Friday, July 15, 2011

If you ever want to know how little your possessions matter....have a garage sale.

Seriously.
Sit at your little card table as people walk away with the things you bought or were given for your home.  Things that you purchased with a plan, or a dream, or just because you thought they were really really cool.
Very humbling.

I'm not a big garage saler - although I did try it out a bit when I was buying baby clothes for the boys. The point is...I know very little about garage sales....but apparently more than my husband.  Our garage sale started at 8am on Friday.  Dustin made a doctor's appt that day for 8:30am.  His response to my questioning his judgement....nobody's going to show up right at 8 am.  Ummmm.... try 6:30am.  These people are SERIOUS and that mistake will not be made again.

I've always loved home decorating.  As a child I wanted to be an interior designer, until my mom informed me that some people will expect you to decorate their homes in their taste....and that's not always going to be your taste.  (what?!)  Anyways, I've also always fancied myself a bit of a frugal finder.  I hate digging through garage sales myself, but if there is a table being thrown out for free on the curb...you better believe I'm taking it with me.

The things I sold on Friday and Saturday were things I had acquired in all of my 8.5 years of marriage...every piece with a history behind it.
But that doesn't really matter.  Because at 6:30 am on Friday morning people started sifting through our possessions in my dirty garage and all along my uneven driveway (it should again be noted that the garage sale didn't officially start until 8am and that I didn't have ANYTHING priced or any signs up at all).
And those people didn't stop coming until 2pm that afternoon.
And they came back the next day.
They didn't care that I bought the poppy painting from a street artist in Florence.  They only feigned interest when I told them about how I had refinished the headboard myself.  And they shrugged me away when I told them I had taken, printed, and framed those three prints for my son's nursery.
Come to find out, none of it really matters.  Because they are just things.  And you can't take them with you.




On a happy note, you can use the money you made selling above-mentioned things to fly your family across the globe to a little country in the UK.  As Dustin said after counting our earnings....."now Liam can go too!" :)

2 comments:

everythingismeowsome said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

So glad Liam will be making the trip :)

And yes, garage salers are always early!

Jill said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

I don't really garage sale shop either, but I would have loved to shop at yours. I always liked your decorating style when you posted pics of your home, and I would even have listened politely and attentively when you told me the stories about each item. :) p.s. Those 2 guinness signs would already be hanging in our basement *and my husband would be thrilled!* if I'd been there. :) Glad you survived the sale!