From Trash to Treasure

We had a yard sale yesterday. It was a great thing! I've been perpetually de-junking for the last three months, and was telling my sister-in-law about the excitement of it (mm-hm). And she mentioned that she needed to go through her own kids' playroom and clean out the six hundred bins of toys down there....

And then the lightning struck. Why not sell the goo that we don't want to people who do want it. It's a win-win! Getting money for junk you'd gladly donate, and having someone do the hauling for you?! Excellent!!

So we got things rolling. We doubled our de-junking efforts, combing through corners of our homes we haven't ventured for a year and a half! And we got our next-door neighbors in on the project as well. Now it was becoming a multi-family project--what could be more promising?

I'll tell you what--a Bake Sale on top of the garage sale! Our plan was quickly reaching epic proportions. So Friday was spent in a baking frenzy (which was actually quite fun for me, and a tad more stressful for my sister-in-law.... Sorry, Ciara!). 

And then Saturday morning unfolded in a glow of dewy, seventy degree loveliness. We woke up bleary-eyed (thanks to a total of five hours of sleep the previous night after staying up to finish yard sale signs). Chad went cruising around to post the signs. Family and Neighbor showed up, and we fell to our tables and our baskets of stuff. The lawn was overspread with all of our treasured-once-but-long-forgotten items, and customers started trickling in early. The bake sale table was piled with cookies, muffins, chocolate-covered popcorn (an addicting piece of gloriousness!), Chex muddy buddy mix, homemade turtles, and even bags of home-grown cilantro. Our neighbors, Jim and Kayla, provided sno-cones as well. We were a buzzing hive of activity for the next five hours.

And the results were impressive! We surpassed our goal, and we whittled everything down to two baskets of leftover stuff to take to Savers. A successful morning for one and all. It's true what they say--one man's trash is indeed another man's treasure. And isn't the cycle wonderful?! 

(On a personal note: I did have to say goodbye to many dear old friends. Yes, I finally parted with my unicorn collection! It was a bittersweet parting for me. I reveled in a half-hour of nostalgia. I picked out a few of my favorites, and the rest have gone on to better places. I guess we all grow up sometime.... although I kept all my notes and papers for the unicorn book I'm still planning on writing someday. So maybe we never let go completely, which is as it should be.)