I just figured out why I have trouble blogging!

I'm totally boring! I work at my job five days a week and when the weekend comes I work while I'm home and I've totally forgotten how to have fun. So I'm going to turn over a new leaf. No more just working although my attempts so far have failed.

Last weekend my DH (Dear hubby) and I went to an auction. Auctions are one of my favorite things to do. (Good start to having fun right!) Going to an auction is like exploring your grandmother's attic after she's passed on and finding all sorts of treasures. Most of the memories you find are happy memories. You get kind of dirty because this stuff has been hanging out in some one's old barn or basement or attic for a very long time. Yes, you sort through a lot of junk, but one person's junk is someone else's treasure, so handle everything with care.

I'm kind of interested in a set of metal shelving that would work well in the basement. They are actually printer drawers and cabinets but some of the drawers are missing. There is a wall of them (11 cabinets in all) and there are only 31 drawers. Each cabinet holds 20 drawers so there are not enough drawers for all the cabinets. I'm thinking that even if I don't use the drawers and just put boards in for shelves, they will work just fine in the basement and I could sell the drawers for at least $20 a piece. Everybody loves printer's drawers with the little dividers in them. Including me. I don't really want all the cabinets. The auctioneer makes the comment that they are selling them all together, so one money takes them all. Then he says "If you don't want them all, we will recycle those you don't want". I could recycle them to and get something for the steel but I don't really want to haul them. I only want two cabinets. So the bidding starts!
I hear someone offer $5 and the auctioneer is really trying to get someone to bite. I offer $10 doing the math in my head....31 drawers X $20/each....and someone else bids $15, I hesitate and the auctioneer offers $17.50 to me and I agree! SOLD! I just bought 11 cabinets and 31 steel drawers....What is my DH going to say when I tell him I just bought 11 cabinets? I go to find him. I drag him back to see my new purchase and he agrees that it's a good deal, but do we want all of them or just a few? Maybe we could use them in the garage too! We decide to take what we can fit on the truck and the trailer and come back for the rest after we figure out if we have space for them.

After about an hour my DH finds his treasure. It was an old safe. Why men are attracted to old safes, I will never figure out. This one looks rather rough to me. He is really excited. BUT, we are not PLUSH in the finance department this week. He spends the next hour trying to convince me that his life is totally incomplete without this safe and that it would bring such happiness to his world if he could just buy this safe. But we have been saving our pennies to put a new furnace in the house. This would put a BIG dent in our savings and it's already October and the snow should have been here buy now, but Mother Nature is being overly kind this year.

So the banter goes...
"How much do you think it's worth? "
"What do you think it will sell for? "
"What do we need a safe for anyway? We need a furnace. "
"Not many people are looking at it."
"Do they have the combination?"
"Yup!, and I've already tried it and it works"
"Where are we going to put it?"...How are we going to move it?"
"It's perfect. It's just what I've been looking for"
"Perfect for what?" We don't have anything of value to put in a safe"
And so it goes.....

The safe won't sell until one of the last items of the auction. This is by design. It doesn't matter what you want on an auction, you can pretty much bet that whatever it is, it will be the last item on the auction. It will cost you the better part of the day to attend any auction. Since most people love to buy stuff, this works in the favor of the auctioneer. It's really difficult standing around and not buying anything.

Did I mention that I also want to put up a small building for storage? Yup, there is a cement mixer on the auction. Do you know what I could do with a cement mixer? It looks like it is in good shape and not too many people are looking at it. It looks like a lot of work, but it beats making small batches of cement. This will make bigger batches! I ask the DH what he thinks it would go for. He says it would be a good buy at $150. I trust his judgement and head over to the crowd. They are bidding hot and heavy on a (1975) truck with a snow blade that has only 32,000 miles on it. It looks in good shape, but I don't need a truck. The truck goes for $1150. The truck runs great and somebody got a deal. Next up is a golf cart.....The bidding starts slow, nobody wants to start the bidding, but once it is started, it goes fast. The cart is in good shape but again...I don't need a cart.

Next up is the cement mixer. Again nobody wants to start the bidding. The auctioneer tries to start it at $100 but nobody is biting. He can't get anyone to start at $50 either. Someone offers $20. The guy in the wheelchair bids it to $30. I watch the guy that came with him whisper in his ear. I can image him saying...."Who's going to load that!" I immediately jump in at $40. The auctioneer offers it to the gentleman in the wheelchair one more time and he shakes his head. SOLD! I got it with only one bid!

I'm excited and go back to the DH to share my good fortune. He looks a bit dejected, because that means he has to load it on the truck and he is seeing his odds of buying a safe shrink. He knows that our budget really can't handle any "toys" right now and he agrees that the cement mixer is a good buy.

The auctioneer heads around the building selling a whole line of pretty rough furniture. The DH spies a chair that has great hardware, but needs a new wicker seat. He tries to convince me that he will replace the seat, even though I know that he won't and I'll end up doing it or finding someone else to do it. But I'm feeling a bit of pressure thinking that we really can't afford to buy the safe. I buy the chair for him. Actually there were two chairs that the auctioneer put into one bid, so I get them both for the price of $8. The DH takes his chair and heads for the truck a little happier. He buys a row of "stuff" for $1 and before he gets it picked up he sells a couple of items in the row and makes $12....That's a good deal!

The auctioneer breezes through the rest of the furniture and and is getting closer to the safe. The DH is loading up his latest "stuff" and is not paying attention to the safe any longer. I think he is convinced that the safe will not be going home with him.

The safe is next. The crowd has thinned. The auctioneer tells the crowd that the combination is available to whomever buys the safe. I can hear the crowd grumble about how much it weighs and moving it would take 3 men, 2 small boys and an elephant. This is good! The auctioneer again tries to start the bid high at $200. No body bites. I offer $20, somebody offers $30, it goes really fast and my last bid is $90 and whoever was bidding against me Stopped! SOLD! I got it for $90! I didn't think I was going to get it as I truly thought it would go for around $250 - $300. I grab the combination and trot off to see if the DH is still loading his "stuff". He is. I give him the piece of paper with the combination on it and he says "What's this?" I said, "It's a combination!" His eyes light up and he says "You bought the safe?" He takes off to see his new treasure. I have to yell after him "Don't you want to know how much?" But I don't think he really cares! He is already trying to figure out how we are going to load it on the trailer...that is already full!

Which brings me back to why I started writing this in the first place....I spent the rest of the day loading stuff, then we rushed home (45 minutes away) and rushed to unload, because we had to get back to the auction site before 5:00 to pick up the rest of our treasures. I wasn't too worried about anyone making off with the safe, but I did load up the drawers as I knew they would disappear. We spent the rest of the day loading cabinets and safes and cement mixers....
WORK! WORK! WORK! But we were both smiling the whole time!