The Garage Sale

It's Kristen here! I'll be posting here too, as will Casey and Kaitlin.

Thank goodness the garage sale is finally over. Two weeks of carting junk to the garage, and then the basement because the garage was full. Two weeks of putting little colored dots, pricing your treasured memories, on over 600 items. Many thanks to Mom for all the help!

I was worried about the turnout for the garage sale. Usually people go out to sales when the weather is nice and warm. Fall is not a normal time for this. We decided to have the sale over two weekends, in case the first one was rainy. I put out a million bright pink signs, and apparently they worked.

The first Saturday morning 7 AM rolled around and nobody showed up. Usually the early birds come by then. I thought to myself, “Oh jeez, I was right. Nobody is going to show up.” Then 8 AM came and the shoppers descended. I swear there must have been 100 people in my garage and basement before noon that first day. And they bought everything!

I had old cookbooks that the cat scratched up and people bought them. A DVD player that I promised would never work got sold. One lady was heading up the stairs to my house and looked at the mat at the bottom of the stairs. “Are you going to sell that?” She asked. I thought about it for a second and said, “I guess I can’t take it with me!” Numerous kids games and clothes. The funny thing was as I loaded stuff into the garage, I noticed we had duplicates of a couple of games. I think we had so much stuff, we didn’t realize we had certain games and bought more. Now that’s a lot of stuff!

When I’ve had garage sales in the past, if I showed a profit of $200 or more, I was happy. Let me just say, this one made much more than tenfold of that! Holy Cow! Many people commented about the pink signs. That’s marketing for ya.

Now that the garage sale is done, and my last big activity at work is done things are taking a huge turn for the better. I no longer snarl at people, or fall asleep in my dinner. All that is left to do is clean out the leftovers from the garage. Then I will move as much furniture as possible into the garage for the movers. They said the easier you make it for them, the quicker they will go, and the cheaper it will be for us.

I ordered the kids home schooling system today from Calvert. They each took tests, and then Calvert determines what grade they are placed in. Casey, who is currently in 7^th grade placed into 7^th grade. Kaitlin, who is currently in 3^rd grade placed into 4^th grade with 3^rd grade math. I think that will work out because Calvert said the only difference in grade levels is the amount of reading and writing they have to do. Seeing as Kaitlin is a speedy reader and writer, being in a higher grade will hopefully slow her down enough so that both kids take the same amount of time to finish their work. We’ll see how that all works out. I’m also eager to get the books and see how much space they will take up. Oops, so sorry kids, we won’t have room on the boat for science….

If any neighbors are reading this, Bonzai Falls is up for grabs! The mice got to it, but I patched the holes and the price is right. If you’re willing to drag it to your house it’s all yours. Hours of waterslide fun! Well at least until the patches break.