxes of books up and down stairs and such which I still do at my house as I try to figure out what to do with the 300 or 400 boxes that I have left. Whoa, where did all these books come from?
I'm slowly evaluating them and deciding where they go. A couple of boxes a week generally go to thrift stores and each time I walk towards downtown Ft. Bragg I drop a bag of books, CD's and magazines off at the free box at the Ft. Bragg Library. I'm also getting a number of boxes of books that I'll have for sale at the Caspar Community Center's Flea Market on May 22nd, these books will be all $2 or 3 for $5. Some interesting books I'm trying to find a home for. I also sell a box of books to a used book store every once in a while and still list more valuable books on the internet and plan to increase that effort as time goes on.
I got an iPad for my birthday and one of many uses I found for it is checking the online value of books when I'm looking through books at thrift stores (yes, I still look but don't buy very many, just things for myself and things that have more value.) The iPad has more than paid for itself by doing this. I never check more than 2 or 3 at a time but am surprised at how many books I find that are worth $25 to $150. It's an interesting game, like panning for gold. I probably shouldn't be telling you this. Oh well.
I'm enjoying being semi-retired from my jewelry business also, down to 18 yours a week and doing very few art shows. Business is really good though and we are making some interesting jewels. We'll be selling our mixed metal jewels at the Mendocino Street Fairs on Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, May 29th and also this summer on two Saturdays in July, the 2nd and the 23rd.
And finally, I've turned a good part of the large upstairs portion of my house into an art studio and am enjoying taking the time each day to draw, paint and do collage work and see that continuing to develop for quite a while. I'll post some pictures of what I'm doing on my flowering pixels blog in the next couple of months.
