Posted by A busy Monday morning. First, I went back to a store to get a refund on something that I had been overcharged on the day before. If it had been a few cents I wouldn’t have bothered, but it was $4 and I thought worth the effort. Also went grocery shopping for a friend and dropped off five Etsy orders at the post office. Spent the rest of the morning taking photos of things I will list in my store later this week.
I had a bit of excitement when a few of my eBay orders arrived in the mail. That’s always equal parts exciting and nerve wracking. (Will the item be as good as it appeared to be? Will it be broken? Etc.) I opened the small box first and it was the wood folk art cross. It was fabulous and so carefully packaged. I immediately put it on our mantel.
I decided to research the signature and gosh, turns out it’s a Nicario Jiménez Quispe piece.
Born in Peru in 1957, Nicario makes traditional Andean altar pieces, mostly retablos. His work has been featured in museums, has won awards and books have been written about him and his art.
Not surprisingly my little cross has quite a bit more value than what I paid. I believe I could sell it for $125+. (I paid $26.46.) That was fun to find out.
Now, do I keep it or list it??
Hmmm…well, at least for the short term I’m keeping it! I really like it. Maybe next year I’ll be willing to let it go…maybe.
But my next decision needs a little background. A few weeks ago some folks at my church started collecting food for some of the most vulnerable communities in Silicon Valley. I decided to join the effort. So I sent out a Nextdoor.com post and got a great response. Folks brought bags and boxes of food to our house. I delivered the food on the appointed day and sent out a thank-you post.
Then more people contacted me and wanted to give. Okay, I was definitely doing it a second week. More bags of food arrived. And boxes of toilet paper. And even containers of cookies and toys. I was overwhelmed by the generosity. The downside: it takes up a bit of room in our small house and of course there’s the risk of coronavirus contamination.
So I asked myself “Should I do this a third week or take a break?” But people are still contacting me wanting to drop off food and supplies and since my family is okay with the risk (and mess!) it was a no-brainer. Yep, I’ll do this another week.
Decisions on a much bigger scale are being made by officials as to when and how to reopen businesses. Some states in the U.S. are already opening up hair salons, tattoo parlors and what not. The hair salons I get, the tattoo parlors not so much. Would you really want to be poked a thousand times by a needle right now? I do hope they open up the plant nurseries soon. We can order items online from our local nursery and have them delivered, but I like to choose my own plants and don’t really want to pay for delivery. And let’s not forget about the thrift stores…which seem like a good great candidate for reopening.
Hope you are all well.
Day 42 done.
Hunting for Vintage 