yard sale '08: the funnest so far!

hundreds have written in. the phones are lighting up. everyone wants to know: so how was the yard sale? 

well, first of all, i made some insane remark about giving you a play-by-play. i had this fantasy of myself sitting on my porch with my little baby macbook, snapping pics of various items and individuals. but reality set in.

it could be that this year's may have been the funnest. (using "funnest" rather than "most fun" is way funner, don't you think?) yes, i just decided that this year's yard sale was the funnest. 

late friday morning, the 4 of us went to the pool for some family fun in the sun. parents know how this is: let's spend some QT before we start yelling at them to "quick touching stuff!" or this is my favorite: "excuse me, honey. excuse me, mommy needs to get through. c'mon honey, this box is heavy. i'm not sure what's in it, sweetie. i think some clothes. um, maybe daddy's clothes. now scoot over and let mommy walk through. hel-lo...  MAAAAC! MOOOOOOVE!" 

my mom came in town friday afternoon and we immediately put her on kid duty (which all grannies love, of course). david and i focused on final prep: 1. gather all junk in the dining room. 2. price in dining room. 3. once priced, move to piles by the door. some people put things out the night before. in our neighborhood, that's fine if you don't need to see "who wants your stuff" and you're not looking to make a lot of money.

around dinnertime, we picked up carry-out from La Mexicana. el-yum-o. i priced stuff til about 9 or 10 pm while david cleaned up areas that were newly empty and bare. then, we hit the sack. 

once in bed, i realized i had forgotten to take a shower. i hate it when i do that! i had already played all my "skip it" cards. believe me, a shower had to happen. 

saturday 5:30 am: shower, moisturize and dress. descend to the kitchen for coffee. we opted out of the starbucks tradition this year b/c, well, david makes really good coffee and we had plenty so we were cool. 

6:30 am: i followed david around for a bit. this is the time when i typically get cold feet on stuff i love. "honey, do you think we should keep this another year? i mean, if we blahblahblah." david is always like "it's going in the yard, kelly."

7 am: we're in full set-up mode. we borrow tables and clothes racks b/c presentation is important. there are several families on our street setting up at this point, but we don't speak much b/c you can kind of tell who the morning people are and who the morning people are not. listen, if you're up early and your neighbor is out and he doesn't even look in your direction, don't speak to him. even the Bible says not a good idea: Proverbs 27:14 "If a man loudly blesses his neighbor early in the morning, it will be taken as a curse."

i believe it's totally ok to finish up pricing in the morning as you set up, but it's good to have a plan. pricing the little things is important. you never know what people want to buy. they will buy the dumbest stuff and they want to know "how much?" is this 10 cents or 25 cents?  you don't want to spend your day making decisions about sense. so it's best to get a pack of those of yard sale stickers and just stick everything. junky small stuff can go in a box marked "10 cents" or something but it shouldn't be too full. people do not like to dig. 

we also use some signs. for example, hardbacks and paperbacks are in a box with a price sign. dvds and vhs tapes go in a box with a sign. small toys are in a box marked "10 cents." we also had a FREE bin. 

technically the yard sale starts at 9, but people start coming between 7:30 and 8. my next door neighbor, Widow Mockbee, participated with her sister this year and were full of doom and gloom about the weather. it was, indeed, cloudy and they kept calling over to david and i, "supposed to storm, 80% chance!" they were killing us. we'd call back, "it's not going to storm. stop it." so david and i started praying over our yard and the whole event. "God, we want sun. we want a super fun, sunny day. never mind the worrying doom/gloom sisters. we believe you're going to clear this stuff up." you know, stuff like that. and we were kind of loud. a little later it started to drizzle and they yelled over "david, keep prayin'" so that was kind of funny. it did this a couple of times and david would start talking to the clouds like he was Moses and i said, oh snap. davidrussell is bringin' it. weellll...we-eh-ehlll.

8:30 am: the boys got up and granny got them ready to go to alli and bill's house. david took them over about 9 and when they came outside, they fell out. "what is going on out here?!" this is really the first year it has registered for them. they're yelling, "that's my ___, and that's my ___!" we told them, "yep. say goodbye." so they did. and left for a fun-filled day with friends. 

9:30 am: granny ate her left-over burrito and made me an egg sandwich.

10 am: davidrussell returned with My Favorite Muffin and passed them out to all our neighbors. this was so adorable, generous and attractive that i made up my mind in that moment he was getting lucky that night. but as it turns out organizing and executing a yard sale is a sex-life killer.

so let's see, i suppose by this time we had made about $25 and drank our weight in coffee. 

11 am: this is late by yard sale standards so we started slashing prices. we don't haggle too much. we'll take just about any offer if it isn't too ridiculous. the goal is for people to take things away so we don't have to. 

11:30 am: we start looking over our neighbors stuff and vice versa. we ended up buying a dresser and side table from the newlyweds for mac's room. there's a great crowd on our street and the sun is blazing. 

12:30 pm: i heat up my left-over burrito. and semi-rudely eat it while people look over my stuff. we sold a lot of toys, dvds, books and, surprisingly, vhs tapes. we sold a shelf, side table and some other household knickknack stuff. why am i telling you this? who cares?

1:30 pm: the boys return. mac has found some money and starts walking around asking if he can buy something in his own yard. 

2 pm: we begin loading and cleaning up. david hauled everything up to Good Will. he said there was such a long line that people were just leaving stuff on the curb and driving away. 

3 pm: the newlyweds walk over with cold beers. we were all fried. totally exhausted. everyone we've talked to made about the same - $150. but everyone agreed - it was a blast. a super fun, sunny yard sale day.

at this point, davidrussell and i are skeptical we'll even have enough stuff to participate next year. but a lot can happen in a year. or you can always bring over your crap and join us.