May has just flown past. It started out with that amazing Outstanding in the Field dinner. Thank you Tina & Tere Cruz! If you missed reading about it, you can read about it here.

So to keep the Outstanding in the Field party rolling, Chris and I headed to Water’s Edge for Brunch on Sunday.

Me with my usual Vodka, Club Soda, Splash of OJ and Chris ordering Sangria in memory of the USC Spain Semester we were both on back in 1984.

We were cracking up reminiscing about all of the CRAZY times we had in Madrid with 60 other USC students. Here we are back in the day. That is Alden, Debbie, Chris and myself.

The four of us took a road trip to Puerto Banus and when we got there at 2 am all of the hotels were booked, so the four of us slept in a tiny Citroen rental car. OMG. Debbie and Alden were able to sleep, but Chris and I were not and those two kept farting all night. We laughed so hard and still do about that stinky car!

I went to Spain so that I wouldn’t have to give speeches to a large group in one of my business required classes. I was petrified. I would get a bottle of sangria, a bag of fritos and a package of Swiss cheese before every speech (which was also my lunch) that I only had to deliver to one person, my teacher. LOL!

So strange now, because I get up in front of 100’s on the regular. Here I am on the main stage at eBay on Location in Chicago.

Welcome to Lynn’s Latest #0005

Thursday, June 1st, 2023
Volume IV Issue 0005

Happy June! But, I am OVER the May Gray and June Gloom. Bring on the sun!

The store still needs a bunch of stuff…..Main Store

Small Mirrors
Dressers
Desks
Matching Table Lamps
Floor Lamps
Shelves
End Tables
Side Tables
Coffee Tables
Baskets
Cool Garden Pieces
Metal and Wood items
TURQUOISE & Green for the front windows

We really need Sofas & Sectionals in very good to excellent condition.

Please text pictures of larger items to my store manager Sandy for pre-approval prior to bringing in. 805-628-6025

For the clothing store….

Larger Sizes
Designer Purses (have been selling really well so thank you for those!)
Higher end shoes/boots
Spring colors
Shorts
Short Sleeve Tops
Lightweight Sweaters
Summer Dresses
Ventura LOVES Casual Dressy!

Great Selling Brands: Cabi, Free People, Johnny Was, J Jill, Ann Taylor/Loft, J Crew, Chicos

Hours in Fun Fashions

Weds 11-3
Thurs 11-3
Fri 11-5
Sat 11-5
Sun 11-3

To make an appointment please call or text.
Land Line 805-628-9208
Cell 805-470-6493

And now a photo of the Bellingham girls and me in the Clothing store from our 5 Year Anniversary party. Me, Jo

I think it is time for an eBay score. Don’t you? I LOVE this one for many reasons. It teaches us quite a few eBay lessons.

1. This was sold using “Send an Offer”…one of my favorite new eBay marketing tools (which came out in 2019). I didn’t start using it until 2020 when I was stuck at home during the pandemic and needed to increase my eBay sales. It sure worked!

2. I always try and get 50% of the “Buy It Now Price” that I have items listed for on eBay. This gives me the flexibility to use markdowns, best offers etc. to drive sales. I learned this from my 5 years of being a buyer for May Co. California…everyone loves a “perceived” bargain/sale.

This was listed on eBay since April 19, 2017 and I was asking $499.99. I was running a 13% off sale so the price was sitting at $434.99. I was able to send an offer to the buyer and since it had been listed for quite a while, I sent an additional 44% off.

That took the price to $243.59 and she bought it! We shipped it to Colorado earlier this month. See, I almost got 1/2 of my $500 asking price!

Check out the listing here.

I also like this vase for another reason. It was super old and rare. I also used the term “Prunts” in the title. Here is the description of a Prunt from Wikipedia. Your word of the day….You are welcome!

“A prunt is a small blob of glass fused to another piece of glass. Prunts are applied primarily as decoration, but also help provide a firm grip in the absence of a handle. Prunts may be impressed into decorative shapes, such as blackberries or a lion’s head.”

OK, the Monday after the Outstanding in the Field dinner, Sandy and I took Marc out to Happy Hour at Lure. Marc had a big birthday back in January and I had been promising him a Happy Hour at Lure. We finally made it happen!

For those of you who don’t know, Marc and I have been friends since our first day of Freshman year at USC which is a loooooong time! And since I am sharing OLDish photos here is one of us back in the day. OMG, I am such a nerd in my WSU sweatshirt and I think that is a heart and rainbow pin that I am wearing. Ughhh! On the left is one of my really great friends & sorority sisters, Annie.

The Lure Happy Hour night was pretty epic. Sandy left early, but Marc and I continued on to the Cocktail Trust. Let’s just say at one point Marc said, “Well, if we die, we die together” which was strangely comforting. LOL.

And that line totally reminds me of one of my favorite Smiths songs….There is a Light that Never goes Out.

Here are the lyrics….

“And if a double-decker busCrashes into usTo die by your sideIs such a heavenly way to dieAnd if a ten ton truckKills the both of usTo die by your sideWell, the pleasure, the privilege is mine”

In any event…we survived!

Next up was Mother’s Day! The kids actually came home on the Saturday before. Here they are at the nail salon where they treated me to a pedicure. Houston just stopped by on a break from his Ojai bike ride

After the nail salon, the kids took me out to dinner at Water’s Edge. It was a lovely evening and they got me the most thoughtful gifts. For the first time ever they actually treated me to dinner. What a nice surprise! Here is proof of Houston paying with his own credit card LOL!

After dinner, we were gonna go out and get dessert, but decided to go to 7-Eleven and just buy a bunch of junk food. It was actually super fun and I even bought Hostess Twinkies, which I must say did not land. Why were they so much better when I was a kid?

We went back home after 7-11, watched a super cute movie and ate junk food! I wanted to watch a romcom, and Houston (of course) wanted to watch an action movie, but for some reason (probably because it was Mother’s Day) he agreed to watch The funniest part was when it was over. He said, I actually enjoyed that movie. Ha ha ha ha ha.

One of my best Mother’s Day’s ever, if not the best so far! The next morning, I woke up to a smoothie from blenders and fresh flowers. Aaawwwww. I LOVE my kids! And yes, Houston’s girlfriend, Emma, is one of my kids. I am so blessed to have three of them now!

Before I forget, I posted the cutest picture of my mom and Indy for Mother’s Day. Check it out. And it comes from one of my 100 Best Stories, so should probably share that and it is story #67 from “The 3rd 100 Best Things I’ve Sold on eBay Kaching!”. LOL.

Enough about me, let’s talk eBay scores or what’s going on at the store. Which do you prefer? “I can’t hear you”…that one is for Kel & Riley :).

So, I guess I’m gonna start with another ebay score and then we’ll go into my appearance on Ecom Chicago that started out as a total shit show, but turned out great!

Check out this listing. I sold 7 pieces of this flatware for a best offer of….drum roll please….$350! Unbelievable! Check out the listing here.

How is that even possible, you may be asking? Well, let me tell you. I am the Queen of selling flatware and dinnerware on eBay :). Since I did the Chicago eCom zoom call last month, I have been thinking about getting back into teaching about eBay.

Watch for more announcements coming up, but for now, just know that I am deep into finishing my Antiques from A to Z eBook. Almost done with the next volume. Check out my pets after a tough day of writing with me in my office. Do you think they did more work or did I?

So, why did my zoom call with eCom Chicago start out so badly? Well, let’s see… it is usually a very private group, but I had sent out a link in my ezine and posted it on my social. Apparently, someone unsavory got a hold of the link.

The call started out with someone jacking the entire show and posting porn. I thought it was hysterical and wished I had taken a photo of the goings on, but alas I was too busy trying to shut my computer down. LOL.

In any event, we survived and it was a great call with lots of great information. Here I am getting ready before the shenanigans began.

Friday after the eCom Chicago show, I asked Val to gut the front Yellow window and change it to Turquoise. She started and about an hour later, she comes into my office and says “We don’t have any Turquoise”. WTF? No Turquoise? It is my FAVORITE color.

I walked to the front window and Lo and Behold, she was spot on. NO fricking turquoise. I said “Please put the yellow back and I am soooooo sorry”. So, Val, being the trooper she is, put the yellow back. Here is that window with what little turquoise we had. PATHETIC!

I was headed out to Palm Desert the next morning and my mission in life became….bring back as much TURQUOISE Blue as you can possibly find. Hahahaha…but seriously, that was my new mission!

It was going to be my last trip before the summer gets too hot. I needed to drop off some eBay merch and pick up some eBay merch from Mo and see my friends. Always a fun time.

I started out by finding this great wooden canvas painted in just one color, Turquoise! See if you can spot that piece when you see my front window in person!

It was a strange trip as I ran into quite a few people from my past. Walking into World Market, I ran into Remus and Mary who are baseball parents of Dillon (one of Houston’s teammates). Crazy! Then I ran into my friend Dennis at Angel View in Palm Springs. It was Old Home Week.

After running into Dennis, Mo and I needed to figure out someplace for lunch. We were in Palm Springs, so I said “Billy Reeds”. OMG, my mom, me and Mo love Billy Reeds. It is soooooooo old school.

My mom’s favorite is their liver YUCKKKKK, so I wanted to send her a photo of us at the restaurant. I got her the coolest photo frame for Mother’s Day. It is the Aura and it plays photos that we can upload from anywhere on a loop. She loves it!

So this is the photo I uploaded. My mom called and said “I didn’t see any picture of Billy Reeds, but I saw you and Mo in a Casino.” LOL…Nope, that was Billy Reeds!

The funniest part of the photo is our server bringing our lunches in the background. I actually ordered a hot dog and it was one of the best hot dogs I have ever had…serioulsy. More about hot dogs later.

Billy Reeds has a special place in our hearts. Years ago, I sold a lamp on eBay to the owner of Billy Reeds. He asked if I could deliver it and he would buy us lunch. I said, “sure”! The story got more complicated (don’t they always) because the little boys (Zach and Kai my nephews) were in town, so was my mom and Mo was going to join us for lunch. Indy and Houston were also still in high school and were also tagging along.

There wasn’t enough room for all of us and the lamp in the SUV, so Mo rode in the back (no seat belt) with the lamp. Indiana was in tears the entire ride. She is NOT a rule breaker. LOL.

In any event, if you want to read the original newsletter where that story appeared in all of it’s glory you can find it here.

Palm Springs was a success and I came home with my SUV loaded with Turquoise. Check out the front window. But I must say, it looks much better in person!

Before I forget, my sister’s boys, Zach and Kai had birthdays recently. Zach turned 17 in April and Kai turned 15 two days ago. These are the photos I shared on my Instagram story.

It just breaks my heart that these boys have been without their mom for over 11 years. Zach was 5 1/2 and Kai 3 1/2 when their mom passed. I am also in awe of what fine young men that they have turned out to be. Kudos to their dad John, all of the Aunties, my mom and dad, brother etc.

Time for an eBay score….Si? I think so! Check this out. This is actually one of my mom’s listings. Yes, she is 86 and still sells on eBay. She is amazing! She took a best offer on these 12 linen napkins of $139. Pretty nice if you ask me!

Check out the listing here.

Never fear, some of our new arrivals will be featured at the end of this ezine. So thank you for humoring me. Indiana came home the day I got back from Palm Desert! The kids come home less and less so I will rearrange all of my plans to spend time with them.

She and I went to Lure for Happy Hour and then rented a movie. It was the worst movie I think I have ever seen. Ughhhh! Here we are in DT Ventura. Indy has been hijacking my phone lately for posts and doing all of the hashtags. They are pretty funny. Like #GodisReal.

Two days after Indy left, Sandy and I were invited to Sherri’s Bingo Birthday party. FUN! Sherri is one of our favorite trainers at Fit Buddha and I was so pleased to be invited to her beautiful home. She had 9 girls total and she had made all of these amazing appetizers. Her husband, John, made the drinks and he is the BEST bartender EVER!

Needless to say, it was not so much Bingo, as Drinko…..Just like we call Bunko… Drunko. Hahahaha. Here are a few fun pics. It was a blast! Can’t wait for next year! Hope I am invited!

The Saturday after Bingo, Indy had a show in LA. Yay! She hasn’t had one in a while. It was at a new venue, The Hotel Cafe. I drove to Camarillo and Jeff, Joanne and their daughter Viv drove us from there. It was a super fun evening and all of the comics were fantastic. I laughed a lot!

And once again, Indy hijacked my hashtags. For example, #FrankieFoussa and #BonkyDonky. Whatever?

We thought the hotel cafe was going to have food so we could eat dinner during the show. Unfortunately, they did not. So afterwards, we all decided to go to Pinks for hot dogs! I haven’t been there since USC. OMG…I had two hot dogs in the month of May. And let me tell you, the Pinks one was just as good as Billy Reeds. So much fun!

I haven’t shared much about Houston so will share one cute photo of him with Grandpa (he and Emma’s dog..not my dad) that I grabbed from his Instagram account. Not sure what the “Looking at Chicken” means. LOL. However, I love that Houston still wears my dad’s big watch :). So, you could argue that there are two Grandpas in this photo.

I will wrap up my portion of this ezine (before we get to new arrivals) with my super fun Memorial Day. My friend Marc and his daughter Shanti were going to be performing in Ojai at the Libbey Bowl and he invited me to come and see it and get drinks after.

I invited Jeff & Joanne and we met up in Ojai at 1 pm on Memorial Day Monday. It was such a great show, but the sad part was that the audience was super sparse. I would have expected the place to be packed to honor our veterans.

There were amazing singers and all the music was patriotic. They even honored the 114 Ventura County Military Men and Women who had died in Vietnam. Each soldier had a plaque with their picture on it and their names were read out loud with the date and how they passed, their arm of the military and where they were from. Most were only 18 or 19 years old. Super poignant and sobering. What a great tribute.

Here is a photo of Marc singing “Anchors Away” and his daughter Shanti holding up one of the plaques.

Here we are after the performance and before we all went for lunch and Margaritas at Agave Maria’s in Ojai. Such a great day. From left to right, Joanne, Jeff, me, Marc, Shanti and Eva.

And now, for what most of you have been waiting for….our new arrivals!

Distressed Handpainted Console Drawers & Doors $595.00

West Elm Teak Dining Table $595.00
West Elm Teak Brentwood Dining Chair $95.00 [6 in stock]

Drop Down Dark Wood Desk Porcelain Knobs $249.50

Restoration Hardware Leather Wing Chair $1495.00 This is an amazing piece! I want it for my house! It originally retailed for $3,600…you must come in and sit in it. Uber comfortable.

West Elm Counter Height Stool $125.00

The brand new summer release from IOD is currently in stock. You must check them out! – paint inlays, moulds, and stamps in the collection. Check them out below.

Trompe l’oeil Bleu IOD Paint Inlay 12×16 $55.95
Trompe l’oeil laurel IOD Paint Inlay 12×16 $55.95

Dainty Flourishes 6X10 IOD Mould $27.95
Primitive 6X10 IOD Mould $27.95

Rural Scenes 12×12 IOD Stamp $44.95
Adornment 12×12 IOD Stamp $29.95

These Marrakesh bowls and Salad hand server are both durable and beautiful! They will be a stunning and unique addition to your kitchen.

Marrakesh Salad Hand Servers $15.95
Marrakesh Sugar Bowl $19.95

5 Piece Nested Bamboo Organizer Set $29.95 – 4 pcs left in stock

Red Lotus Capiz Tea Light Holder $22.95
White Lotus Capiz Tea Light Holder $21.95

Golden Pearl Lotus Capiz Shell Tea Light Holder $21.95
Turquoise Lotus Capiz Tea Light Holder $22.95

Thank you all for supporting me, my family and my businesses as I work on expanding….as you know I am building my empire!

eBay with Heart
Decorate with Heart
Dress with Heart

I try and do everything in my life in a big way and with a lot of heart! Thank you for joining me on this super fun journey. Take care and we hope to see you soon! Some of my current crew. Kimberly asked us to be crazy in this photo! Lol!

From Left to Right (kind of) Sendia, Pamela Cole, Robin, Cha Cha, Indiana, Leslie Arntzen, Martha, Kathy Rutan, Candy, Me, Jo Dallas, Houston (with his eyes closed), Valerie, Adolio, Emma, Grandpa, Peggy, my mom and Mary!