This afternoon I spent several hours out in the glorious weather, collecting the hickory nuts that I have in great abundance this year.  My outdoor critters did not miss a beat, as they accompanied me on my “hunting and gathering” mission. I suppose it is fascinating to cats and dogs that a human will spend so much time on something that is very much akin to an Easter egg hunt. 

The breeze blew gently on and off all afternoon and set in motion the beautiful, huge wind chimes my sister gave me for my birthday this July.  The music they made was so very relaxing and, because these chimes are actually tuned to the scale…the tones are beautiful.  I only came inside because my thumbs actually got very sore from popping the outer husk off the hickory nuts….I must have done this more than two thousand times in the past three days.

Still, here I am, working on my listings, keeping up with my other chores, while the critters are sacked out.  I guess it was a lot of work keeping an eye on my progress all afternoon.  Benson, for one, is dead to the world!

Well, I got a phone call from Jen today.  She made it to France on Wednesday, or, actually, I suppose it was Thursday that she landed, but today was the first day she had access to the Internet.

She likes the house they are renting in Saint Georges sur Cher.  But, while Benoit is working the harvest, she will be on her own, piddling in the yard, doing her art, playing her guitar, etc. On the weekends they will be able to travel to his parents’ house where she will be able to use Skype to chat with me! 

She is already feeling the separation from the world, having no Internet most of the time, and she has only been there a couple of days!

Things to note….she was told she could carry her guitar as carry-on luggage when she boarded the plane in Philadelphia, and she did.  She had to change planes in Canada.  There, she was informed that she would have to check the guitar…at the cost of $200!  She could have purchased a crappy guitar in France had she known that going in!

But, she made it there and, with any luck, will be happy living there for the next three months…..

Meanwhile, back at Judy’s Corner, I continue to gather Hickory Nuts which of which I have an abundance this year!

All day today.  Loads of selections in Judy's Corner.  Here are just a few.

Have a great day!

Well, it's official. Money DOES grow on trees!

I sold my first 8 lbs of hickory nuts, courtesy of the many-year-old hickory trees that surround my house and bomb my yard this time of year!  I have many more nuts already collected and tomorrow I'm going to see how many I can gather up!  I read about the hickory trees...they can live up to 300 years!  Makes me wonder how old these trees are....

I hope everyone is having a great day!  Mine has been, as you can see, a little "nutty."

Nuts.  Naturally growing, naturally falling hickory nuts…..

For the past week it has been really dangerous to venture outside without hardhat protection…all day and all night I hear the crashing of hickory nuts as they fall from the trees and strike the house or the deck.  Trust me, these make a racket!  Sometimes, when Killian (the dog) comes bolting back into the porch, I swear she is seeking cover from the rain of nuts! (not to be confused with the reign of nuts -- from which she cannot seek shelter...we are who we are and she has to come to grips with that!)

So, this evening I decided to take a walk out there, out in the battlefields of Judy’s Corner, to assess the damage of these indiscriminant bombings.  So far, so good…no real damage to structures….but it occurred to me that these nuts are going to make a ton more trees for me to deal with next year if I leave them on the ground where they have fallen. Well, that is, of course, those that are left after the squirrels and other critters have their fill.

I decided to gather a sack of them for my own use…sorry squirrels.  Well, it is amazing…when I started focusing on the ground I found there were literally thousands of these things!  By the time I came back inside, hot and tired from stooping and collecting, I had more than 50 lbs of the nuts…and I have not made a dent.

So…..guess what Judy’s Corner is NOW selling on eBay!   LOL…Yep, I’m selling “wild hickory nuts!” (Anyone remember that line made famous by Yule Gibbons?)

jcarolek ( 2606) View seller's items | View Blog Well, never, I actually was going to have the BIN price on the auction item $12.99. But I decided to "test the wateres with the $9.99 BIN. Typically, I find people do not look in my store first...rather, they bid on the item and then, if the bid goes beyond the original BIN price, they look in the store. So, if I do get a BIN on the auction listing, I'll move another store listing out to the auction site with a lower BIN. I have no idea how well these will sell or even if they will. Trial and error on this one.

Repost -- how it REALLY looks behind the scenes at Judy's Corner!

A few pics from Judy's Corner -- jcarolek

Posted Apr-27-07 05:27:21 PDT Updated Apr-27-07 11:28:23 PDT

Organized Chaos? -- jcarolek

Taking a break from my real work, I leaned back in my chair and took a look around my office. I began to wonder whether I am an organized person or a scatter brain.

My office is a 10 X 12 room and serves as

• my main work place for my real job,
• my eBay headquarters,
• eBay unlisted merchandise staging ground
• eBay shipping central
• my sewing room and
• guest overnight room number 3….

 

I wonder.  How much activity is really supposed to take place in such a small space?

I decided to take photos of my office and let you decide….

is this an organized space or chaos???

 

 

Unlisted merchandise.

 

Once listed  my items are in plastic bags, labeled.

Arranged by item type.

If you want to see something amusing, try leaving a LONG comment in this post.  Since the eBay blog GODS have seen fit to change everything on us, without a great deal of testing (it would seem), folks are encountering an issue when using customized stylesheets.  If the entries in the comments section are too long, without a logical word break (typical in urls and such) the rightmost portion of the text is cut off. (In the old days, pre September somthing 2007, these types of entries would simply cause the blog post to become wide enough to handle the width of the url etc.  However, the borders on the boxes are now fixed, and I cannot get them to budge!)

Now, I can add an html instruction into the comments area that will force these long entries to break and wrap, but it is indiscriminant, causing two, three, four and five letter words without a natural break to be wrapped onto the next line.  This makes for a rather bizarre reading experience.

So, though I have not happened to find nirvana, but I have found a fun way to ensure I don't lose any of your words, and, allow for more normal wrapping....of course I have to scroll within the comment box, but ....  well....I'm still looking for the RIGHT answer.

For now, have fun!

glastnostik

This morning I went out to take a walk with my dog and cats, down the path to the would-be pond, where the would-be pier will soon be (providing the now defunct adjoining association and the new developer of a 178 home subdivision which adjoins the headwaters of the creek that feeds the soon-again-to-be-a-pond, but who actually have no access rights to the pond, do NOT object – part of the joys of owning property in RPA area).  On my way out, I came across this spider, industriously building his web.

What struck me about this was the web that hung not one foot away from this “new construction.”  I stopped and watched awhile, as I find this such an incredible thing to watch.  Then, I decided I wanted to capture pictures of the little guy and the two webs.  So, I returned to the house and grabbed the camera.

As I snapped his photo, I had to wonder.  Was the older web one of this guy’s making?  Was he tired of the old and simply building a new one?  Or was he “moving into” the neighborhood?  If so, did his web have to be “of similar size and workmanship” as the others in the little spider home owners association? To be honest, this new web looked like it would be superior to the first, but, if he was a newcomer, I wonder if the current web owner is miffed that the new guy’s web is so much nicer?

And then I got to thinking of this mentality and how I see it everywhere.  It is in our neighborhoods, and even here in Blogville.  Some of the old timers (like myself) have blog pages that suit us, that are not flashy and exciting like some of the others.  Some of the newbies seem to want to build a “nice page” like those they see here, and others shun the entire idea.  Some members cast off their old blog page for a new one, though the old one was very nice, and certainly functional. 

So, I suppose I will never know whether the spider, hard at work on the new web, was a newcomer, or one who had grown tired of his old “digs.”  But, I suppose regardless, I think we humans are not so very different from these spiders.

I hope you enjoy his/their hard work.

I'm sitting here in Logan Airport, awaiting departure on  my 7:00 PM flight, and enjoying eBay blogs via my wireless Verizon Broadband PC card....pretty cool, huh?

Now, if the flight is not delayed more than an hour or two, I should have sufficient laptop battery life to keep my little old self amused for the duration!  LOL

The weather here yesterday and today was WARM...pretty and sunny but WARM!  (No complaints really)

I think it hilarious that eBay will NOT let us put "like new" in our listings.....especially when the customer's feedback proves the point!

"Can't ship any faster than that! Nice pants, like new. Thanks!! A+++++"

There in some irony in that!

Well, I’m off to Boston this morning -- just a short trip, returning about midnight tomorrow.  I guess I’m glad for the distraction.  My daughter leaves for France on Wednesday for three months, so we had our farewell supper last night.  It was a lot of fun.  I love watching my son and daughter, now grown and moving along in their chosen life paths, truly enjoying each other’s company.  And my son’s fiancée asked my daughter to be one of her bride’s maids next October….so nice…so nice.

After we ate, we all headed to the town courthouse circle where, typical small-town style, there was a one-hour concert on the green.  Our long-time friends were playing…in fact, the band was an Irish band I sang and played with for a little while about eight years ago when they first began.  It was fun to watch and listen to them perform and after the concert, we went up and chatted with them.  They were all thrilled to see my kids, whom they have not seen in several years.

And then Jen left for her return trip to DE from where she will depart for France.  And Steve and Kristen headed back home to Newport News to go about their work-a-day world, and John and I returned home to tend to the critters and laugh about the conversations that tickled us most last night.

It’s all good.  And I will miss Jen, but I have December to look forward to.  For today, I will focus on Boston and work!

I read some back posts last night. I read the WHOLE post.  And I saw a single comment that contained a reference to a "nickname" that MANY here call me.  Interestingly, that comment stated if one person wasn't upsetting dd, then it was jc or dragon.  I was concerned by this, as I hoped I was not seen as trying to upset the dd games.  Yes, I have written about a serious violation I discovered while trying to help another blogger and I do believe these types of games are magnets to scammers, not that the majority of dd players are scammers by any means.

So, I did what I thought was the right thing.  I eBay messaged the commenter...this was NOT a comment made on his own post, but one made on another's.  I apologized up front if it was another jc that was being referred to, and explained my position on the dd games in general.  This morning, I received a very nice response, assuring me that I was not the one being referred to in his comment.

And when I log into the blogs, I see this blogger felt the need to publicly slam other bloggers for clarifying something they read before getting upset by it.  Well, let the records show, I was the sorry blogger who acted on something I read by going to the source for clarification.  If this was wrong, I apologize.

You probably already know the answer.

Have you ever noticed that when someone comes on the blogs asking whether breaking a rule (or a law) is OK, that many comment back that it is, in fact OK?  The justification is typically, well, lots of people do it so, yeah, go ahead…no harm, not foul….

BUT……

Shortly thereafter, will follow a post by an aggravated blogger who has been the victim of one of these, “yeah, sure, go ahead and break the rules” people, and bloggers rally in support…..

Cases in point:

Use of another’s photos in listings, without getting the permission of the owner…

• First I see bloggers say, “no big deal”
• Then I see them tell the victim of a photo thief how to report them, etc. etc.

Use of Priority Mail materials for Parcel Post shipping

• First I see bloggers rationalizing away the fact that USPS owns these materials and states that they are for Priority Shipping only (or will incur fines)
• Then I see the bloggers rally around another who received a shipment in a Priority Box turned inside out and was charged too much for shipping.

Use of retaliatory feedback

• First I see bloggers commenting that sellers should never leave feedback first, in case something goes awry with the transaction after the customer has paid and their item has shipped
• Then I see bloggers getting irate, and getting lots of support from other bloggers, when they, as a buyer have been given negative feedback…somehow, it is always retaliatory when it is being done to them, but never retaliatory when they are the ones doing it…

I could, of course, go on, but I wonder if common sense mandates that when breaking rules (or laws), it matters not how many other rule-breakers or law breakers agree with me, the fact remains, I am breaking the defined parameters by which the “game” is played.  So, to cry the blues after I have become a victim of similar practices by others, or to cry foul when I am fined or otherwise sanctioned for my own rule breaking, seems, well…..kind of childish.

My mother always told me I was a Tuesday’s child.  We all knew the little rhyme,

Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace. 

Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go.

Friday’s child is loving and giving, Saturday’s child works hard for a living. 

But the Child that is born on the Sabbath day, is bonnie, blithe, good, and gay.

But I was never a graceful child.  Much as I tried, I was a klutz!  I was a pure bred klutz, at that!  I was surrounded by family members who were bonnie and blithe, full of woe and who had far to go, some that worked hard for a living…but there I was, trying my BEST to live up to my life promise of being a Tuesday’s child…and falling (rather ungracefully, I might add) on my face in the process.

Years passed and I came to accept that I would never be a true Tuesday’s child.  I focused on the things I could control and let my failure in this area of grace be something I just had to accept.  And then one day, a friend told me about a calendar that could show me the day of the week for any date in history….and I was REBORN!  My mother had been wrong ALL THOSE YEARS!!!!

I was a Friday’s child!  And interestingly enough, though I had struggled my entire childhood to be “something” in the grace department, the fact was, I was quite naturally, the “loving and giving” type of person…so…I was happy to discover I had not let my birth day down.

Tonight, while perusing the “net” I happened to revisit a little algorithm used to easily determine the day of the week for any given date in history (or in the future.)  The Doomsday Algorithm makes this a rather simple process.  To easily do the calculations in your head, however, you must commit a few facts to memory.  Of interest to me was the fact that Doomsday for July is the 11^th.

• for the 9th month, Doomsday is the 5th
• for the 5th month, Doomsday is the 9th
• for the 7th month, Doomsday is the 11th
• for the 11th month, Doomsday is the 7th

Great, so now I know WHY I keep getting the feeling I am DOOMED!!!   I was BORN on DOOMSDAY!!!!

The Army Corps of Engineers and my neighbors will decide....

Today the lady came to fill out the application we have to have approved prior to building a dock out into what will soon once again be our pond.  Because part of our property is in a resource protected area, we have to actually have the Army Corps of Engineers weigh in on our plan.

Now I found this very interesting.  My neighbors on either side of my property must state they have no objection to my building this dock….why is this curious?  Well, on one side of my primary property (five acres) I am adjoined to a two and half acre parcel, which I also own…so, I am my own neighbor…but I do not count…I have to go to the next neighbor that is not ME.  Fair enough…except, why would my neighbors, neither of whom have property on the pond, have any say in whether I build a dock over a pond I own? (Well, I own it with 43 other property owners, but they are not my neighbors.)

OK, so, I give the lady the names of these people and their mailing addresses.  Now, we go through the application which has a bunch of questions about tidal heights etc….this is a pond…a mill pond…we have no tides….

Next, because there are wetlands involved, we MUST have the dock a MINIMUM of 4 feet off the ground…OK…so what?  The lady told us that when her husband had come out yesterday to quote us a price for the work, he had come back telling her that it would be a low dock…we assured her the dock can be as high as it needs to be…..(just let it go…check the box, and let’s move on….)

Anyway, after all the crossing of the t’s and dotting of the i’s we were finished with the application and she was able to turn her focus to a subject that REALLY interested her….the animals…LOL she fell in lover with each of our critters and felt compelled to tell us the story of her animals and their health issues…I guess pets are a universal topic of interest.

Still, I was drained when she left…she had been here less than and hour and yet she overwhelmed me!  I had to chase her down to give her the tape measure she nearly left behind….and I wondered how many of my pond co-owners actually bothered to go through the required channels to erect their docks…..I have heard of NONE who actually even bothered with a building permit…still, even though the application alone will run $200, I’d rather do things the right way….

I am SO looking forward to water returning to the pond!

I had a bit of an embarrassing moment when my daughter got off the plane from CA last month.  She and my son had gone in together on my birthday present which was a lovely locket.  Jen had ordered it, had it shipped to Steve and he had hunted the tiny photos, suitable for placing in such a tiny locket.

Steve and his fiancée had presented the locket to me over supper the night we celebrated my birthday.  So, Jen had never actually seen the locket, nor the photos Steve had selected.  She was anxious to do so.  She murmured something about the locket being smaller than she had thought it would be (and that brought to mind a comment another blogger had suggested to a seller who had received a similar statement for feedback on a necklace sold…this blogger suggested the seller should leave feedback that said, “buyer’s neck was bigger than expected..”  but back to my point).

When she opened the locket, as it hung from it’s necklace around my neck, she had a puzzled look…”Hmmm,” she said, “I think my picture got ruined..” What? How?  I have had the necklace on my neck since Steve gave it to me in July!  She opened the other side and said, “Hmmmm, Steves’s is messed up too.” 

Well, I have proof that the locket did once hold two perfectly good photos, but by the time Jen looked at them, they were nothing but two slighty spotchy looking pale blue pieces of paper. 

Ummmm….it seems I SHOULD probably remove this necklace when taking my showers!  LOL

So, last week I found some more photos that fit the locket frame and replaced my precious ovals of blue spotch…As I did, I had to thank my lucky stars that Jen was the first one I had actually shown the photos to….I could just see friends looking at those sad little blue ovals and saying, “nice photos, Judy!”

Here they are, in the original gift.

When I make a comment on your post I might sound judgmental.  I might sound as if I believe my way is the ONLY way.  In fact, I know that nothing could be further from the truth.  My way IS the best way for ME, or at least until I discover something that works better for ME.

I do try to help answer questions when I see them asked and if it appears the poster is looking for opinions, well, I’m right there, stating mine.  Sometimes I am anxious to get my point across and I rush my typing, which on my best day is pathetic.  Still, I apparently lack any trouble finding and mashing the POST button, so that the entire world can enjoy my typos with me.  But, what is more important, is that in this haste, I realize I come off as being a know-it-all.  I am not.  I am learning just as much as anyone here.

Tonight I ate at the local Chinese restaurant.  The food is good but the fortunes in their fortune cookies are not what I would call fortunes.  Tonight, my pearls of wisdom offered the following:

Human Evolution: ‘Wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints.’

Not a fortune to my way of thinking, but, perhaps an observation of my own approach…for though the world is wide open to me, I do tend to favor the narrower path that has proven to lead me to success….

This, in no way, should be construed to mean that my path will lead others to success or that their chosen paths will not also lead them to success.

So, if I comment on your post and the thought should cross your mind, “know-it-all…” please, just remember, it is from my own narrow viewpoint that I am commenting.  Do not be offended.  I mean no offense.

I hope your weekend has been great.  I was pretty happy with mine.  I have a fair number of shipments to get out in the morning and that always puts a smile on my face. 

Today I got to thinking about cherry coke…I mean the original stuff I first experienced as a kid.  As a 13 year old, I spent most every Saturday in a small, cramped, violin maker’s shop, along with my father, several other men learning to make these instruments, and of course, the owner/teacher.  I can still recall some of the other “students” as they tried to use their own technique to determine whether the top or the back of the violin had been shaped through planing, scraping and sanding into the required thicknesses and cuves.  They would hold the top in their left hand and thump it with the forefinger of their right…emitting a ping of wood sound.  Mr. Gault would hand them the calipers and tell them, "11/64 of an inch…measure it…this is NOT a watermelon!"

But I digress.

So, the BIG thing for me, as the only girl in this room of varied aged males, was LUNCH.  I loved making my violin, but I LOVED taking the guys' orders and taking the elevator down to the lobby, leaving the building, going around the corner and across the street to the drugstore, where the lunch bar was nicely positioned in the back.  Once there, I read off my order to the sandwich maker and waited while the order was filled.  ALWAYS, on my order was a cherry coke!  I loved when he would get ready to make the drink, because he always asked, one squirt or two?  TWO (of course!!!)  He filled the paper cup with coke and put the two squirts of the cherry syrup into the coke.

With my order securely packaged in brown paper bags, and the drinks in their holders, I made a beeline back to the shop where I delivered the goods.  As we all sat, taking a break from the sanding, scraping and planing, they talked of things of interest to adults.  I ate my food and listened to their talk…and slurped my cherry coke in pure HEAVEN.

I don’t think I know where to get a good cherry coke these days…my kids have never experienced the real thing…only the already prepared one….but…well, some things still make my mouth water when they cross my mind!

The UPS guy came by today…yep, that’s right!  On a Sunday….in the afternoon….in a pick-up truck, with his wife.  Why did he come at such an unusual time? It turns out that my UPS delivery guy was the high bidder on my Cub Cadet riding lawn mower.

What a lovely couple and so nice to chat with as they loaded the mower into the truck.  I love the personal contact that only this type of transaction can afford.  I learned firsthand from very down to earth eBayers, ones with a long history and a great feedback reord, that they feel pressure to leave good feedback for sellers, even for sellers who have clearly ripped them off. 

Case in point….the purchase of a very small, very lightweight item that stated in the listing, shipping fees were not specified.  The postage on the First Class envelope in which the item was sent, was 60 cents….their seller had charged them $10.00.  They did not leave bad feedback, for fear the same would be left for them.

On the subject of handling fees…they don’t appreciate being told by their seller that the handling fees, which exceeds, in some cases, the cost of shipping, covers the eBay and PayPal fees the seller has to pay….but they do not leave bad feedback….for fear of being left the same.

In each of the above situations, they simply said they will not purchase anything else from these sellers.

Their feedback percentage is very important to them and they do not want to jeopardize it.  I asked if they contact the seller when they encounter these situations and they said that they had in the past, but the sellers had not accepted their concerns…now, they are afraid to even voice their concerns to their sellers, lest their sellers leave them feedback indicating they are hard to deal with.

My take away from this…..these folks are not unique.  Many, many are afraid to leave honest feedback worried that they will receive negative feedback, should their honesty result in a negative feedback for their seller.  Many are afraid to even voice their concerns to their sellers.  Many choose to use the oldest form of freedom of expression….they refuse to become repeat “customers” of those who exploit that relationship.

I have always greatly appreciated my repeat customers.  I work very hard to grow that list of satisfied customers who CHOOSE to return to my store when next they need an item they know I sell.  I think  it provides the single most important form of feedback available to any eBay seller.

(Oh, and they LOVED  this remote, very quiet place I call Judy's Corner!")