A long time ago, I decided I would not do yard sales anymore. I have never been very successful – the fact that I am not a terribly cheerful person in the morning has a little to do with it.
The fact that I hate to barter doesn’t help either. I just don’t enjoy any part of it.
However, recently my oldest daughter helped me organize my kitchen and a couple of closets as a birthday present. She is great at organizing and is relentless when it comes to getting rid of anything that is not “useful or beautiful”.
Apparently, I had a lot of things that didn’t fit either category.
I am grateful for her help. My craft closet has everything I need at easy access. When she started I couldn’t locate my glue gun or stapler. We soon discovered I had four of each. That is what happens when you can’t find something, right? You buy another one.
My daughter hated to leave me with all the new found stuff all over my dining room table (and on the floor all around the kitchen, in the hall and in boxes and bags pretty much all over the house). I think she was a little nervous that I would start stashing things back in the little hiding places I had to begin with.
Because she worked so hard, I have not put a single thing back, but, I haven’t taken it to the thrift store either.
I started thinking, I really don’t want to just give all this stuff away. I like most of it, and some of it is practically new. I have all the little dishes and teapots I used for our “Alice in Wonderland” party back in the spring. I might have another one of those, someday. And shoot, who doesn’t need a spare glue gun?
But, being realistic, I have to get rid of all the stuff that was causing the stress that my daughter came to alleviate.
I sold a couple of items on a Facebook yard sale, but I soon realized this process is just too slow. I have to have a real yard sale. So, I am going to try to make it fun. My girls are going to sell lemonade and maybe hot chocolate (depending on the temperature) and I have a couple of friends joining in.
I don’t have any stamp collections or real antiques to sell, I won’t have clothes or sporting goods. My sale will probably not draw people from neighboring cities or the “diehards” who show up before dawn when I most certainly will not be out there.
I am going to advertise on Facebook. I will set the hours for Friday, after “noonish” and Saturday most definitely after 8 a.m.! That way people can do the dark thirty shopping somewhere else, and I will have some caffeine in me by the time they make it to here.
So if you are out and about Friday afternoon and you get the urge to do a little yard sale shopping, come on over to India Road. I’ll be in my lawn chair, sipping lemonade.
Angie Brown is a humorist who loves being a wife, mother and grandmother. She currently lives in Opelika with her husband of thirty one years and four of their seven children.