Let's make a deal...

Even though in spite of all the fancy-schanmcy degrees that I have hanging on my wall at work, deep down inside, I am a garage sale junkie. Not the “going to” type, but the “having one” type. I love it!!!


This past weekend was the annual Country Wood neighborhood yard sale – even though I don’t actually live in Country Wood, I still manage to have a sale there every year. I have a great friend who lives there who graciously lets me use her yard for the sale! I love love love the idea of having someone pay money for my junk!

So, every year I pull all the stuff I have been accumulating over the past year into our front room (which is really our formal living room, but is in reality the girls’ toy room. So, I pull it all together and take the third Friday in September off every year to do my yard sale.

This year, we had an unexpected kink – well, 2 actually – but the main one is that my friend had a fire at her house! She called me on Tuesday night very upset and I could hardly make out what had happened. Anyway, the gist of what I got from her that night was that there was a fire – they were all okay, but there was no power in their house and she did not think that a yard sale that weekend was a good idea.

(Okay, so here is where I admit (shamefully) that a tiny little part of me wanted to go – hey – what about me?!?! What about MY yard sale?!?! But don’t worry – I squashed that itty bitty voice, told it that it should be ashamed and sincerely told my friend not to worry about me, to focus on her family and just let me know if I can help in any way. I won’t get into her situation here, but don’t worry, she and her family are all fine and their house was only damaged on one side and is repairable.)

So, on Wednesday, I get an email from another woman I know talking about her yard sale in Country Wood!!! The skies broke open and the sun shone through!!! I called her and she was more than willing to let me come to her house to yard sale!!!

So, what about the other kink, you ask? Ummm, let’s just say that it has been VERY wet this month! I swear, we have had nothing but rain for the last 3 weeks! But, the annual yard sale is sort of like that ball field that Kevin Costner built in Field of Dreams – if you have it, they will come! And come they did! Sure enough, it rained off and on all day on Friday, but I still managed to have a really good day. It was really funny to see everyone running around in the rain from house to house. I managed to stay mostly dry thanks to the 2 tents we had set up.

Saturday, which is the most important day, stayed overcast most of the day, but it never rained so that was great!!! People came and went all day! I sold a ton of stuff! It is funny (and not always in a good way) how much effort some people go to on order to get a better deal than the listed price of an item. I several pairs of shoes that the girls had outgrown and I priced them all $1.00 each. They were in used condition, but definitely still had plenty of life in them. I had several pairs of Keds and one woman asked me “Hey, these shoes are $1.00?” I told her yes and she said, “Will you take 50 cents since they have been worn?” WTF?!?! They are marked $1 because they have been worn, you crazy lady!!!

So lots of stuff like that all day, but I keep a good attitude about stuff like that – it really doesn’t bother me as long as they are polite. I expect people to “deal” and mostly I am like, sure, whatever – a sale is a sale. But it was just that her reason “because they have been worn” was so odd – hey, lady, in case you weren’t aware…pretty much EVERYTHING at a yard sale has been worn!!!

At the end of the day, I had the greatest thing happen that can possibly happen to you at the end of a yard sale day. A woman who had a resale shop came by and offered a flat price for the children’s clothes that I had left. By that time, all of the good stuff had mostly been picked over and I had already decided to donate the rest to goodwill or whatever. So, when she offered – I took it!

All in all, it was my most successful yard sale to date!!! Probably won’t do it again until next September, but honestly, I love this stuff too much!!!!