I'll Sell You That For A Doll'ah

I'm slated to participate in a garage sale this weekend.  My garage is a horrific mess, and my main motivation for doing the sale is to get rid of everything that is out there.  It has been a holding spot for junk for the past several months and it has gotten seriously out of control.  What I can't sell I'm taking to the dump.  I'm completely committed to having no junk left by the end of the weekend.  Completely sold out.  Dedicated.  Focused.  Hard nosed. 

I say this every sale.  But then I always wimp out.

Marci and I did a sale together last fall.  I had several large items left over, like pieces of furniture and a train table.  I insisted we hold on to the left overs, because for some peculiar reason I always seem to think there is some divine reason for things not selling.  Perhaps I'm really meant to keep them after all.  Maybe I'll get inspired and refinish some of that furniture or find a great new use for some random item and I'll be so relieved that it didn't sell.

Or maybe it will just take up half the garage and gather dust until the next sale.  

This sale will be different.  This sale will be a complete success.  I'll be left with nothing but a pile of quarters and a clean garage.  I feel it way down deep in my bargaining bones.

Actually, what I feel in my bones is a sense of unbelievable tiredness.  I've known about this sale for weeks but have done zilch to prepare.  That is because knowing about an upcoming garage sale and having time to plow through closets and drawers combing for junk are two different things.  "Combing" may be a bit of a stretch.  There are piles lurking in every single corner of my house just waiting to be organized, price tagged, and hauled off in cardboard boxes.  I see those piles, really I do.  Any minute now I'm going to get a supernatural surge of yard sale gusto and I'm going to have at them with yellow dot stickers and a sharpie marker.  

Today I went shopping for the food for tomorrow night's fellowship meal at church.  I boiled and chopped the chicken for the casserole and baked and bagged my cookies for dessert.  I knew between shopping and laundry and school and baseball that I wouldn't have time to work out in the garage, so instead, I walked through the entire house and started making a list of all the things I wanted to do for the sale. It was seriously overwhelming, so I threw the list away and decided to wing it.  A big project with no plan whatsoever goes against every morsel of my being, but it's how I've decided to roll this week.  I have no plan other than having nothing left at the end of this sale.  :)

By the way, my kids are scared.  Really scared.  They know the garage sale season drill.  If it isn't nailed down or a blood relative it is fair game for the sale.  It took my son 15 minutes to find his ball cap for his baseball game tonight because he couldn't remember where he hid it.  That's right.  The people who live here resort to hiding things from me during garage sale season.  

I can sniff out junk like a bargain thirsty bloodhound, and they know it.  Sniffing it out isn't the big problem at this point.  Sorting it, stickering it, and shuffling it over to Marci's house is the challenge.  I'm seriously tired, but I need to get efficiently through these next few days with clarity of mind and a two pack of Hefty trash bags.  So I'm off, with five day's worth of work and two days to complete it.  With four kids at my heels and an intense fear of the bugs I just know are living in my garage, I'm off to make history.  The first ever garage sale with no left overs.  I can do this.  I can cast aside reasonable expectations and sensible goals.  I can sacrifice sleep, square meals, and sanity in favor of a clean garage.

For the next forty-eight hours, if it is in my way, on my nerves, or annoying me in any way, it gets marched to the curb and priced at a quarter.  I've got no mercy for the left overs.  Come Sunday, I will be the diva with the clean garage.  It sounds so good, I'm almost tempted to believe it.