yard sales and toy cleanup

I stink of bleach. M and I have been going yard sale-ing almost every weekend that we're home this summer. Evelyn doesn't care for it that much because it involves a lot of time in the carseat and a lot of getting in and out, which also pisses her off. We bought a huge amount of large plastic crap a month or two ago that has all been sitting in the garage uncleaned. A picnic table, a play grill, a jeep, and a kitchen, $11. This yard sale had some other things like that for $5 each but Jenna apparently had a free hand with the Sharpies because they were all scribbled on, and we didn't buy them. That sale had the oddest pricing ever. That stuff was insanely cheap and then there would be a rusted up tool for six times retail price. Anyway. We knew that they had been used as outside toys and were pretty dirty, but we did not quite realize HOW dirty they were. The table and jeep were cleaned by pressure washing, but we didn't want to do that to the kitchen or grill because of stickers and electronics in the grill. During her nap time today, we finally got started on the cleaning and the kitchen was a huge nasty mess. I'm not sure I would have bought it even for $5 had I realized how bad it was, and I know M wouldn't have. We' got most everything else cleaned (we also bought her a slide today, and she was given an awesomely cute electronic riding car by a sweet lady at a sale today, so we cleaned those up too, plus a few miscellaneous items, such as a huge bag of megablocks that goes with the set we bought at another sale, only this set is cuter and has fun accessory pieces.) We still have some left on the kitchen, though. I'm trying to convince myself to go finish it up tonight so I will hopefully not have to stink of bleach tomorrow, too, but it's not working really well so far. The hardest part is done, at least. Now I need to sew her some felt food or something, because I need another hobby.

I also bought baby clothes today. My kid's closet is obscene, it really is. I am not the one doing most of it, in my defense, but she has got plenty of clothes that she's never worn. I I did buy three outfits and two sweaters today (Gymobree outfits, and one of the sweaters was hand made in Peru.. which was kind of a surprise to me) but they were cute, different from her normal attire, fall-appropriate, and the lady had just given Evelyn a car that she adores. sort of like this, only a slightly different model that has a much cooler hood ornament that lights up in cool patterns.)

Yard sales are a lot more fun when you have kids. We never went before we had Evelyn because we never bought anything. Now we find stuff all the time and she has piles of crap she doesn't need!

Our house has had issues with babyproofing in the past, but we made some major strides this week. We rearranged furniture, put up a baby gate to the kitchen and fixed all of our doors (FINALLY) so that they will all close. Now, I can sort of turn her loose in the living room without being constantly behind her. She still likes to run to the places she's not allowed to be (she is currently obsessed with ripping off the cover to the A/C vents and sticking her feet down there. I wouldn't mind this AS much if I knew she wouldn't try to stand up once she gets them in there, but she probably would.) It makes me laugh because we moved a chair to the other side of the room and I can now see everywhere in the living room and all the way down the hallway from that chair... except for one tiny corner as you come in the front door, where there's a coat closet. Guess where she likes to hide out? I mean, there's nothing there so it's kind of okay but it's really not the cleanest area of my house. ;) She has a major passion for SHOOOEs, so I have to keep that door closed all the time, as she is not allowed to play with nasty shoes.

All of this is just to say... the child could care less about her actual toys, so all that about buying her toys? Yeah. Why do we do that?