To recap... We never made it to the library on Tuesday, but I did manage to get all of the laundry and ironing done (let Katie stay up to watch a girl movie with me that night while I ironed--she had been SUCH a help throughout the day!), made a nice dinner for the family (using more frozen chicken and broth), sorted out the videos in the den for the yard sale (it's amazing how you feel the need to "purge" things that you felt comfortable with just a couple of years ago!), and got most of the yard sale stuff that was stashed all over the house priced and ready to sell.
Wednesday we got off to a pretty slow start, but can't remember why. We finally had our devotions, then went on a mad cleaning spree. I knew the rest of the week would be filled with yard sale proceedings and wanted everything to be nice and clean just in case we had any surprise house showings. Joe picked up clutter and put things away, Sam cleaned the kitchen and swept the floor, Katie vacuumed the carpet and rugs then mopped the tile floors. Joe swept the porch, then scrubbed the bathtub--not because it really needed done, but because he had been working rather grudgingly while the others were quite cheerful about it and I just couldn't let him go read a book while the others were still diligently working. ;-) I cleaned windows, scrubbed toilets, sinks, and counter tops. We had the whole house shining in less than an hour. It's incredible how quickly it can happen now that the kids are old enough to really help!
It was a rainy day that day and we made the most of it. Kate sat and read books to Sam for a while--I always love it when she and Joe do that. I spent my afternoon making our first corn chowder of the season (Mmmmmm!), along with hot rolls and cinnamon rolls. It's the sure sign that fall has arrived at the Horne house. ;-) I drew big bubble letters saying "BIG YARD SALE" with directional arrows on 8 (that's right, 8) posters and the kids colored in the letters off and on all throughout the day. They looked GREAT and drew in mobs of people for us. :-) We made a late afternoon trip to the library since we had missed going the day before, then we came home and had our chowder and rolls--everything was DELICIOUS. :-) Afterward James pulled the boxes of fall decor in from the shed and we got the house all decorated for the season. It's SO much easier than decorating for Christmas! :-) I think we were done for the day at 9:00.
Thursday started with devotions and school first, of course, and for whatever reason the kids seemed to need more help with school than usual. I actually sort of enjoyed it though. I learned lots from Katie's lesson on the human body and the different chemicals that are produced inside of us. :-) The rest of the day was spent in yard sale prep. We had a good BTI service that night on worldly amusements. Good stuff. Not worldly amusements; the lesson and comments about it. Ha!
We got up at 6:00 Friday morning to start dragging stuff out for the yard sale. HA. It takes a very, very long time to set up a sale--much more than the hour or hour and a half I was ridiculously hoping for. Sometime nearing 9:30 I told James to just go put all the signs up and open the gate--that we'd keep setting stuff up and pricing it all day if we had to, but to go ahead and open up for business. I really thought we would have lost the real "garage sale crowd" by then. My Dad is an early morning garage saler, as were the folks in Texas. If you advertised that your sale would start at 7:00, you'd have a pile-up of cars parked out front waiting by 6:30! Anyway, from the moment the signs went up we were SWAMPED. On a Friday! Up here in the mountains, in the middle of a MAZE of a neighborhood (thus the need for 8 directional signs! Ha!), in "a terrible location"! I'm not exaggerating when I say that there was not a full 5 minutes all day long until about 4:00 that SOMEBODY wasn't here looking, and usually a few--or a whole bunch of--somebodies! It was wild. We sold a lot of stuff and made a lot of money--the latter being something I hadn't really put a lot of thought into. My purpose for the sale was to de-STUFF and I'd never even considered how much money we might make. So the pretty profit was a wonderful surprise. :-)
At four-something in the afternoon we took the signs down, I pinned sheets over all of the clothes on tables, rods, and shelves, and we left everything else as it was... never considering the possibility of condensation over night! Ha! When we got up this morning everything was soppin'! The sheets were wet, but the clothes underneath were only slightly damp and dried quickly once the sun came out. Everything else we wiped off with towels as well as we could. I don't think anything was actually ruined, so that's good.
Anyway, last night we were sooooo tired once we closed up shop. James took the boys and headed to Subway to grab dinner. He said that Sam didn't even make it to Frost Road (less than a mile) before he was snoring--and Joe was asleep before they got back! Who knew that the sale had been hard on the kids, too?! We woke everybody up (ha!) and ate in the den and let the kids watch Wall-E. I COULDN'T WAIT until 8:30 so I could put the kids to bed and go to bed myself! Ha! I think I really did go to bed at about 9:00. Amazing!
Today we opened up the sale at 7 or 8-ish. It's been a LONG day and I can't remember that far back. Ha! Apparently there's no such thing as an early morning crowd around here--they didn't really start hitting until about 9:30. Strangely enough, Saturday was a MUCH slower day than Friday. Still, we did well and sold a decent amount. By 2 or 3 o'clock things had really died down and we decided to call it quits. I started sorting the PILES of baby clothes that were still around (though I did sell several bags worth today) into "to donate" and "to keep for the next sale" piles. Yes, that's right... we're planning on going through this garage sale misery AGAIN once we get an offer on the house, adding some furniture into the mix and then donating all of the little junk at the end of it. It took a few hours to get everything all separated (not just baby clothes--everything) into the piles and taken care of. James took a pile of donations to the thrift store (who rejected it--long story) and we got everything else moved back into the shed for next time. By then it was nearly 5:00. James said he would take the kids to Edgewood to donate all the stuff in the van to the Salvation Army out there--and they were glad to take it, which made James very happy after the encounter with the crabby lady and the first place. :-) He also took the kids to eat at McDonalds and to Wal-Mart--so they could all spend the money they made in the sale today off of their toys (about $15 apiece, I think) which means, of course, that we have now REPLACED the toys we rid ourselves of with new ones! That was NOT what I had in mind! Ha! Anyway, they had a great time AND...
It meant I had the house all to myself for a few hours!!!! It was glorious. I had to MAKE myself spend a little while cleaning up the house so I could really enjoy it, then I took a long, hot bath. It felt soooooo good, even though I got sunburned today and was feeling rather hot in those places already. Ha! It was great. I finally got out of the tub and had some left-over corn chowder for dinner at about 7:00, shortly before the family came home all excited about their new acquisitions: a yellow hat for Katie, a new air gun for Joe, and a remote controlled truck for Sam. A big one. Great.
Now they're all snoozing in bed and I'm not far behind them, I hope! But first, the most exciting news of all... that I'm scared to get too excited about just yet.
A yard sale lady looked at the house yesterday. She sounded interested enough that James let me show her through the house instead of calling Jason to set up an appointment through him--something that goes totally against James' nature. Ha! Anyway, she acted like she really liked it, but in visiting with her I just really didn't get the feeling that much would come of it. She is nice enough, but I really don't think it would be the best decision for her to buy our house. I would love to say that it's a perfect situation for her, but I really think it would be an unwise move for her--I don't think it will meet her needs satisfactorily and I think she might be getting herself and her daughter into some big financial heartache should she proceed with this. Of course, I was forming these opinions quietly in my head and it wasn't really my place to tell her, "You're nuts--you can't afford to make this decision and it's really not going to work the way you want it to anyway!" You know?! I keep thinking that if she has any friends or family with any sense surely they'll tell her those things. ?! ANYWAY...
I called Jason when she left and gave him her name and number as he had asked me to when we told him we'd be showing the house to somebody. He called back a few hours later and said that he had just talked to the lady. After she left our house she called her own realtor AND she called a lender to see about getting pre-approved for a loan (!) and if she can, she'd like to come look at the house one more time, then consider making an offer. WHOA! I had TOTALLY not expected anything to come of it when I was visiting with the lady. And even still, I feel really weird about it. I mean, I KNOW it's God's will for us to sell this house (at some point) and move to Alabama (that part: soon!)... but I keep thinking it surely can't be God's will for this LADY to make such an ill advised decision for herself and her family! So it's not like I can pray, "God, help her get approved for the loan and send herself into dire financial bondage for the sake of a house that's not going to solve her problems anyway!" Ha! Then the other side of me is thinking, Well, if she doesn't make THIS poor decision she'll probably just make another poor decision instead, so does it really matter?! HA! So I've resigned myself to praying, "LORD, YOUR WILL BE DONE--whatever that is. Just get us to Alabama very, very soon." I feel safe about that one. Jason says he'll keep in touch with this lady and her realtor and they should know early next week what her lender says. Help us pray for God's will!
I had fully intended to take pictures of our yard sale (weird as it sounds), but we were way too busy helping customers most of the time for that! Who knew?! Anyway, here are a few pictures I've taken in the past week or so.
James actually went and bought a roll of bubble wrap to protect his precious Church memorabilia. :-) This is the day he packed up the stuff from his office walls. Believe it or not, he had already taken down a LOT. Ha!
A few days ago the kids called me to the kitchen and informed me they had made lunch for me. ~sigh~ I am so blessed. :-) I've got good and thoughtful kids. Katie had made me a grilled ham and cheese sandwich and Joe had made ramen. Then they turned the lights out and lit a candle so it would be extra nice. Actually, I lit the candle myself because all of the kids are scared to light a match--something I'm VERY grateful for since I know all about what an 8 year old and a match can do. Right, Mom?! ;-)
They also made me a card.
Here are Sam and Katie working away on those yard sale signs. :-)
And this is a picture I took of my computer screen several days ago. On the left was the current temperature where I live right now, and on the right was the current temperature of where I'm going to live in Alabama...
Can you believe that IN SPITE OF THAT... I'm still EXCITED to move there?! Ha! God still works miracles, that's all I can say. ;-)
6 comments:
Congratulations on your VERY successful yard (and possibly house) sale! WA HOO!
Yes, I'm very aware of what an 8 year old and a match is capable of, and I'm relieved you've become more responsible with the combination of those two items. The fire department is relieved, also. ;-)
I see the dramatic difference in temperatures in the picture of your computer screen. I have 2 thoughts. 1) I see you installed the VLC media player. :-D It worked for me! and 2) I just heard that it's 87 degrees in Denver right now! That's just WRONG! It's supposed to be COOL when football season has arrived. What's weirder is it's nearly 20 degrees cooler here than it is in Denver, for which I'm VERY grateful!!!
It rained this Sunday and cooled down. It said 67 degrees on a bank sign when we were coming home from church last night. :)
Even tho' you can't see it yet...I'm waving the right hand of fellowship at ya. Welcome to Bessemer!!!
Praying for that house sell!
Glad the VLC Player worked for you, Mom--it was worthless to me! I need to go uninstall the piece of junk; thanks for reminding me. ;-)
Thanks for the wave, Sister Tammy--it's almost as good as the real thing! Keep those prayers coming. We're hopeful that perhaps this will be the week. We want to be full of faith, but not too excited prematurely, you know?! Waiting and praying right now--might know something as early as Wednesday. :-)
So glad your yardsale was a success. I remeber having a yard sale a couple of years ago to get ready for our new baby and it was HARD work, but very worth it. We ended up with enough money for the nursery and to redo Paydon's room. God bless you!
Thanks, Beth--we were so pleased with how the sale turned out. You're right, it is HARD WORK! But worth it when it's all said and done. :-)
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