I <3 Craigslist

Thank you to the inventors of Craigslist! The best online tool for communities to buy or sell each other their stuff. You of course can do other things there as well, but I mainly use it to buy/sell household stuff.

Back in 2004 shortly after I moved to Virginia with little to no furniture I decided to spending my days waiting for my real job to start surfing Craigslist for a couch. I wanted to upgrade from my one lousy chair I had. I had found my perfect match being sold for $100 in Georgetown. I just had to pick it up. Deal! I made the trek with my sister and new colleague to pick it up during rush hour traffic. What an experience. But after some struggle, I managed to get it into the cars and into my home.

I have had that couch now for about 3.5 years. Tuesday I posted it for sale back to Craigslist. Within an hour someone had said, "Hey, can I buy that?" Why yes you can! They came and picked it up tonight and I watched my couch go out the door and into a moving van. It was a good little couch. I will miss it.

I managed to still get $75 for it after all my use and my kitties scratching. I probably could have sold it for the $100 I paid, but hey, let's not get greedy. Here's to Craigslist for finding good homes for my couch!

Why Do I Still Have This?

Next week I am moving in with Rob, so of course, that means amongst other things, packing. We have been spending some time going through obvious duplicates of stuff (anyone need a couch?) and trying to sell/get rid of them BEFORE moving.

I have a closet full of seasonal stuff that I barely open because, well, it's seasonal. I forgot that I also packed away boxes I knew I wouldn't open but wanted to keep. I have decided since I am moving in with another person, I shouldn't be a space hog. So I opened all those "wanted to keep boxes". Umm.. wow.

I have found lots of stuff. Sadly, only some of its what I would label "worth keeping" and now wonder what was I thinking when I packed it into the box to begin with. For instance, I found a meal ticket from a rifle competition I was in back in 1998. Seriously? I suppose at one time it meant something to me and until today, I haven't reevaluated it's sentimental value. I have shredded an entire trash bag worth of old records that mean absolutely nothing anymore. Bills from RIT? Yeah, they have been all condensed to monthly student loan payments.

I am not getting rid of everything . I am trying to keep what really means something to me, and letting go of graded papers from college and old parking passes for Anheuser-Busch. And now, back to packing.

Catch a Wave And Your Sittin' on Top of The World

To really appreciate this entry to it's fullest (I am not promising award winning material here) some background information may be helpful. While we were at the beach two years ago, I hopped on a board for the first time and caught a wave into shore. I said to myself, "That's a lot of fun, but next time get something to wear over the suit, top troubles are not fun!"

Last year I got out almost every day and played on an older board we were given and had a blast. The day at Cape Hatteras with Amanda was a lot of fun and not to mention, we got to enjoy good waves and warmer water.


This year I was determined to get my own new board for this activity I seem to enjoyed so much. I bought myself an official rash guard to upgrade from the tank top I was using last year. It does it's job well AND even makes me look professional. All about the look. :)

I picked out a board at the beach and anxiously awaited getting to the ocean. Only, the weather didn't cooperate as much this year as it did last year. With a storm in the middle of the week, boarding days were far and few between. Thankfully Friday shaped up well and turned out to be the best day with waves that were decent and it was warm out.


The new board definitely makes a difference, but it was kind of silly to get used to. I knew how to ride on the crappy board, not the nice one. I took a couple of rolls and missed a good number of perfectly fine waves, but all in all, it was pretty fantastic.


I would like to thank my photographer, Rob, for catching some action shoots. Although it looks like I am in pain, I am having a great time. :)

Sarah's Getting Married!

While I was on vacation something pretty fantastic happened. Rob asked me to marry him. I said yes. :) This is the reason there has been great delay in my blog entry. We wanted to inform as many people as we could before they read it here. Since that was really the next thing to get blogged about, well, we needed to wait. :)

We went camping at Pettigrew State Park in North Carolina near Lake Phelps. We did this last year and found it worked out great to get out to the Outer Banks early on Saturday and enjoy ourselves fully instead of driving all day. This year we learned to bring firewood and food to cook. We enjoyed the unwinding after being in the car for 9 hours and started to relax. We got up the next morning to rain and overcast skies. We packed it up and headed towards Manteo to get some breakfast and coffee. Yum!

We got into town, parked, and I went towards the coffee house and he went towards the lighthouse. I said, "What are you doing? I am hungry and want breakfast!" Keep in mind it's still kind of icky out. He said, "I'm going to the lighthouse." I realized he was just going and so I said, "you are being a poop" and followed him out there.

Once inside the lighthouse, he handed me a present and said, "I thought beach week should start with a gift." So I opened it and found a small brass kaleidescope. He explained, "This is the first thing I remember buying with my allowance and technically that would make it one of the first gifts I ever bought because I am giving it to you now. This is one of those gifts you only give once and I don't want to loose it, so..." I had been looking out the window through it and things started clicking in my head and I turned around to find him on one knee, "Sarah Alice Behling, will you marry me?" I managed a yes before I started with the tears of happiness and hugs and all that goodness. Needless to say, that set the tone for a very enjoyable vacation. He made me a very happy woman. :)

There will be a lot of changes over the coming months, but I think they will be some good ones and I am sure you'll be able to follow along here as I see no need to delay in postings again. :)