Most people hate jury duty...

I'm kind of enjoying it.

Yes, I'm weird. We've established that. Moving on.

I'm 38 years old, been a registered voter most of my life and this is the first time I've been summoned. Y'all know how I love new experiences! Once I was in there, I was kinda soaking it up.

Naturally because I have that Anderson Thousand and One luck, there had to be a rare situation going on. I was called to come in on Tuesday at 8:45 a.m. We waited almost two hours, nothing happened, and we were excused and told to come back at 1:30 p.m. So we did. All 50 of us.

We suffered through two hours of Judge Judy and Judge Joe Brown (cruel and unusual? I think so! Who are these people?)  before it was finally explained to us that another trial had run late, causing this trial to start late, causing the jury selection for this trial to begin late, and well....now it's too late to select the jury by the end of the day, so we'll begin selection first thing Wednesday morning. Be back at 9 a.m.

So we did. All 50 of us.

I heard people complaining about losing two days worth of work. I've been off since Thursday. As of tomorrow, I've had a week off, only two days of which I requested. During that time, I've caught up on housework, laundry, done school shopping, grocery shopping, dealth with the kids' first week of school. I ain't complaining.

I am, however, incredibly curious. While everyone else was concerned about the work they're not getting done, I'm wondering what the inner workings of a courtroom really look like. Yes, I'm a reporter, but a general assignment reporter. Feature stories don't take you into very many courtrooms.  Yes, I've met judges. Yes, I've met lawyers. I've just never actually seen them work together. And I wanna know if it really looks like Law and Order in there.

Yeah, it kinda does. "There's like a judge and everything!" (-- Legally Blonde)

So anyway. They broke us up into three panels. I was on the first panel. We had to tell the court about ourselves. I always hated that part of first dates, by the way. At least the judge gave us a list of questions. All we had to do was answer them. I think this should be adopted on first dates. (Tell me your name, which side of town you live on, occupation and how long you've been there, and what do you like to do for fun. Now that we've gotten that out of the way, what kind of dressing do you want on your salad?)

When we got to the part about my occcupation, I thought, "this is it! He's going to dismiss me right now!"

Instead, the judge said "Have you ever written anything bad about me?" I smiled sweetly and assured him I had not.

The assistant DA asked the same thing....just to make sure. I should have had more fun with that, but....shoulda, coulda, woulda. LOL

Then we were dismissed for another hour and a half while the other two panels were examined. I was thinking Arby's...and that when I came back at noon I had no idea when I'd get to see lunchtime so I'd better eat now. And that I would probably see lunchtime five minutes after noon, because there was no way they'd want a member of the media on the jury.

A Thousand and One.

I was one of the chosen ones.

I can't talk about the case. Y'all know that. I will say it's a sad one. And I am taking it seriously. I am just savoring the new experience. And now chilling on my comfy couch, 'cause those chairs are definitely not.

We listened to some testimony, had some mechanical breakdowns, and I had a bit of a panic attack. Well, the one time I took my purse to the jury boxwith me, I started kinda freaking out about my cell phone going off. Because with my luck, I was afraid I had forgotten to silence it and the judge said he'd fine anyone in his court $100 if that bad boy goes off! So I'm trying to pay attention while nonchalantly bending over to turn my phone off and "OMG please tell me I didn't accidentally turn the sound back on instead!"

Thankfully, 10 minutes later he exused us for the day. And my phone did not go off.

We have to be back in the morning. I will be there with bells on....notepad in hand, cell de-batteried!

I have a new addiciton...

 It is called the online yard sale, and it has taken over what little free time I have left.
Really!

Like I'm not on the computer all day as it is, I come home at night, flip open the laptop and start grabbing piles of clothes. I have two more piles right now I have to work through before I can delve back into anybody's closet for more.

Let me back up. I found it a while back but didn't pay it much attention. Then Cathy says, "I made like $250." That kinda got my attention. So I started with a few things in my room. Namely, the jewelry left over from my Premier business. There were a few pieces that have been occupying space in the jewelry bag in the bottom of my closet. I wasn't gonna wear 'em, and nobody at my shows bought them.

So I drug them out for the first time in over a year, snapped photos of them, posted them online and they were gone in a week. Every. Single. Piece. And I was about $30 richer (I sold them really cheap) and very happy.

So I sold the bag, too. And the trays. And a dress or two.

And then I got an idea. Maybe, if I let them keep the money from the stuff we sell out of their rooms, the kids will get excited about cleaning their rooms.

It worked. Sort of.

Christopher started pulling stuff out of his room. He made about $12 and then he stalled. Catie and I spent one whole evening going through her closet. I pulled stuff out, she said "yea" or "nay," and we made piles. (Her closet looks great now, by the way! :) )

I took the piles to my room and thus began two weeks of selling. Not every night, but most nights, I come from work, snap photos, upload them, post them to the site and if I'm lucky, I get a few nibbles. Then once or twice a week, I take the things people want, put them in bags, put tags on them, record the transaction in a notebook, and load it up for the Shop and Drop, a consignment store where I can drop the whole shoot and shebang and a few days later, go get my money.

By the time I'm done, it's bedtime!

One night early on, about 10:30 p.m., I got tired of the piles of stuff in my living room and dang it, I just cleaned my bedroom so I wasn't about to start piling it in there! So.....I cleaned out the coat closet. Now everything in there except the vacuum cleaner is up for sale. When someone is interested in something, I just go pull it out of the closet.

Bonus points: The money I make is helping me buy school clothes. Double bonus points: if I buy clothes off the site and I just sold something, no money actually leaves my pocket!

The only problem is, when you give most of your attention to something new, another thing suffers. I won't be showing you any pictures of my house anytime soon! ;)