... as the dust settles

a few weeks have passed
not really sure how that happens ... i do quite like blogging but once everything gets hectic it is the first thing to go

i sometimes remember to read other people's entries ... which always leads me to the conclusion that others do more interesting stuff and write about it better than what i do ... and so the loop goes

have had three weeks of builders and one week of cleaning up after builders ... the house is gradually returning to a liveable state ... we now have smooth plastered walls all painted and tidy ... unfortunately we can't afford to get all the woodwork stripped (the eventual aim) so now it looks really weird ... no point in painting it more when we want to strip it down to the bare wood ... so for now people think we have chosen ikky aged white as a colour scheme against the new smooth gleaming white walls

the other thing that has kept us busy is ebay ... i mentioned our current obsession which started as a vague idea that maybe we could sell a couple of things to start a 'laura wants an ipod shuffle for her running fund' ... (a friend referred to a mini ipod as a 'lady pod' the other day ...excellent)

well the monster that is ebay has grown ... we easily reached our target and it has now become the 'let's see if we can get enough to buy a brand new PC and then ebay the old one fund' ... and we have done that as well ... we have made over a thousand pounds ... which suggests we had far too much crap in our house ... lots of the money was made by selling hundreds of cd singles that i had accumulated from when I owned a record shop but we have had some odd surprises as well

Mrs Steve noticed that people were selling old empty perfume bottles … I know I know ! … every Christmas for the last few years I have given laura a limited edition Angel perfume bottle … full of perfume … it makes pressie buying easy and she loves the perfume

These are not particularly expensive as far as perfume goes … every time we buy Angel or Amen (my smellie of choice) we always get given handfuls of samples … perfumes, hand creams etc … laura uses the perfume and before she can get around to refilling any I get her the newest one … consequently a dressing table full of pretty but empty bottles

So she ebays them … catalogued, photographed and up there before you can suggest that this is perhaps a slightly heartless way to treat my love tokens … a remark treated with distain and indifference frankly … and so the bidding begins

By the last day of bidding the more impressive bottles are up to about £16 and we are aghast at what people will pay for an empty bottle … in the last hour the three best bottles go for £160 all purchased by the same woman … in total the bottles and samples reach a total of £285 … easily covering the last few years of perfume purchasing

Four small vials of Angel perfume which amount to less than a teaspoon went for £8.50 … ml for ml that was way more expensive than buying a bottle … the world gone mad … don’t mistake this for complaining we are just gob smacked that we raised so much money

So basically for the last month my house has looked like a cross between a building site and a yard sale/jumble sale (so cosmopolitian) … and our PC fund is full to bursting

Not quite sure how get ourselves off the ebay drug … the rush of the last few minutes of bidding … the tension and anticipation of the last day of the auction … the adrenalin high as the payments starts pouring in

And you thought blogging was a fake reality … we just ran a global virtual business for a month and we loved it :)