Yard Sale Recap

There’s a certain kind of clarity that comes when you are preparing for a big move. A clarity regarding all of the things, knick-knacks, and other stuff you’ve obtained, hoarded, and held onto for various sentimental or silly reasons. When we were getting ready for our major move last summer, we had less time to be emotional and sentimental about things. So under pressure and time constraints, we were more realistic about things...wondering why we would waste time packing, moving, and unpacking some things that we never use or need? Because of this focus, bags upon bags of our “stuff” were given away before the big move.

However, upon moving into our new home, an even finer sort of clarity came to me. As I was unpacking boxes, deciding what things would go where, there was even more “stuff” that I realized I really didn't need or want anymore…like the ten million picture frames I have that I can only have so many out at a time and there’s even less that I really like. So after moving into our home, those things that I unpacked and knew I didn’t want to take up precious space or even be relegated to a dark closet corner to be quickly forgotten about again were put into an enormous storage container down in the utility room.

When we first moved here last summer, our neighbor had a garage sale and I was stunned at the amount of people showing up. I discovered that people around here really like their garage sales! So I decided then that I would have one too. My first ever little Yard Sale-ing venture of sorts. I don’t typically like garage/yard/rummage sales and digging through other people’s stuff. I figure my chances of finding anything I’d want are pretty slim so why bother. Plus I’m a bit of a germ-freak and they just always appear so dirty and disorganized.

So to counter my stereotypes of yard sales, I wanted to make mine the opposite of every mish-mash, dirty junk sale I’d ever stopped at (or been dragged along to with my Mum as a little girl). I decided that I would try to have everything be nice & cleaned up, with fun little tags describing some of the things (not everything…I’m not that crazy!). But for instance, on the tag of some very old wooden beads that are a Christmas Tree garland decoration I wrote: “Nifty Vintage Christmas Garland ~ 4 strands”. (I recently came to realize this trick of describing things on the tag at one of my favorite little antique shops I discovered when we moved up here. The owner puts a little description on the tags and possibly an idea for how to use it and suddenly a “Sugar Bowl” became far more desirable when the tag said “Sweet Ironstone Sugar Bowl ~ perfect for a pretty bar of soap.” Now I realize that this entirely takes much more time that just slapping a little sticker on something and writing 25 cents (and believe me, I did do this for many, many things too)…but doesn’t it make shopping/yard sale-ing a little more enjoyable? Many of our “customers” seemed to think so and we often heard, “Wow, what an organized yard sale!”
We had a very steady stream of people all day on Friday. But Saturday, surprisingly, was a little bit slower. I realized Hubby was just humoring me (very sweetly though) all along with all this Yard Sale stuff…he even took the day off on Friday to help…when he said to me after our busy, successful day on Friday “Well, you did it! I didn’t think it would go so well and it went WAY better than I thought!” (I think he’s really just happy that we sold our BIG, boxy flat-screen TV that weighed at least a ton, which means we can maybe get a skinny flat-screen TV sometime in the near future with our yard sale profits perhaps.)

But I think Hub was also kind of enjoying it too…talking it up with all the "customers." At one point, as I was heading into the house, I overheard a conversation Hub was having with a new “customer”…a cute, little old farmer-like man, who walked up our driveway all alone. He asked Hub what size the clothing was. And Hub (I think perhaps reverting back to his days working at Dayton’s in Mens Wear) said, “Well, what size are ya looking for?” When I came back out of the house I saw this old man who lives nearby walking back down the driveway carrying a shirt that Hub helped him find. I smile when I think of this cute old country man wearing a very preppy, button-up Gap shirt of Hub’s.

So in addition to selling “stuff”, we had a fun time chatting with neighbors and meeting new ones. We even had one neighbor kindly offer us a couple of his tables to use for our sale the night before when we were setting up. So indeed, a Yard Sale is a lot of work, but it seems to encourage neighborly affection in addition to earning a few extra bucks and getting rid of things we no longer need. The rest of the things that didn't sell are now boxed up and ready to be taken to the Goodwill!

P.S. We even had this little “visitor” come to check out our sale. The weasel didn’t find anything he liked though.