I have been wanting to start a blog about nothing...and everything. Well, here it is. This will be a compilation of the thoughts that pass through my mind. Be afraid, be very afraid. If you enjoy my writing, please read. If you don't please don't read and just don't tell me. I have so many recent topics to discuss but since I finally got moving to make this happen today, I will use my ammo from today to kick things off.
Like I mentioned to those I discussed this with, I plan to discuss my kids at times but I promise this is not a blog solely devoted to my kids and family. They are great but really, that won't keep you tuning in long term.
So, today was the day for our annual neighborhood garage sale. We have never participated and quite frankly, never really cared. We have always been busy in the past and my one experience with a garage sale in the past was not so good. Think weeks of work, a rainy day, and a $30 profit. Ha! I learned my lessons and was a Goodwill drop off faithful ever since.
Fast forward to this past Sunday night. I decided we had more than enough stuff to sell and better to let someone pay me to remove my junk. I convinced Joey we should participate. What did he really care? He was going on a golfing weekend and I was going to do this on my own. All week I pulled from all corners of our house. I cleaned out the garage and carried all kinds of items from all corners of the house out to the garage. We had a pretty good bounty collected including furniture, toys, kids items, clothes, etc. I decided to price things on demand rather than ahead of time.
I set my alarm and was up and ready to go at 7:30 this morning. My first customer showed up just before 8 a.m. She bought $30 worth of stuff and I was feeling great. We ended up having a whopping 7-10 customers if you count those who drive by, yell out of the car asking for a specific item and then head on their way. We stayed out until nearly 11:20 a.m. when I made a call to close shop. We made just over $100 in total. The only real complaint is that I am still left with all my big items I was really hoping to just unload. Now to arrange pick up.
The garage sale did leave me with a few awesome antecdotes to share though...and possibly some insight on why I am a horrible garage seller. For starters, my daughter let me know early on that I failed miserably in advertising. She wanted to know where my signs were and why I wasn't jumping up and down as each car drove by. She then made her own signs and proceeded to yell at every car that came by. She also gave stickers "free" to good customers and tried to charge all she deemed poor customers $5 for a sticker. At one point she asked me when I was going to share my earnings with her to make this all fair. Really? How did my garage sale turn in to an opportunity to share the wealth.
Next up a rather large female customer arrived. As she has her back turned towards us while she looks at a item, Baker says very loudly, "Mom, that lady has a humongous bottom!" Ummm, not recommended among best salesman literature. AHHHH!! My mom was outside and nudged Baker to say no when he said that. He looks at her and says, "What? She does." Awesome! Can I run and hide now?!?! The next person comes and Grace tells them that she doesn't know who would pay what her mom is asking for all our junk but maybe someone will. Seriously?!? She then tells me that she really doesn't like her whole sales associate position. She quit. Who hired her to begin with?
Well, the garage sale is over. I do have a few extra dollars in my pocket and a little less stuff in my house so all in all it was a success I suppose. I am still a firm believer in donating goods over this whole garage sale stuff but it did provide a few good laughs and cringe worthy moments...and gave me a little fuel to start my new blog.
Stay tuned...up next- Santiago, Chile stories. Wow is all I can say! I hope to add pictures in the future but for now I will start the blog sans pictures.
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