Moving Sale

The time has come to face the reality that we just have way TOO MUCH STUFF! I had intended for several years now to have a garage sale, but it just never seemed to work out for one reason or another.

I'm going to let y'all in on a little secret.....garage sales are a lot of work!

Now, if you call your garage sale a "moving sale", then they are even MORE work! All of those neatly stacked totes sitting in your basement must be gone through, because you don't want to move, or store, anything that you don't want or need.

Hubs has been after me to get rid of my bread maker. He told me that the moving sale would be the perfect time to do so. He rationalized that since I never use it, I certainly was not going to miss it, and therefore, it should be sold.

While I may be rational in many ways, the way I feel about some of my things is NOT one of them.

Never is a strong word. While I have only made a few loaves of bread in it (in the....mumble mumble....years I have had it), I do have good intentions of making more! It's just that I forget I even own such a thing, as it is tucked away in the cupboard, and not out in plain view. Out of sight....out of mind.

I told him that I was willing to get rid of a lot of things, but the bread maker would NOT be one of them. End of story. The bread maker will be boxed up and moved along with some of my other irrational things I plan on saving....of which there are quite a few. Sigh.

So, the girls and I slaved and toiled for days, pondering over each and every item that we own. I had the girls go through all of their things, and unless there was a specific reason why they wanted to save it, they agreed to either sell it, give it away, or throw it away.

There they sat, remembering how they got such and such, and who gave it to them. As my oldest daughter hauled out all of her memories, she said it made her long for the time when all that mattered were Barbies and stuffed animals. Life was so much simpler back then.

We had fun reading over the stories my oldest used to write, and the music she composed when she played the violin.

We all said "Awe!" when we saw the pictures that contained my middle daughter's name, back when she couldn't make the letter "S", so she wrote it like a 2.

When we came across my youngest daughter's stuffed lamb that she always slept with as a baby, we stroked the still silky fur, and remembered when our special neighbors gave it to her as a present when she was born.

Memories are hard. We decided that if things did not have any memories attached to them, then into the sale they would go! But, if they did....

After several days of working almost non-stop, it was finally time to have the sale.

We priced things to sell, and then re-priced....and re-priced again. We did end up selling, and even giving away, a lot of our things. What is left is either going to go to Goodwill, or to a man who sends clothes, shoes, books, and stuffed animals to a missionary in Africa, who then passes them out to children there. It will be nice to know that our stuff is going to a good cause.

We had a lady that was smoking in our garage, while she was busy looking through things. I contemplated asking her NOT to smoke in MY garage, but since she was busy buying things, I didn't want to upset her. I am highly sensitive to smoke, but sometimes, you just have to deal with it, I suppose. If she wanted to smoke inside my house, or my car? That would have been a whole different story.

Can I give you a piece of advice, though? If you are a smoker, that is your right to do so. Smoke away!  But....could you please be considerate of those of us who don't smoke? In my case, I already do not have the best set of lungs, and smoke just exacerbates my breathing problems. Thank you :)

A guy walked off with one of our items without paying for it. His wife had purchased a few things, and he either forgot, or just didn't feel like, paying for it. One of my daughter's mentioned that he had NOT paid for it, but I wasn't about to run after him over a $3.00 item.

Garage sales are the perfect opportunity to teach your kids about money in many ways. They can add up the prices, keep track of the money, and give the customer the correct change. I made sure to tell my girls to NEVER place the money the customer gives you in the box before giving them their change. If you do this, the customer can cheat you out of money by saying they are owed more change than they actually are. It has happened to me in the past. It could have happened this time, except for we had the money that he had given us in plain sight, so we could prove that what we said he gave us....he actually did.

We had several people who came to our sale who did not speak very good English. That makes things a little more.... interesting, as it is very hard to communicate. With one man, I made the mistake of talking louder, wrongly assuming that by doing so, I would somehow be able to get him to understand me better. I'm sorry, random stranger. Please forgive me. I'm sure I looked foolish.

We met a sweet couple who shared with us the touching story of how they ended up getting married. The lady told us that after a disastrous first marriage, she vowed to never get married again. That is, until she became reacquainted with an old friend. They started talking, and just hanging out together, until they realized that they wanted to share their lives with each other. She said that she hesitated, because she is quite a bit older than he is, but then realized that age is just a number, and when she was with him, she was the happiest that she had ever been. They looked like two teenagers in love. It was so cute!

We had a lady spend quite a bit of time re-folding and organizing all of our clothes that were strewn all over the table. Perhaps she didn't have anything better to do? We sure appreciated it!

We had several neighbors come over and reminisce with us about our time that we have spent in our house. How they have enjoyed watching the girls grow up, and would miss having us in the neighborhood. The feeling is mutual, dear neighbors.

The feeling is mutual.....