Garage Sale Success and Other Happenings
Last Saturday, we had a garage sale at my sister's house. My sister and her husband and my parents added some of their things to it, making it a multi-household event. Danny and I had a lot of clothes, holiday decorations, trading cards, books, games, and other random knickknacks up for sale.
We were worried that a garage sale in the fall might not do so well. We usually have them in the spring, which for some reason seems to be the more socially accepted season for them. Plus, there was a huge SEC home football game (Tennessee vs. Alabama) happening in the afternoon, and we expected most people to be focused on that. But as soon as we started setting up at 8:00 a.m., people began arriving to look around, and we continued to have people trickling in all day. In the end, we were quite successful, just as much as I think we would be in the spring!
The weather was beautiful, kind of chilly in the morning with the sun coming out and adding some warmth later in the day, but thankfully without getting too hot. I love garage sales because they're a good community event and a great way to reuse old items you no longer want. It's satisfying to put in the work for them.
On Tuesday, Danny and I made dinner for my family's weekly gathering, when we have dinner and play games. We made American goulash, and I made an apple pie for dessert, which means I accomplished one of my October goals! I didn't make the crust from scratch. Instead, I used a store-bought crust for the bottom and then Frankensteined another one to make the top and pinched them together. But I did make the filling from scratch, using Granny Smith apples, and it came out wonderfully.
I do have a couple of regrets with this pie. I wish I had done an egg wash on the top just to make it look nicer, and I wish I had covered the edges with foil for the first 25 minutes of baking. I think they got a bit too browned. Not a big deal, though. It still came out great. We had it warm from the oven with vanilla ice cream.
The weather has been perfect this week, and Ranni has been enjoying it alongside us. We're going on an easy hike tomorrow, which I'm very much looking forward to, as autumnal hiking is the absolute best. It really seems like Ranni has been more herself and more animated since the weather has been cooler. I think the heat was getting to her.
A few other things I've been enjoying lately:
I finished another book! The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black is the last in the Folk of the Air trilogy. There's a spin-off duology and a couple of novellas, which I may read in the future, but for now I've completed the main story. I'll talk more about it in my upcoming post covering this month's reads, but overall I liked the trilogy a whole lot. It's quite dramatic and full of court politics and intrigue and unlikable characters, and I can understand how that wouldn't be some people's cup of tea, but I ate it up.
I also love the cute Halloween bookmark I used, which you can see in the photo. It matches the book perfectly, and seeing it every time I picked it up made me happy. The other side of it that's wedged in the book has orange beads and an orange bat on the end.
I rarely share selfies or photos of myself here, so I thought it would be nice to include one for a change. I was quite happy with my makeup here. 😊
Danny has been whipping up some great meals, as usual, and I thought this one was fun because everything was yellow! He made chicken seasoned with turmeric and paprika, shells & cheese, and spicy corn inspired by Mexican street corn. I devoured it.