For a few years now, I have been looking around our house wondering how we have accumulated so much stuff in such a short time! And dreaming about how nice it would be to have a new house again...empty cupboards, clean storage spaces, clean drawers....Then I realized I can't just go buy a new house to cure the clutter. So I decided I would have a yard sale. Now was the time.
I wanted to do it right. Go through everything. Get rid of anything excess. Display each item meticulously.I am all about the prep work. It is an illness.
And so it began. The organizing, the agonizing over sentimental things, and trying to make some sense out of all the junk living with our cars in the garage. I dug up the clothing, the beat up furniture, some kitchen gadgets, and the ghosts of Christmases past from their bottom-of-the-pile locations. I was in the zone.
Many nights over the last few months I drifted off to sleep worrying about how to display clothing on a hanger without the aid of a garment rack (Can I stretch rope from the side of the house to a tree? Should I just fold them and put them on a table? Maybe I should just go buy a garment rack?) or constructing make-shift tables in my brain with random household objects so I could visualize the best way to display the gazillion picture frames we were given for our wedding.
I also scoured websites for tips and tricks on hosting this yard sale. I found check lists and copious notes, as well as a new-found paranoia about scams by evil-doers who may try to slip me a $10 bill in place of a $20 bill or talking me into an unreasonable discount on the few really valuable items that I am selling.
My husband did not catch my yard-sale fever... Although I must say that he was very supportive of my need to follow through with it. I made signs like a mad women and he was willing to stop off at the dollar store for a few extra boards or markers or whatever the cooky artist inside me called for on any given day.
I also had this brilliant idea to sell some delicious homemade goodies on the side. No big deal to add another table, right? Just add a few cups, napkins, small plates, and some ingredients to my shopping list. A little lemonade, a few cookies - oh and definitely a few batches of cinnamon rolls. It was a morning thing, and those people gotta have cinnamon rolls. (Never mind that I stayed up all night before the big day in order to have them ready to serve.) Okay.....so I tend to turn it into a big deal.
I even pictured myself with a bullhorn in case I needed to handle crowd control. (Hey you! Yes you who pulled your pick-up truck in two feet from my rack of formal dresses. You just back it right up, mister, before I whack you with one of these old hand bags generously priced at just $1 each!)
I was concerned about every detail! Will we have enough parking? Will the "early birds" come before I have everything just so or will I spend the entire morning refolding clothing like a gung-ho Gap sales associate or will we run low on snacks, or will some one-eyed hobbit try to sneak into my home during the sale and steal my husband's large collection of work gloves!
Well, okay, I might not have been all that worried about that, but if I would have seen a one-eyed hobbit I would have made sure the bin which houses said collection was sitting out for him....... Er, I mean I would have made sure the bin of gloves was protected. Protected! I am sure our rubber-band gun has the ability to fall a man—or hobbit, regardless of visual impairment—in under three seconds. Definitely would have been enough.
Of course if I were rational (I am not; we've established this over the lifetime of this blog, yes?), I would have been more concerned about no one coming to buy my stuff. I would have been more concerned about wasting months worrying about every detail to ensure the yard sale ran smoothly. If I were rational, I would have been more concerned about what to do when nothing sold and I had a yard full of crap to haul to D.I.
But no, for weeks I thought about cleaning, organizing, folding, pricing, making lists, making lists for the lists, the layout of my yard, and advertising. Oh, and I did not buy a garment rack. I had a dream that my husband rigged a lovely rope clothes line between fence posts that were placed strategically along our driveway. Looked beautiful. So that's what we did. And it was beautiful - thanks honey.
The yard sale - It actually turned out great. Lots of people came, lots of fun was had. We made some cash. And we survived not going out of town for the weekend.
But you never know how these things will go! I might have been the intense-looking woman in fatigue and panic attack with a bullhorn under one arm, a pocket spilling with change, pouring lemonade into Dixie cups and keeping her eyes peeled for hobbits!
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