You know it's Spring when my garage gets cleaned out, figuratively and hopefully, literally. We are again planning for our yard sale. We are lucky to have a neighborhood organization that does this so my development gets to piggy back off of the crowd they draw. I will also announce our little endeavor on Facebook, for what that's worth. We invite friends to join us and bring whatever stuff they want to sell and we make a day of it. It's not as much fun as our wine soaked game nights but it does rank a close second. There is a stupid amount of breakfast food and people give us cash to take away our crap.
I usually hope for a lot of said cash but I enjoy having all the crap that needs to leave herded in one space. We make the majority of our sales by 11am but stay out until 1pm before we officially admit it's over. Our friends are also a helpful bunch and we occasionally "shop" from each other. I'm still waiting for our daughter to "catch on" to letting go of stuff. I've learned to make her aware of anything that may be upsetting if it's sold but I ask for a replacement for any rescues. We have reached the age where she tends to play mostly video games, much to my dismay. I really miss the days when toys were actually played with, sigh.
It took me a few years but I've also learned that it pays to start setting up early, like days ahead early. I hate killing myself at the last minute to put things out. There are two other downsides to yardsales, dealers and early birds. Frequently, they're one and the same! My friends and family know what a basket of sunshine I am in the morning although in recent years, I've been forced, in a sense, to become an early bird. I leave my own yard sale to run up the block and quickly check out the group sale going on at the front of our development. This stresses out my husband but I always make it quick.
Epilogue: It flew by like a wedding. I was idiot tired but managed to get up and we were free of earlybirds! I'm not sure if I should have taken this as a bad sign but it was a relief for me. We actually managed to get set up by 8am! I tagged as many things as I could so there wouldn't be a lot of questions from my husband as I made my way up the block to check out the other sales. I was underwhelmed and made it back in 30 minutes. We managed a barely respectable amount of sales but in our defense, we had the weather against us. It was cold and ridiculously windy. We had to chase our stuff around the yard and move things into the garage to keep them from blowing away.
I'm gathering up my donation for Purple Heart and stow the rest for what I keep swearing will be the last time. See you next sale.
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