The first weekend in August every year is reserved for a huge, miles-long stretch of garage sales on my parent’s road. My family always ends up taking part and it’s always stressful and chaotic and crazy until it’s over. And then there’s all of the crap that didn’t sell to deal with. Every year our sale seems to grow a little more because we always invite people outside of the family to bring their stuff over to sell. This year, was no different. We ended up having seven different families selling stuff–a big bulk of it came from my grandma’s house (she had to downsize to a smaller house, so she was ready to get rid of a lot of stuff).
Greg and I started gathering stuff a few weeks ago and putting it in a pile marked ‘for the garage sale’. Little did we know until we actually went to pack the car–we actually had a lot of stuff we didn’t want anymore (two carloads full). And frankly, the house feels a little lighter now that it’s out of here.
The morning of the sale, I got up early (5 a.m. on a Saturday? Seriously?). I pulled some last-minute things together for the sale and headed over to my mom’s house at around six in the morning (everyone seems surprised by this. The annual garage sale is a whole-day thing and most years, it’s a whole weekend thing). As soon as I left the house, I realized I had left the price stickers at our house–in our bedroom where Greg was trying to coax Zoey back to sleep. There was no way I was going back and messing that up. So, I quickly called my mom and asked if she had extra stickers (thankfully, she did) and I rushed to her house to unload the Mommy-Mobile of stuff, mark it and get it set up in such a way that people would think, Hmmm, I think I need to BUY that.
Not as easy a task as I thought it would be. There was already so much stuff at my parents’ house for the sale and space was limited, even though clothes were hung up and there were more than eight tables.
It was a very wet garage sale because it rained–and sometimes POURED–off and on all day. Thankfully, my mom and dad had planned for this and instead of having the sale on their front lawn (as we always have in previous years), they decided to hold the sale in their huge Morton building, which is fondly referred to as my dad’s toy box or man cave. But even with the whole barn holding tons of tables, there were still four tables outside of the barn filled with stuff (seven families tend to have a lot of stuff to get rid of).
The bloodthirsty antique dealers showed up early. And let me tell you–they really are driven. Sometimes they only step out of their car and yell to us, “Got any antiques?” And when we say no, they just get in their car and drive away. No, we don’t have antiques, but I have some wonderful books and baby clothes you might be interested in. How about a baby swing? Do you need a baby swing?
Greg was on Zoey duty in the morning–he got her up, fed her breakfast, got her dressed and packed her diaper and toy bags before I came back to pick her up and take her to the sale to hang out with me all day.
She spent a lot of time cruising around my parents’ barn in her walker–running into stuff and throwing all of her toys on the floor. Over. And. Over again. Halfway through the sale, I noticed her little size three sandals seemed to be getting uncomfortable for her, so I grabbed a pair of toddler Nike’s that my sister was selling and put them on Zoey’s feet. She seemed to like them, although when she and I went for a walk around the barn, she walked sort of clunky–like Frankenstein–because she wasn’t used to having heavy sneakers on her little feet. She even tried her new shoes out while tearing around the bar in her walker. When she got tired of that, I had to hold her on my lap because the concrete floor was super-dusty and it was muddy outside because of the rain. She really was a trooper all day until she and I finally headed home around five in the evening.
Like I said, it rained on and off all day. But even with the rain, we had a steady stream of people. I got to see a lot of people who I grew up knowing, but hadn’t seen in years, which was really cool. And I scored a toddler bed, a Dora the Explorer fitted sheet and a little baby bag (all from the stuff my sister, Colleen, brought to sell. Seriously, this is also a huge part of our annual garage sale–buying each other’s stuff). Zoey loves the sheet, as she kept turning it and pointing to all of the little Doras all over it.
I didn’t go back to Mom and Dad’s house yesterday for day two of the sale. Zoey and I, both, were just too tired.
But because we’re all gluttons for punishment, we’ve decided to do another sale in a few weeks (a neighbor of my parents’ stopped by on Saturday to say that she’s having a sale in a few weeks and Mom thought it would be a great idea for us to coordinate our sale with that sale to try to get rid of more stuff). So, we’re going to do all of this all over again in a few weeks.
Gah.
Show the love. Click on the button above for your vote to count.
Preble Road Crew 