The mysteriously vanishing iced tea machine

I am not allowed to have a yard sale where I live. No sales. No yard sales, no garage sales, no estates sales, etc.... Mostly, this is because we don't have enough parking as it is, and the streets are so narrow that the curbside parking that is allowed on one side of the side prevents one car from driving east while another car is driving west.

Usually, once a year, as a group we are allowed to have a sale in either the lot north of us or the lot between the houses and the office. The May Sale is sort of a one day flea market. It went well enough the first few years, but it seems that the last two I tried to participate in were mostly rained out, and I don't think there was enough interest to have one last year. I have not heard if we are having a sale this year.

So once in a great while, when I do get a little bit of the house clean and orderly, I find something that I don't want, but I'd rather not throw the thing away. I can give it to Goodwill, which is possibly where the thing came from in the first place, but I'd rather not do that. I keep thinking that I could use some extra money if I find a lot of things that I don't want, or if I just find a few things my club could use some extra money.

So I find things, and I put them aside for either the next May Sale or the next club garage sale. There is a club garage sale is at the end of the month. I have put a few things aside for it. And I am going out of town for a week, which sometimes unexpectedly turns into another week or town out of town, so I thought that I would get the stuff together and deal with it on Saturday.

Only now I can't find some of the things. In particular, I cannot find the iced tea machine. I bought the thing at another sale and I never used it. It was one of those times when I thought that I might go on a diet, and I thought that I might make up my own herbal tea and that might be more interesting than just plain water. Only I never actually got any of the herbs together to try it. I found a much smaller gadget that is supposed to do something similar in the microwave, but I haven't used that one either. Still the microwave thing doesn't take up much space, and the iced tea machine is like having an extra coffee machine or popcorn maker. So it needs to go.

And I can't find the stupid thing. Not only that, but I have been meaning to get rid of this thing for like three years. I find it, and then I think that it should go in the next sale, and then I forget about it. I put this thing aside for the sale last year too, but that was the only thing that I had for the sale last year, and I forgot about it again.

I know that the stupid iced tea machine is going to turn up in about the middle of April. And when it is too late to think about the May Sale, I will find several boxes of other things that I no longer want. And then I will want to just throw it away or give it to Goodwill, but I will fell guilty if I don't box it all up and put it away til there's maybe another sale for someone during the summer or early in the fall.

And besides the iced tea machine there are the frames. A certain friendly and well meaning person who works with my husband gave me these frames after hearing that I was an artist. Oh, thank you. So my husband brought home all this frames that the salesperson used to have in his display area, and they all came in this huge foam thing so that the frames don't get dented and scratched. I questioned whether or not the salesperson should be giving these things away. Don't they belong to the company? If the salesperson doesn't need them anymore, shouldn't they be sent back to the office? But everyone but me seems to think that this is okay, so I hope that they know what they are talking about.

So I have these frames. They're meant to be portrait frames, only I don't do portraits and we don't just have tons of portraits of ourselves that we want to put in them either. Some of the frames are meant for canvas, and the salesperson also gave me examples of canvas portraits, thinking that I could paint over them. I'm not sure that would work. And I haven't painted anything in a long time. I haven't been drawing a lot for a while now either. So I'm thinking that maybe some of husband's photos would go better in the glass frames, only since this is sort of a sample set, for the most part the frames do not match.

So I am not quite sure what to do with the frames and such either. Right now I would like to give them to the club garage sale. Except that someone gave me this stuff thinking he was going to help me with my artistic endeavors. It doesn't seem quite right to give them away. Especially since I haven't even tried to do anything with them.

I would just like to get rid of about half the stuff in my house. I'd like to get my yarn and art supplies better organized, and I would like to get my holiday stuff better organized, and I would like to take a take a few more boxes of books to Half Price Books. And then I would like to start getting rid of the other stuff. Only I can't seem to do it. I thought that I should get rid of a lot of clothes last year. I don't think that I did, but I don't quite know where I put the clothes. Now I need the clothes, and I don't know where to look, or if I was so sure that didn't need the stuff anymore that I gave it away. I'm afraid that's what would happen with most of the stuff I currently would like to be rid of, and that I will give it away only to find out that I need something just like it and then have to go out and buy it again with money I may not be able to spare.

There is a box of stuff in the kitchen/dining room area that has stuff for the garage sale. It has been there for about two months. I was quite sure that the iced tea machine was in that box. It isn't there. The iced tea machine is about the only thing that I am quite certain I will never need in the future, and now that it is time to give it to the garage sale I can't find it.

I'm going to scream.