Shopping Spree, eBay Fees & Pianos

I've been on a "buying things I need" shopping spree the last couple of week alsos. Then, after I'd finished, of course, eBay demanded I pay them their $350 worth of fees for last month two weeks early (or they wouldn't let me list anything new) so that threw me for a loop. Well, crap, I had hoped to go to the Houston Postcard & Paper Show this weekend, but I guess that's out now. They're in a beautiful new convention center just a few miles from my house now. But we have our Halloween party coming up next weekend and I haven't planned the food, music or what I'm going to wear yet.

But I've been stocking up on all of my shipping supplies, ordering boxes, bubble wrap and mailers for the holiday eBay rush. And buying toner, a new Dayrunner calendar, new pretty colored file folders and a little Brother P-Touch to make nice new labels (PT-1180). (My handwriting is completely illegible) I always wanted one of those, though I think the one I got is probably too small for anything but file folders (it was less than $30 at Sam's Club, though, and came with two refill cartridges). Redoing my files is going to be one of my "leisure" activities, I actually like to sort and file things, I had even considered becoming a professional organizer once, but I think avoiding obsessive activities is probably better for my health. One of the reasons I quite my first job as a library assistant was I got all obsessed with the books, I think I checked out as many as I put away. And it drove me nuts when people would put things back in the wrong place.

And with the Halloween party coming up, Sparky gets to do his semi-annual cleaning of his bathtub, so I got new shower curtains for us both. He refers to his tub as the "Shroud of Turin" because for some reason the master bathroom gets some really heavy duty staining as compared to (my) hall bathroom. And his curtain started off as clear but is now sort of a yucky beige color. So I went to Bed, Bath and Beyond armed with the coupons they send me weekly and found a nice clear patterned one for him, but could not find my usual pretty frosted one I usually get for me. I don't see it on their site either, but it had little clear prisms that caught the light prettily. So I decided to get a black striped vinyl curtain and I think I like it even better. It looks very modern and the black looks sharp with the 1950's powder pink tile, especially with the sleek little silver roller rings I already had.

In the same trip I also got a Fossil watch and an engraved antique white gold wedding band (both bought on eBay months ago) sized at our neighborhood jewelers, who kind of hate to see me coming because I can never seem to get my watch bands just exactly how I like them. I think I may have gotten this one a bit tight, but winter's coming soon. We've had out first semi cold front (down to the 50's - ooh!), but it only lasted a few days. Then I took the $10 off coupon I'd earned to the Beauty First next door to BB&B, and they were having a "buy one get the next half off sale", so I bought even more hair care stuff, and got a Matrix shampoo, conditioner and a Chi heat styling spray for like $13 total, yippee! (Just what I need, more hair products, when I'm unhappy with my hair I change products in hope of making it look better. Lately it's been really misbehaving and curling because it's too short :-(

By then it was Sparky's dinner time so I ran by OfficeMax and used another $10 off coupon I had to get an black ink cartridge for my dying Epson printer (it has a short and turns itself on and off, which is both annoying and alarming). And I actually remembered to bring my old cartridge and got my free ream of paper too. And I also spent like $200 on postage this week, I had like 60 auctions close this weekend. So it's been a damn expensive week, I hope my sales keep up, Sparky has been bugging me to go get groceries again...

Well, damn my computer just froze as I was adding on to my want list, so I'm retyping this all again and then going to bed, someone's trying to tell me something... But on the theory that what I put into print comes true, my other big want is an electric piano. (No, I don't play, I've always wanted to learn badly) It all began when we went into Radio Shack to get something for Sparky and, being bored, I wandered over and played with an electric piano they had on display. When I was a teenager my parents gave me an electric organ, which I have no idea what happened to, but needless to say, it was uninspiring and felt and sounded like a toy. I had no idea portable pianos now sound as good as and even better than the real gigantic thing (and never need tuning!). So that started my obsession earlier this summer. And since then I've been researching and studying and even doing finger exercises. I've always been a closet piano junkie, but never got to take lessons. I did guitar instead, and never did well at it. I also have always wanted to play drums. But a guitar was more practical in my parent's opinion. And it was the 70's and guitars were "cool". But I completely sucked at playing them. I've always been more of a percussion person anyway.

So I read and researched and even went to the local music store where I got the $5000 standup sales pitch and was told that Yamaha pianos were junk, which actually made me want one more, damn old fart salesman (he was pushing Rolands). My initial choice was a Yamaha 88 key electric piano, which I've been able to play with regularly at Best Buy and Sam's while Sparky did his DVD and big screen TV shopping. It's really a gorgeous sounding thing, with weighted keys, lots of voices and bells and whistles. But I soon realized it's WAY too big for the area I want to use it in, and then began thinking perhaps a synthesizer/arranger keyboard would probably be more fun and I could hook it up to my computer (and it would fit on my desk). So I've chosen a mid-priced 61 key Yamaha synthesizer (which costs twice what the piano cost) and have been yearning after it. It's basically going to be my birthday gift to myself this year, but I don't want to wait till January. For one thing the one I picked is last year's model and is in limited supply now, this year's model is also great but it's $500 more. But with my current computer mutiny (and my promise to never open another credit account ;-) I'm trying to restrain myself from wishing out loud too much. So we'll see if my "putting it into writing" theory works, hey, it got me a car ;-)

Posted by Morticia at October 21, 2004 03:21 AM