I freely admit I took leave of all my sense and held a yard sale last Saturday. I positively hate doing yard sales. And, conveniently, Hubby had to work, so I did it by myself.
Boy, talk about a way to make sure you don’t have a fun weekend, that would be it.
Every three to five years, we find that we’ve accumulated enough junk that it has taken over not only our storage area, but also our home and nearly our lives. Something has to be done with it. So I decide to hold a yard sale and clean things up. The reason they are few and far between is that it takes me that long to recover from the last one and forget entirely how much I dread doing them.
This one wasn’t any different. It starts with the pricing and sorting. How much should you charge for something you no longer want? Something that really is of no value to you anymore? Then you have to make signs, place ads, acquire tables, and hope that it doesn’t rain because you are having a yard sale, not a garage sale.
The night before the yard sale, I woke up in the middle of the night to hear rain beating down and thunder ripping through what would otherwise have been the peaceful quiet of the night. Getting up at an hour no sane person would be out of bed, I remembered we had placed a few things out the night before. Sure enough, they were all soaked. That made for a great start to the day. Rushing around madly, we got everything set up, signs strategically placed around our neighborhood and Hubby on his way to work. Then I sat waiting for the customers to flock in.
Only they didn’t.
By 9:30 I think approximately 3.5 people had stopped by. My profit at that point wasn’t even going to cover the cost of the poster board I used to make the signs.
Then the floodgates opened and I had more people in my yard than I could handle and all of them were asking questions at the same time.
By 11 a.m. I was pretty sure I never wanted to hear the word yard sale again as long as I lived. By noon, the last shoppers were leaving and I quickly packed up the leftover loot and hauled it off to my favorite donation center.
By 4 p.m., the yard sale debris was completely contained and I was ready to collapse in a heap.
If you missed this one, watch for another in about 2014. I think by then I might be recovered enough to decide I can do this again.
Savvy Entertaining 
You should have told me!! I would have brought all my crap and added to the heap! I would have at least been fun to hang out with…although I can’t complain about my relaxing weekend…spent a ton of time cleaning out crap that other people wouldn’t buy….=)
You are too funny! It would have been fun to hang out with you… although I’m not great company on yard sale day!
Wow, I couldnt imagine handling a yard sale on my own. But its great that you were able to pull it off 🙂 I saw your blog from the foodie blogroll and I love reading your posts!