Successful Yard Sale!

We've all had yard sales or been to one, at some time in our lives. It's a tradition!

We don't usually like to have yard sales, they haven't always been worth our time in the past. You give up a day or two, to sit and deal with random people. I think we've had about 8 or 9 total since we've been married, mostly at times of transition, to downsize or make room for something new.

Our neighborhood planned this weekend as a community yard sale 3 months ago. Five families participated on Fri, six were out today.

We got rid of what would be the equivalent of about 5 pickup truckloads of "stuff" that somehow had woven themselves into our lives. Now, they are all spread out in the community and beyond. One lady bought stuff to take halfway across the country to her sister.

Some people kept coming back, once they figured out we kept adding to the pile. That's the problem when you don't have enough time to fully prepare, you keep going. We had one room FULL of boxes that we had to go thru. And WE DID IT!

It was interesting to meet a variety of the locals in the yard sale setting. We had had a sale back in Dec, to make room for Christmas, and offloaded at least two truckloads that time. One guy that came over, looked to be in his 60's, asked if we had any country music cds. I looked him and laughed and said, "don't you know that listening to country music kills your brain cells?"
He looked at me in total surprise, not knowing what to say at first, then asked me what I had just said, so I repeated it. He actually caught an attitude and got angry. We just laughed when he left, mostly because of his reaction and that he had gotten angry at a joke.

Well, yesterday, this guy walks up and says, "you got any country music cds?" I instantly recognized his voice and then him. I laughed and looked at him and said, "You know, I'm not going to tell you again what I said the last time! But, no, we don't have any country music cds."
He recognized me, and actually smiled and then said thanks. When he left, we laughed again, at the last time.

Well, about 45 min. later, he came back into the neighborhood to pickup a large item from another sale, and stopped at the sale across the street, where I happened to be at the time, chatting with the two neighbors over there. I told them quickly what had happened when he was driving up, and they laughed. When he go out of his truck, he walked up and recognized me, and then told the other ladies, "We came to a yard sale at her house last year, and do know what she said to me? What was it that you said?"

Now, the ladies laughed even louder, the timing was just too perfect! I laughed, and repeated what I had told him, but then followed it up with, "But you know, since then, I actually checked, and found out that you really don't lose brain cells. So, I was wrong, and you were right after all!" He looked at me and then said, "oh, well you're right about that." The ladies were about to fall out of their seat. I honestly think this guy had spent some time after that last yard sale ticked off and telling people about what some dumb lady had told him today, and then here we go again, but then it was the complete opposite scenario. I don't think he's a flexible sort of character.

At the end of the day, a local charity thrift store showed up as they had requested and picked up all the leftovers from 4 different houses. It was almost like having room service!

For the first time ever, we have NO LEFTOVERS sitting in the garage, wondering "what next?"

We made $15 in coins. Selling that stuff for a quarter here, 50 cents there adds up after awhile. We made $435 total for two days, which is a feat unheard of for us. We really sold things at low prices, just to get it moved on... those many small sales also really added up.

BUT.....the BEST part of all is this: we are ONE MORE STEP CLOSER TO CLUTTER-FREE LIVES.

It is a form of freedom we have been pursuing for a really, really long time, doing it one step at a time, but all the stuff we unloaded this weekend was like taking a thousand steps at once! It's a good thing!