The Consignment Blues

Yes, it's time for the Consignment Blues! The tags system for the big February sale (Spring 2010) closed today before I could go through my kids' shoes this afternoon and get some more pairs to add to the sale. The sale is already full at 33,000 items. I really hate having to have all the final, detailed tags written for a consignment sale that does not take place until February 20th. What happened to doing it at the last minute like you are supposed to?


I participate in this big Divine Consign sale twice a year, although I skipped it for two seasons this past year. Bliss not having to do it. Had plenty of other things to do that were more fun. Even doing it this year will be hard--I will have to drop off the night before, which I hate, because Girl Scout World Thinking Day, which is the day of the daytime drop off, is the 20th. Since I am in charge of that for our troop I guess I had better go to Thinking Day, huh?

I hate the night before drop off because a lot of the working people come then and it's pandemonium. Plus most of the stuff isn't there so you can't case the place to see if they have anything you want to come back and try to get. I prefer to drop off first thing in the morning at the morning drop off, but that is not happening this year. I could make my husband do it (others have) but he is probably going to have to go with me anyway the night before because I can't carry the damned Lego table. Believe me, in this economy, he will not be the only man there. And so I guess we will go together. We could make it a family affair but that's a bad idea because then the girls will want to pull their toys and other items out of the sale, so they have to be smuggled out of the house sometimes. They already decided they won't let me sell the damn Barbies!

Last season I just couldn't handle the stress of staying up half the night doing tags, ironing used clothes etc so I didn't participate in the big sale. (I guess I'd rather stay up half the night and blog). But the clothes, toys, shoes and miscellaneous crap piled up and up toward the ceiling of my husband's office, and it was time to say goodbye.

In the past I have done pretty well from this Consignment Sale (I mean, $500 to $600 for selling a bunch of used kids' toys, clothing and equipment, without having to have a garage sale here at the house). Well, I had to basically DUMP a lot of really nice winter things at Once Upon a Child this winter since I missed the fall sale, and I know I got ripped off, so this time I am determined to do the f****** sale, come hell or high water. I mean, OUaC gave me $2.50 for dresses they are selling for $10 each!! That sucks! I could have made $7 on those dresses through consignment and believe me, people, when you have twin girls it adds up.

Can you tell I'm cheap? Can you tell that I should be in retail?

Couldn't help it though. In August when it was time to get ready for the fall and winter sale, Amelia could still wear her winter clothes from the prior years. Go figure. And it's really hard to get kids to try on winter clothes when it is 100 degrees outside.

So now I am trying to do the Consignment Sale again to make a little extra money and get rid of all these clothes that Amelia has now outgrown. Miranda outgrows clothes first, then passes them to Amelia. We do Hand Me Ups to the Older Twin. Amelia has both new clothes and secondhand clothes, so for a tom boy who isn't that interested in clothes, she is a regular little clothes horse. Miranda usually only has secondhand clothes if they came that way to begin with, but I usually only buy secondhand clothes for Miranda, because Amelia will get them all eventually anyway.

Yes, having identical IVF twins who are two different sizes is interesting indeed. No one else has this issue. We are unique!!! The one pair of identical IVF twins that I have met in 10 years look identical and are the same size. What a concept. When we would take A and M out as babies people would say, "But one is bigger than the other!" Like we didn't know that already. My husband would look at them, act surprised and say, "But they were the same size when we left the house!!!"

(OK, he didn't really say that; he just wanted to. But he isn't as rude as all those other people were. Now they just say, "they're not twins, are they???" When I tell them that they are indeed twins, and even identical twins, they just look at me like I must be lying).

Oh, you twins parents out there will appreciate this one if you haven't already heard it: What do you say when you have boy-girl twins and a stranger asks if they are identical? "No, he has a penis!!!" My kids, at least, think this is hysterically roll-on-the-gound funny, but then any joke with the word "penis" or "balls" in it gets them going right now. It's fun to be 10.

Well, back to Consignment World. These consignors are SERIOUS. I mean, these ladies are the Nazis of the Consignment World. They are very nice in person but they have ice water in their veins. If you present them with any merchandise that has stains, rips, tears, etc. they can issue a strike against you. Three strikes and you are out!!! Then, no more Consignment for you! (doesn't this remind you of Seinfeld, seriously?) Since my eyesight is not so great any more, the only thing the strike system does for me is strike terror in my heart. If I get thrown out of the Big Consignment Sale, how else am I going to get top dollar for all my used crap???

And I would never, ever, ever try to get someone to buy something from me secondhand that isn't in perfect, pristine, like-new condition, as if the orginal tag were just removed and it was waiting all this time just for that one particular buyer who has come to visit the House of Liz, the designer store for barely used children's merchandise.

I mean, give me a break!

Well, I wouldn't try to pass off stained merchandise at this sale on purpose--the lighting is too good. I used to pass off all kinds of stained junk at the Lake Cities Mothers of Multiples Sale but that one was held in a parking garage. As far as I am concerned, everything is sold "as is, no refunds."

Everything for this Consignment Sale has to be washed, ironed, and hung a specific way on a wire hanger with the printed tags that have no written additions on them and are printed on a specific weight of WHITE cardstock. Don't you dare use any blue cardstock to make your crap stand out from everyone else's crap. And don't use a laser printer either--they don't like the way the bar codes come out. And Don't you dare put a battery operated toy in the sale without changing the batteries! They will check the batteries before the sale and if they find that your toy is not working, they will pull it. (It is beside the point that once the sale starts all the obnoxious kiddos playing with your toy will run the battery down, then it will get pulled and it will be coming back to your house! And if you want to sell it the next time you need to add--guess what?-NEW batteries!)

You would think we were selling precious metals or something at these sales. The competition for spaces in line to purchase is awesome. Shopping at it is extremely stressful--you just load up a laundry basket as quickly as you can and start going through the stuff more carefully on the side.

This year with so many people out of work, the breakdown shift (usually reserved for Dads and Strong People Who Can Break Down Clothing Racks Without Breaking a Sweat)--well, this shift filled up the FIRST day in a few hours. (If you or your hubby works Breakdown you get to shop FIRST at the sale--it's the only way in the past they could get anyone to do it because it is quite the job).

I volunteered a few years ago to get a pass so I could go in a bit earlier than the rank and file Consignors (sale opens to the public after the consignors have gone through it). Well, I had lots of fun organizing old baby toys and such and surreptitiously casing the joint for clothing for my older kids. I did go and shop and I did buy a bunch of used crap, most of which we are just now getting rid of. I am not sure that I am going to shop this year though--I find I do better if I just buy really nice brands at 40% off and then re-sell in Consignment. The used stuff that I get there is just too worn out by the time that I am done with it because of our Hand Me Up system.

So I am not volunteering. I am just trying to get psyched to iron a bunch of used clothing that I didn't ever iron when the kids were actually wearing it!!

So I wasted my time doing the Barbies (who still aren't completely done)--should have done shoes instead. I also abandoned the Beanie Babies but I found a place that will take Beanie Babies but is generally paying between fifty cents and a dollar for most of them, even the older ones. Interestingly, they are paying between $3 and $5 for the plush ones that I had years ago for the girls when they were babies (these were unloaded a long time ago). There are a few Beanie Babies worth more, but not many. I might have one that they are paying $60 for so I wonder if I could ebay it and turn it into college tuition? Also, I wonder if they would notice if I cut the wings off my Quackers (worth $1) to turn him into the wingless version (worth $200)???

Of course the Beanie option assumes that all the hangtags are attached and undamaged, so parents, don't ever take the tags off any stuffed animals that you buy!!! Especially TY products!!!

OK, hope I haven't bored you to tears today, but there's nothing all that funny about ironing used clothes for a consignment sale when you have a law degree. It's just pathetic. The things I do so I can be a stay at home mom!

Pleasant Valley Mom

Bad Hair Day Barbies

OK, so why am I such a fish out of water out here in Pleasant Valley? It's a nice enough place. Good schools, lots of churches. A little shopping, and even a few trees. What's wrong with that?

I think it's because I became a stay at home mom very suddenly, and didn't really mean at first to give up my career. So I spent the first six months telling anyone that I was introduced to that I was an attorney. This either intimidated or disgusted most of them, and of course I got the, "but you don't LOOK like an attorney!" exclamation that I have gotten all my life. Of course, it's hard to look like much of anything when there is baby spit up on your clothes or you haven't had a shower in two days (right, new moms?) Add to that being a twin mom of twins with some medical complications and no, I didn't look much like an attorney, did I???

I am overeducated for a mom, but so is half of Pleasant Valley, especially in my fancy neighborhood. We have former CPAs who serve as Girl Scout cookie moms. Former marketing executives run church luncheons and work on their kids' kindergarten projects (and sometimes their kids' high school projects too!) That kind of thing. But I was SOMEBODY academically. Great college, top grades. Top ten law school out of state. Phi Beta Kappa. In lots of honoraries with Greek Letters. Even as an attorney I am a pointy headed geek (this was one attorney's nickname for me). I am Detail-Oriented. I am told I am not a Big Picture Person (ever been told that at work)? I don't believe this--I just believe that because I am so Detail-Oriented and can't shut up about it, people THINK I'm not a Big Picture Person.

OK, so now here I am in Pleasant Valley, an attorney (I refuse to say "former attorney" because I AM still an attorney, just a non-practicing one). Guess what I did yesterday? I played with Bad Hair Day Barbies.

It is Consignment Sale time, and now I am regretting all the things that I dumped on charity for free in December. The truth is I am at heart a Scot and that mean's I'm cheap. I like giving to charity as long as it's something I can't wring any cash from. Well, in December I was desperate to move one of my daughters to her own room (so that at age 10 they could both learn to maintain rooms, put away clothes, etc. and I wouldn't have to do it all the time). So I got rid of LOTS of stuff in her room and in my husband's warehouse....excuse me, office. Stuff I should have held on to for Consignment.

We have a huge Consignment Sale here in Pleasant Valley called Divine Consign (yes, they had a competition for the name and some marketing executive mom probably won). I have made a lot of money from this sale in the past but it's a real pain in the tail to consign in. You have to type up tags that are run on a particular kind of cardstock, describing your lovely used items. Everything in like new, pristine condition. No stains, tears or rips, or you will get THREE STRIKES and be out of the consignment world forever. Working batteries in all your toys. You get the idea. It is a great sale to shop and it is great to get those checks, but getting ready for it is very labor intensive. The worst part is the part you have to do anyway if you have kids--clean out all the closets and find all the kid crap you can live without. And then tag it and secretly spirit it out of the house before the kids find out. I always tell them it's in the attic. And sometimes it really is, and I just THINK I sold it the last time.

Yes, that stupid Lego table that is impossible to lift is in fact STILL up there in the attic, and I guess I am going to have to bite the bullet and strain my back or break my ankle or something to take it to consignment and get rid of it. Maybe Once Upon a Child would take it? Then I could get my husband to take it! That's where I got it from. I got it years ago when I thought I was going to get my girls lots of Unisex toys so they could learn to use legos and become engineers and meet lots of guys (the best way to meet guys is to become an engineer or a computer geek. If you become a lawyer you also meet guys, but a higher percentage of them are jerks. And it requires more education to become a lawyer, so you meet even more jerks that way.)

Well, the legos didn't work out and so I turned the top upside down and for years they used it for Barbies. Now they have American Girl dolls and Zhu Zhu pets and, because they are in the 4th Grade, not any real time to actually play with anything, so the girls told me I could sell the Barbies. Even the Barbie house!!!

Getting the Barbie House and convincing my husband to buy it years ago was a major ordeal (original price was $120, got it for $80, this is the type of trivia my mind is cluttered with). He had to go and get it after work and he got the last one with a coupon. I got a second one from a friend a few years ago and for a while we had dueling Barbie homes( if you put them together then in the middle you had a Renaissance courtyard kind of thing going on), But they were huge, so we sold one of them at consignment the last time.

I am trying to decide if in this economy I dare put $50 on the Barbie House, because I only get 2/3 at Consignment. But it might still sell even though it is not Christmas. Some idiot will pay $50 for a used Barbie House in great shape; I would. After all, it would save you $30 to $60 long term, right? And then you can re-sell it in Consignment if your kids don't ruin it. This is the kind of trivia my mind is cluttered with.

Anyway, I am now sorting out the Barbies and the clothes, and most of them are having a Bad Hair Day. So when I can I am brushing and fixing up the hair and rinsing it out in water when it is straight, and I have about ten naked Barbie dolls on the drying rack in the downstairs bathroom. It looks like a Barbie Spa. Then, of course, because there are about a million of the little devils and about two million evening dresses (our Barbies were very fashionable), I can't finish in one day. So now the girls have seen them sitting out on a table, and now they are changing their minds about selling them. Plus I still have to buy big ziplocks to put them in, etc. etc. and iron some of the clothes and fix them up so that they look like new and I can charge more money for them. I would like to get them looking good enough that I could put $8 to $9 each on them without people laughing at me. Most of them cost $17 to $25 NIB (New in Box) and I want some of my money back.

So, Bad Hair Day Barbies. This is what my life is coming to. And I can tell you, Mattel makes really cheap hair. Some of these gals have barely been played with and spent most of their lives on plastic Barbie couches looking ornamental, and they still have the frizzies. My own Barbies from 30 to 40 years ago (some were antiques) look a whole lot better and they were played with a lot more.

My girls never really got into Barbies, other than acquiring them. But the LOVE the American Girl Dolls, which I am afraid is my secret (and not so secret) obsession too. I have had to quit my ebay addiction again. My mom sent me some money for my birthday for clothes and I did spend it on clothes--discontinued clothes for American Girl dolls! I am truly obsessed, and I really shouldn't be spending my money on such things, so I have had to quit for a while. But not before I got both Kaya's Jingle Dress and the Pow Wow Dress for Today. Ok, what's a bored lawyer to do? I used to collect Fostoria American glassware (want to buy some???) Now I collect doll clothes. For my kids to play with. How sick is that?????

So, back to my adventures with Bad Hair Day Barbies and Consignment Mania. See you soon! Let me know if anyone is out there reading or if I am just being self-indulgent as usual.

Pleasant Valley Mom

Pleasant Valley Mom Blog, Part I

OK, everyone says I need to blog. Me, the technophile. But I do like to write, and I think my few online friends are getting tired of reading my long-winded and incomprehensible emails. The emails exhaust them! They wonder why I have the time to write them.

Let me introduce myself. I am a Pleasant Valley Mom. I was, and still am, an attorney (but please, no requests for legal advice). I worked for 15 years in the corporate world before becoming a Pleasant Valley mom, which happened when I had twins with medical complications. We moved from the great and glorious city of Oz, which I adored, to Pleasant Valley, the BURBS.

I cried the day we signed the contract for the $300,000 plus monstrosity of a house. I had told myself for years that I wanted a big house, a house on a hill. Well, that day was here. The house was even on a hill, which is unusual for this part of the country. But I cried and cried. The builder representative in the model home didn't know what to do. He even said, "you know, you can keep looking. You don't have to buy this house." But one day of house hunting with infant twins, one on a monitor, had done me in. My husband wanted a proper house. We needed a yard for the kids , right now! (kids who would not walk for at leat four more months). My mom thought we should buy a home. I had just lost my job, but look, with the miracle of creative financing, we could still buy a home that we could afford on ONE income! Even though I hadn't even put my townhome on the market, since it was in my name, this house could be in my husband's name! (so now, with one stroke, I lost my career AND my house and moved into someone else's house).

My neighbors in our lovely little townhome neighborhood said we didn't want a house. We didn't want the upkeep. We didn't need the commute. We didn't need the expense. We should raise our kids in the nice little community where we were, which was mostly retired people. (Even they moved away two years later).

My head said we shouldn't do this thing. But my heart said, look, a new house! No more old plumbing! No more Falling Down Manor! (This was our nickname for the old house).

Look, great schools! No trees, but they will grow!!! A yard! Space for all my stuff. No more rented storage off site for my collectibles. Lots of room for all of our furniture. We can each have our own office! No more sharing an office was a big deal for us because it was crowded in there.

We can afford it. We will manage. I will probably go back to work soon anyway. I won't be one of those SUBURBAN MOMS!!!

Well, ten years later, guess what???? I'm still an attorney but I am on inactive status (meaning I don't practice law and I don't have to pay expensive bar dues). I have tried a few odd jobs (some of them really odd, but I will go into that later).

And I sometimes HATE it out here. Which is why I call it Pleasant Valley. Remember the Monkey's song, "Another Pleasant Valley Sunday, here in Status Symbol Land" ? Well, that's where I live.

But I don't belong here. Someone let me out!!!!!

And you will find out why I don't belong here.... next time.

Pleasant Valley Mom, signing off.