Changing Interests

I tend to go whole hog into the interest of the moment. When I became interested in flea marketing about 6 or 7 years ago, I jumped in with both feet and enjoyed it completely...the yard saleing for merchandise, pricing and cataloguing, boxing and transporting, and I adored picking up the money from sales every couple of weeks. In the first few years, the flea market sales paid for the year's lot rent on our Florida trailer but the past few years have ended up costing me money and that's when the whole process started to bore me.

Today I closed down operations and it was sort of sad to see it end. The people who run the flea market have been very good to me over the years and I promised to keep going out there at least to shop. It's a case of all good things having to come to an end one day and today was the day.

Last year I started buying glass and sterling jewelry from China, India, and the U.S. for resale. This doesn't involve much effort on my part, either in the purchasing or storing so that's a good thing. The very best part of my new interest is that my daughters have shown a desire to participate and that's a marvelously good thing.

I'm thinking that this just might be my last adventure in buying and selling. This is as small scale as I can imagine and the stuff is so darned pretty. It takes almost no space in the house and, since I sell it directly to the customer, I don't need much in packaging materials, either. I have half a dozen selling venues for 2010 and they're only 1 day each so it isn't a tiring hobby. It's actually perfect for this time in my life.

I've got tons of great quilting fabrics stored in totes and that's something I'd love to get back to next year but maybe make wall hangings instead of bed quilts. I've always admired handcrafts and appreciated the work put into them. Creating something beautiful and useful from scraps gives one a great feeling of accomplishment.

There's a time in my future when I'll be living in an apartment and not able to winter in Florida but I'll never be bored. I have too many interests of the moment and, better still, interests yet to come.