Garage Sale

If I ever again say I want to have a Garage Sale, just shoot me. Shoot me right then and there, and put me out of my misery, because I have obviously become deranged and have no idea what I’m doing anymore.

Oh. My. God. What an ordeal that was!

Mother moved out in January, and we have just been kind of chucking things into her rooms as we find them “to deal with later”. So when I say there was a lot of stuff, I mean THERE WAS A LOT OF STUFF. Some of it was good stuff, but most of it was just stuff.

Both Bryan and I were feeling very overwhelmed by it all, so I decided that we would just spend an hour each day after work, starting on Monday and going until Thursday. Friday was our regular day off, so that entire day was reserved for putting the finishing touches on it. Saturday and Sunday was the actual sale.

On Monday we tackled Mom’s Bedroom. We emptied out all her desks, dressers, and tables. We hauled most of it out to the garage where we had 5 big tables set up. We moved some furniture into his new office space to be used until he can get the furniture he really wants. We hauled several garbage bags out to the trash. We cleaned up and tidied up as we went. It was exhausting work, so by the time our hour was up, we were more than ready to call it a day.

On Tuesday we hit the Red Room. Bryan had to go to work in town that day, so actually it was just me. I emptied dressers, moved tables, hauled trash, and tidied up as I went. Unfortunately, this was the room that the mice loved best – probably because mom was hiding food all over the place in there. There was mouse poop EVERYWHERE. All over the place: in the closet, in the dresser, under the bed, in the sewing machine, on the picture frames up on the wall even.

On Wednesday we dealt with the kitchen. When we moved in, 7-8 years ago, we had combined three households together into one, so we had a lot of duplicates. Three sets of dishes. Three sets of silverware. Three sets of pots/pans/cookware. You get the picture. Since we were having a garage sale anyway, we took the opportunity to pare things down considerably!

On Thursday we dealt with the rest of the house. All the little nick-nacks and doilies and doodads that Mother had collected over the years. She would go to Bishop’s Attic on a daily basis and bring home the oddest things. She thought they were pretty, so she would find a flat surface somewhere that didn’t have anything on it yet – and there it would be.

By the time Friday rolled around, we realized that the 5 large tables I had borrowed from Noel were not going to be enough, so we got out two of our own tables. Then we had to rearrange things so that they could be easily accessible inside the garage since the weather forecast called for rain all weekend.

We moved larger, heavier items out onto the front porch. Bryan hung a pole from the roof for me to hang up some coats and dresses and such. He cleaned out the back shed and had a few tools & whatnots that wouldn’t mind getting wet, so he laid them out on the lawn.

Saturday morning we put up signs pointing the way to our garage sale! I ended up spending most of the weekend at the cash box while Bryan came in and out, putzing in the back shed or gathering up more stuff from the other half of the garage.

Amazingly, we did okay. We did not sell everything, not even close, but we did sell a lot – and were able to deposit almost &700.00 into Mother’s bank account!