Welcome to Mojo Friday!
Today I'll be taking a break from my current effort to bring you all the mojo you need/deserve, because...
A: TexDem is, once again, visiting family and doesn't have access to a reliable internet hookup, and
B: my back is far too tired to do any more lifting for a while.
Please, come join me on the flipside!
The current effort I refer to is planning and setting up a major house sale, in order to downsize our possessions and raise money for our moving costs at the end of the month. Dania Audax and I will be moving from a fairly large 4-bedroom house with a full (both in size and in content) basement, into a 2-bedroom apartment with very little storage space. We're doing it to save more than 50% on our current bills, in order to get us through my current unemployment and to chip away at our debts.
Darling, You've Got To Let Me Know...
So how does one decide what stays and what goes?
What we did was take some graph paper and a copy of the apartment's layout and dimensions, then we measured all of our furniture and cut out shapes to match. (see, those thousands of hours of D&D playing finally paid off!) We then positioned the furniture on the layout and feng shui'ed until we were happy with what we were looking at.
We then took the many little pieces of paper that were left over, matched them to their counterparts in reality and labeeled them "for sale." I then spent the last three days slowly moving it all into the garage. We're going to be selling a Futon, a desk, a large office chair, a dining room table, and two sets of storage shelving. We're also sending a twin bed, drawing table and a large overstuffed chair to Dania Audax's parents' basement thus using up all of the storage we have available to us.
The Price Is Right!
Then we started going through the books.
Dania and I own more than 500 books -- with shelving for only about 350 of them. So we went through every single title, and asked ourselves whether we would buy that book today at full price from the local bookstore?
If the answer was yes, it got packed away for the move. If not, we considered whether we thought we might read it again, or is it was worth keeping for our children-to-be? If no, it went on the sell pile.
The storage shelves are now covered with books for the house sale -- did I mention we're having a house sale? -- we're selling at least 200 of them. Anything that doesn't sell will be taken to the local Half Price Books, so they'll hopefully all find a good home.
We wnet the same process with our clothes, our kitchen items, our tools, and virtually everything else we owned, including three of my six guitars, a guitar monitor, and my entire beer glass collection (we have better ones that match that we're keeping). We're basically channelling Niecy Nash and the Clean House crew now, and more and more stuff is piling into the garage -- so much that the car spent last night outside for the first time since we bought it.
I'll spend the rest of the post-Mojo Friday day organizing the stuff into recognizable piles, and Dania's coming home early from work to help label and price everything. Her mother is even going to show up and help. The sale will be Saturday from 8 AM to 4 PM -- if you're in the Cleveland Area drop me a line and I'll send you the address.
And now, on with the main course!
Mojo Friday Guidelines
If you comment you have to recommend all comments. (in order to receive mojo you have to give mojo. It's only good mojo manners.)
Everything you say may be taken as a joke (so if you ask a question, expect a silly answer)
You must recommend the diary (and pimp it unapologetically)
You don't have to comment to recommend.
You can't steal TexDem's idea (right, like that ain't goin' to happen)
Please, no pictures or YouTubes until after 300 comments. Now, after 300, use a little common courtesy and be responsible in the number.
Mojo mojo mojo mojo, mojo mojo mojo...
Mojo Friday Goals
A. At least 300 different commenters and 1000 comments by 1:30 PM EST and 1500 by 5:00 PM EST Friday Night that it's posted.
B. 100 recommends for each comment, at least.
C. Stay on Recommend List at least five hours (this requires some strategic planning by you guys, refer to guideline #3)
D. At least 200 diary recommends. 300 would be better, spread the word.
E. And always, fun fun fun.
F. Have at least 75% average participation rate as seen here in the Mojo Friday Postgame Show by Hedwig.
G. Have at least 30 kossacks over 90% participation.
H. Overload the servers with recommends, not to mention dominate Top Comments Mojo list. (we do tend to mess with the site with all of our recommends at one time) Also, to dominate the Top Comments Top Mojo we need at least 50 comments with over 200 recommends.
I. That's enough for now. (Have a suggestion? Post it.)
MKinTN posted a diary to help everyone achieve greater success called How to Succeed at Mojo Friday Without Really Trying.
For those of you new to MF (Mojo Friday) we have our own lingo about a few things. Thanks to MF'er Jezwe now have the Official Mojo Friday Snecktionary for a little more fun and explanation.