the only way to kick off vaca...

is at the Owen Bed & Breakfast in Henderson, KY. right now the big boys are cookin' up some biscuits and gravy and the little ones are just cookin' up a lot of trouble. and moms are doing what we do best: coffee talk.

vaca prep and errand runnin'

lots of stuff to come as we're about to hit the road for a 2 week vaca. but right now i'm just drowning in a sea of stuff to be packed. preparing for vacation is exhausting, isn't it. i've ran so many errands this week, i've already been in the car as much as i will be driving to the beach. 

all this car time as raised some questions:

a. have you ever been driving down the interstate and all of sudden your vehicle starts shaking and acting funny and you start thinking "ohmahgah!! what the H is wrong with my car?! what's happening??!!! this is it! ohmahgah!! i'm driving like 80! there are cars all around me! what should i do? should i pull over? what's wrong with my car?!" and then it stops as suddenly as it began and you realize, "oh. bad stretch of interstate." phew.

and, i tend to this on the same stretch of I-71 every time i'm on it.

b. have you ever accidentally hit your horn at a red light or something? your desperately waving at the person in front of you with a big smile - "so sorry! accident. really. take your time." 

c. have you ever been using your husband's car to run errands and as your walking from store to store at the outdoor shopping center, you catch a glimpse of his vehicle in the parking lot and you start thinking, "what the H is he doing here?! he supposed to be at work. he specifically told me he had a 2 o'clock meeting and... what the H?! that no good, lying, son of a..." 

and then you're like - "oh. wait. i drove that car. right."

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.

history of a yard sale: a hoarder's memoir

when i was a kid, my babysitter would drag me around to yard sales and buy crocheted pot-holder type stuff. i never got anything so i didn't like it. my parents were sort of yard sale snobs so i just thought other people do this, not us. but not anymore! i love it! however if i did it for the money, i would not. there's no money in yard saling. 

anyway, here's the story of how our annual yard sale came to be. it's laced with some great clean-out-your-s#!t/yard sale tips...

we've lived in this neighborhood for 7 years. the first few years of the community yard sale, i would get up early and walk our little jack russell ("nipsy") around and look for stuff to buy. but really my heart's desire was to participate as a seller. it's a great opportunity to sit outside all day in the sun and talk with neighbors while you get rid of a bunch of crap. and we certainly needed to get rid of some crap. so i began to talk it over with davidrussell:

me - "can we have a yard sale?"

david - "no." 

me - "can we please have a yard sale?"

david - "no."

after mac was born, the wretched stuff really started piling up. and as a hoarder, i was more and more overwhelmed. for example, when hoarders become parents, they start hoarding all the baby stuff - every card, every piece of doctor visit paper, every dumb outfit or toy that will never be used. this is the thought pattern: "shouldn't i save this for his baby book? shouldn't i save this info in case i need it? shouldn't i save this in case that person ever comes to visit and wonders where that gift is? shouldn't i save this to chart his growth pattern over the first 10 years of his life? what if i don't save this for his memory box and then when he's 16 and he asks about his umbilical cord and i don't have it and then he feels like i don't love him b/c i didn't save his umbilical cord in his memory box that i haven't even started making yet? ohmahgah, i'm such a terrible mother." many mothers struggle with these thoughts, but the hoarder twist is the thought of throwing it away plays 2nd to "shouldn't i keep it and then get really organized?" hoarders think if they could just get organized then it wouldn't be so bad keeping everything. it's sort of denial. hoarders play it safe by always deciding "keep it." throwing things away is risky, even dangerous. 

when mac was born not only did we get more stuff, but we also started discussing more seriously the idea of finishing our basement. but the amount of stuff down there made it impossible. again, this is common, but a hoarder will become paralyzed with fear re: the idea of cleaning stuff out. hel-lo-oo. if hoarders were good at getting rid of stuff, they wouldn't... be... hoarders.

lastly, babies cost money. and we were spending money monthly on a rented storage facility. so it didn't make much sense to decrease storage by finishing the basement when we seemingly didn't have enough storage with an unfinished basement. yes, it's a bit ridiculous. stay with me. so here's where we landed in a may '03. we had to get rid of a lot of shit. davidrussell still did not want to have a yard sale b/c he dreaded the preparation, the pricing, the moving around of stuff -- basically the all around yard sale-ness of the yard sale. BUT he was witnessing more clean-this-stuff-out passion coming from his wife than ever before. it was opportunity he couldn't pass up. he's the most organized person ever. he's like my own Peter Walsh. and this was happening way before Oprahism brought hoarding awareness into the mainstream. so we started having some really honest conversations (these are always good in marriages). i was crying a lot and telling him, "i just don't know how to clean this stuff out. i don't know where it goes. i'm scared of what i might find. every unfinished project feels like a failure. and what if i do ____ again? won't i need ________?" 

it feels like waiting for you in every box are all your unrealized goals, unfinished projects, events that hurt you, friends you've lost touched with, or seasons of life that were so wonderful you're afraid you might forget how it feels to be that happy. each box holds a mirror of your failures, your lack of self-discipline, reminders that your parents either didn't care enough to teach you healthy boundaries or were too screwed up to have them for themselves. the boxes hold all these secrets of how you really feel on the inside and you would be mortified if anyone ever found out that this crap was here in your house and in your heart -- and then comes the deep shame.

(oh, and did i mention the self-pity?)

ok, let me pause for a minute. we were not living in like a sea of record albums and cat hair. we had lovely living spaces in our home and stuff was cleaned up. but every place where something could be shoved, something was shoved and we were out of room. when we would visit my parents house, we would get a preview of how it will be in 30 years if i didn't get a handle on it. (b/c eventually the hoarders habits overtake the neat person's habits. all things being equal, my hoarding would have won. that's how it always works.)

ok, back to the emotional ringer. basically, i'm desperate. 

me "i want to do this but i don't know how." 

david - "i'll help you. i'll stay with you every step of the way." 

me - "i'm afraid of what you might see in some of these boxes. i'm embarrassed." 

david - "nothing i come across will freak me out, gross me out or piss me off."

me - "i don't even know where to start."

david - "you don't have to know. i have a plan. you just show up."

good stuff, people. good stuff.

here's how it played out:

we picked a weekend and totally protected it. NO PLANS. we asked my mom to come in town and watch baby mac. so we had zero baby duty. we started bright and early. david sat me in a chair in the middle of the basement. to the sides of the chair were 2 boxes and a trash bag. one box marked "KEEP," one marked "DECIDE LATER" and the bag was for TRASH. when i saw the "DECIDE LATER" box i started to panic and david said, "i'm going to be here the whole time. i won't leave you alone to do deal with this stuff." (i know it sounds crazy, doesn't it. i'm telling you... when you watch shows like Clean House, that's what these people are feeling.)

ok, so i sat in the chair and david put the first box in front of me. he said, "ok. start with this box. go through it and decide - keep, decide later, trash. i'm going deal with the keep and trash stuff after you decide. i'll be right here if you need me." 

so i did the first box and when it was empty, david made it a big deal - First Box! Awesome! here's another one - Bam! right in front of me. and that's how it went all day. we eventually made it to the storage unit and did the same thing. then from the KEEP and DECIDE LATER stuff we began to make a YARD SALE pile. this entire process took a lot longer than a single weekend. it was actually several weekends, but you get the gist. i'm a starter and david is a finisher so we make a great team. 

david was still dreading the yard sale itself. he didn't think we'd make any money and that it would be not worth the work. i didn't care about the money as much as just the relational community aspect. well, we had already planned a 4 day trip to key west when mac was 7 months old to celebrate 6 months of parenting and successful weaning. it happened to be 2 weeks after the our neighborhood's yard sale. so we set our profit expectations low and agreed whatever money we made would be key west beer money. then davidrussell became semi-excited about the yard sale. 

for our first yard sale, we rolled out of bed about 5:30 am and started setting up (before baby mac woke up). david went to starbucks and got us some yummy caffeine. we drank coffee, chatted with buyers and met many of our neighbors for the first time. mac hung out on the porch in a lap or the megasaucer. it was breezy, hot and sunny all day. around noon lori and david showed up with a 6 pack of blue moon and some oranges. "what's up? how's the yard sale going?" we hung out, drank beer on the porch and about 2 pm, both davids started loading the truck. oh, did i mention the #1 rule re: yard sales? NOTHING COMES BACK IN THE HOUSE. we have a Good Will 10 blocks from our house so about 2 pm, we start the process of taking stuff up there that didn't sell. 

by 3:30 pm everyone was gone, the yard was empty and our entire house was taking a nap. i think we made a little under $200. 

we have participated almost every year since. some traditions that have carried on are starbucks in the morning and beer in the afternoon. we continue to have friends stop by. my sister is notorious for picking something out, insisting she pay for it and promising to pick it up later and... well, i think we have actually sold "her stuff" to other people the following year. i can't be sure. some new traditions include shipping the boys off to a friend's house for most of the day. this cuts down on chaos and allows david and i to relax, enjoy and not yell at our kids. and so far, the tradition has been sunny days. we've had a drizzle here and there, but that's it. we believe that's not an accident.

and, boy, have i changed. hallelujah! i no longer live in scarcity and fear. i no longer ask questions like "but what if...?" i no longer assume an impoverished attitude as if any minute my world is going to come crashing down and i'm going to need ____. and i no longer assume the burden that if someone else's world comes crashing down, it will be my job to provide them _____. it's pure freedom. i'm a lily the field, people. a lily in the m'f'in' field. my job is to be lovely and sway in the wind. word up.

yard sale update

i'm exhausted.

yard sale eve (countdown to freedom begins!)

it's the big weekend, people. THE BIG WEEKEND. 4 words: Yar. da. Say. le. our neighborhood's annual community yard sale happens tomorrow! in exactly 24 hours, davidrussell and i will be neatly dumping our junk into the our freshly mulched front yard for all to see and buy. 

as a recovering hoarder, this is like my annual sobriety party. i have lots to say, but i also have lots to do and davidrussell just rolled out of bed. time to get busy. i'm so excited, i might even do some kind of obnoxious play-by-play for all you loyal readers. 

to the left, to the left. everything i own in a box to the left. 

you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here...

that's pretty much what i told this little guy when i found him (or her) in my backyard. he was way to close to my tiny vegetable garden and i had a million things going on. i did not have time for this foolishness.

i gave him plenty of warning before i let maggie out. maggie chased him up the side of my house. i banged a broom on the house and said, "you have to GO!" "shouldn't you be in bed?" "you have to go now."

turned out to be a great lesson for mac and i. we learned overtired, average-sized raccoons can hold onto the side of a brick house for about 18 minutes before falling off. 

seriously, i should homeschool.