May 17th, 2012
Volume VIII, Issue 3

I hope to see quite a few of you next week when I am teaching a course on sourcing at eBay on Location in Denver, Colorado on Friday, May 25th. How fun! The title of the course is What Do I Sell on eBay? My favorite subject .

Click here to learn more.

I am also really pleased that eBay radio has invited me back to Las Vegas to speak at their Ninth Anniversary Party. I will be in Las Vegas June 20th and 21st so hope to see some of you at either event.

Click here to learn more.

 

You may remember me talking about our crazy plans for Saturday, Cinco de Mayo (May 5th). At 7 am we took Houston to the high school so that he could get on a bus to go to La Verne for a JV tournament, then we dropped off Indy at 8 am in La Quinta because she was chosen for math field day.

Then my dad and I drove to La Verne to watch the JV game against Bonita High. We got there at 10:15; just 15 minutes late and the game had not started because there was no umpire. It was the final championship game of a tournament. Really? We waited until 11 am for the game to start and Houston played super well. We got to see him make a few plays and get a hit and then we had to jump in the car at noon and head back to Palm Desert to see Indy's first piano recital. Yikes!

My dad and I were super glad that even though we only got to see an hour of the game, we did get to see Houston do well. In fact, after that game, Houston was named JV player for the week! We are all so proud. What an honor for a Freshman.

Congratulations to Houston Wilson for being selected as Player of the Week. Houston's hitting has really been coming along lately and he went 2 for 3 against Bonita on Saturday. He also added two nice defensive plays, one to start a double play and the other on a ball hit down the line where he made a backhand stop and a strong throw to nail the runner.

My dad and I had been hoping that the game would have ended on time so that Houston could have gone with us to Indy's first recital, but it wasn't to be. We drove back super fast to the desert and arrived to the studio 15 minutes prior to the recital. Indy was just arriving and looked beautiful--though a little nervous!

Here she is in black and white in front of the black and white piano!

Luckily, the Bash family brought Houston straight to the recital and because Indy was 16th out of 22 students, Houston got to see her play! How many baseball tournaments has that poor girl sat through?

Indy got to the front of the room, picked up the mike and said with exceptional composure, "My name is Indiana, I am a 7th grader and I have only been playing piano for about a year. An interesting fact about me is that I have over 150 Frank Sinatra songs on my iPod."

She got to the piano and put up her sheet music (and the ceiling fans knocked it on the floor). My heart skipped a beat and Indy gracefully turned around and made a large sweeping gesture with her hand. Everyone laughed.

She played amazingly well and I was very very proud of her. Her two songs were a Waltz in A Minor by Chopin and Frank Sinatra’s" The Lady is a Tramp". Throughout her performance, I heard people in the audience exclaiming, "I can't believe she has only been playing for a year," and "Amazing." On the way home from the recital Indy got a text that she had received first place in one of the math field day competitions. She got a trophy and a Target gift card. This was against all the middle schools in the valley. Way to go Indy!

Next, in our loco (crazy) Cinco de Mayo day, my dad and I went to a Cinco de Mayo party at the yacht club. After that, Indy was taken to a Bar Mitzvah in Thousand Palms and I had to pick her up at 11 pm. It was blowing 100 mph winds and I was NOT happy being out at midnight. But anything for my kids .

After surviving Cinco de Mayo, we found out on Monday that Houston would be the second Palm Desert pitcher to ever pitch from the new High School Varsity Field. He would be the starting Freshman pitcher for the end of the year game on Friday afternoon against La Quinta High. It was so cute and he was so excited he actually wanted to iron his jersey.

We don't own an iron. I showed him how to steam it in his bathroom. As good as it gets at our home.

Here is Houston on the mound on the new high school fields.
Pretty cool!

An update on those clothes that my kids were nice enough to allow me to sell on eBay after they picked out their stuff .

If you don't remember, I spent $200 on 211 pieces and after the kids picked out their pieces, I was left with 33 men's pieces, 72 junior's pieces, and 10 women's pieces.

I got all 115 pieces listed at auction. Yay! I sold seven pieces at auction. five pieces for $9.99 each, one piece for $11.55 and one that went pretty high!

Check it out here.

Remember that brand name, 5.11 Tactical!

There was also a Victoria's Secret Robe that I bought in that same bunch for only $1.00. Indy turned her nose up at it, "Mom I would never wear a used robe." Now, that is starting to sound more like my kid .

That robe did NOT sell at auction for $9.99, but sold just three days later for FULL PRICE out of my eBay store and got shipped to Australia. The winning bidder paid $45 to ship that robe to Australia. Gotta love eBay.

See the auction here.

Grand total sold so far...$133.12 for only eight items, and I have a $9.99 bid on a pair of shorts that are currently up for auction. Pretty awesome and I still have 107 pieces listed for sale.

My mom's clothing scores these past few weeks from the high end estate sale here were nothing short of amazing! She has brought in over $1500 (so far) from a $165 investment.

Here is one of her scores! Go Mor Mor.

To learn more about clothing, you should check out our clothing teleseminars for new clothing and our Debbie Ybarra plush teleseminars for more info on used clothing.

For those of you who are Queen's Court members,you know about the amazing teleseminars that we do for gifts. If you are not a Queen's Court member, you can still purchase these teleseminars.

I am very excited to announce this month's Queen's Court's gift and a teleseminar that many have been requesting.

How to Purchase Storage Units for Fun & Profit with Danni Ackermann

Learn the Insider Secrets of Purchasing Delinquent Storage Units/Lockers

• What you MUST know before bidding
• Insider Secrets that will give you an edge
• Big No No's
• How to bid like the pros
• What to do with all that STUFF once you have won the unit

I am very pleased to introduce Queen's Court member Danni to those of you who may not know her already. She is a lot of fun, super eBay smart, antique savvy, and a blast to talk with. She has limitless energy!

Danni Ackerman is also known as Udderlygoodstuff on eBay and has recently started TheDanniApp.com where she shares her years of expertise about selling on eBay with others.  She is the author of Storage Lockers for Fun and Profit and a contributing author of The Home Run Guide. She has grown up in the antiques and collectibles world and sells full time on eBay to help support her family.

Danni is also an eBay Education Specialist and loves to teach others how to build their own eBay Businesses!

This amazing call will last for 70 minutes and take place on Monday, May 21st at noon Pacific. If you are not a Queen's Court member, purchase it here. Email your questions to Lynn now at Lynn@TheQueenofAuctions.com so we are sure to address them during the call. If you are not available to listen live to the call, it will be recorded for you to listen to at your convenience.

Mo and I are so excited to host this teleseminar next week!

Here is an update on our "Adopt a boat" project. Thank you to my dad "Papa" as he is called by his grandkids . It has a new roof (or canopy, as Cami at the front gate tells me they are properly called) and a new lower cover. It also works! We took it out twice and it was great. Then, for mother's day, the kids tried to take me over to the closest swimming pool. The boat would only turn right. We ended up spinning in the middle of the lake until Houston rowed us to safety. Really?

Here is a photo of the boat with my Dad, pre-pressure washing, pre-rotted seat fixing, pre-new battery, pre-new roof (I mean canopy) etc.

Here are some photos of the way my Dad and Houston roll when pressure washing a boat. They prop it up with an oar and sit in chairs.

Indiana (on the other hand) actually stands up to clean the boat. She doesn't roll, she rocks (works hard)!

In any event, it was a super fun family project and we all laughed and got yelled at by my dad (a lot)!  Here is a photo of the boat all fixed up with Houston and Indy.

Luckily, my new friends from the neighborhood stopped by last night and fixed the motor so it isn't stuck in the right turn position so that we spin around uncontrollably. Now, all we need is a new charger and I think we are good to go.

I hope you all had a nice Mother's Day. Ours was a little sad because the little boys were without my sister. Luckily, they got to spend the day with my mom and their dad. They went out to breakfast, went to church and had a barbeque on my mom's beach.

All day, the only thing I could think of was a part from my sister's celebration of life. Her friend Sara had asked her some questions over the year she was sick to help her boys know her better. As Sara herself said, "It was very hard to pull information out of Kiki." No kidding. So, when I was putting together my sister's Celebration of Life, I asked Sara to read the list. The one line that kept replaying in my head was when Sara asked her what is the one word you would use to describe yourself?

When I heard that question, my mind answered for myself and said, Entrepreneur, Inspirational or Jack-of-all-trades. My sister's one word answer was..."Mom." It just broke my heart. For those of you who didn't see my sister's Celebration of Life on YouTube, here is a link if you would like to see it.

It has been a tough year for my family, but I think we are all turning the corner a little and finding a tiny bit of happiness. This morning I woke up and did a little talking to God and then I said you know, Cheryl Leaf and Kiki, you are up there and can you please let God know we need a little bit of encouragement down here.

My alarm went off at 6:50 am (way too early in my opinion), and it was time to get ready for the gym and take the kids to school. On my way out, I checked my eBay and I had four offers. One was for the bird brooch that I had listed from my sister's room at Hospice House. I took the pictures outside of her room (#11) on her porch on a brown plastic Hospice House chair.

If you remember from a few ezines ago, I had taken a cigar box of costume jewelry up to Bellingham with me so that I would have something to list while I sat with my sister in Hospice House.

My mom wrote up a few pieces for me. When Lee was there looking at the jewelry he said to me, "Lynn, I think this may be a really good piece." Remember my brother is GIA (Gemological Institute of America Certified) and I was like "no way" and he got out my loupe (you know I use that instead of ever putting on a pair of readers) and said "Yep, it is signed and says 14K." I was like GET OUT. I listed it on eBay in February for $499 at auction and it didn't sell. On February 12th, we put it in my eBay store for $699 or best offer.

See the listing here.

Happy eBaying,

Lynn