HOORAY! We made it! We finished our garage sale, and have lived to tell the tale! As the photo implies - I am dog-tired.
And not a moment too soon, either. The weather held but the day was HOT (and it was even more humid today) - what a relief that we had the best 2 days of weather for our sale. Sales were more slow than on Day 1, but I got rid of almost everything big I wanted to sell, except the sofa, microwave, color copier and a small bookcase.
Saturday was "reunion" day at our sale. A number of people showed up from my past, which made it a fun and entertaining day all around:
- A neighbor I didn't even recognize at first, who ended up buying my mattress set for her granddaughter, who needs to furnish a college apartment.
- The mother of a long-lost male friend from high school (someone I have often wondered about since I lost touch with him over 20 years back). She filled me in on what he and his older brother have been up to since then, and it was great hearing about them both. Secretly, I once wondered if he was "the one who got away", but since he been married all these years with 2 kids in college and a 3rd in high school, let's assume it worked out the way it was supposed to.
- A friend from high school who bought my fax machine, and we had a lovely chat while she was here, and made plans to have dinner soon.
- My niece's voice coach, who had no idea my niece even lived in this neighborhood when he came to check out the sales - so of course I directed him around the corner so he could surprise Beth and my sister!
Fortunately, although we had our share of characters again, we had no more scary people on Saturday - that was a relief. And we made quite a bit of money by garage sale standards - I was very happy that I sold as much as I did (some of my garage sale money is going to fund a new digital camera - so get ready for some current pics to appear here on the blog!)
Today was clean-up day - packing away the stuff that didn't sell because it's going straight to charity, cutting up cardboard for recycling, and making the house look "normal" again. My mom volunteers at her church thrift shop, which is great because she knows exactly what they will or will not accept as a donation - and she gets me the receipts to fill out for taxes.
For those that have never held a garage sale: if you end up doing one once, you'll never want to do it again. My advice: do yourselves a favor and simply do NOT purchase things you don't absolutely LOVE and NEED. Refuse to create clutter. Become a minimalist. We Americans have too much stuff as it is. Let's all rebel against the brainwashing tactics of Madison Avenue and our consumer culture, and learn to live with less STUFF!
I'm off to pick up some yummy Chinese food - we're too worn out to cook.
