Trash to Treasure

Today I participated in that oh-so-American summer Saturday tradition and held a garage sale*.

If you've been to our home you know that it's mostly neat and mostly organized. But we definitely had a number of items hanging around taking up space just because we could. Our bookcases weren't overflowing, for example, but they were full. Full of books that we never had read or were never going to read again. Same with the basement. Plenty of boxes of stuff that have been there, untouched, since we moved in. There's never been a real need to go through them and purge because we had the space. Nothing was encroaching on our living comfortably. And yet, all of those unpacked boxes and unread books nagged on me during quiet times when I felt like I should be doing something.

So I spent the past few weeks purging - closets, dressers, bookcases, storage bins, and the basement floor which was strewn with various things. And today I gathered all of those items and set them out on my driveway for all the world to see.

It was a bit odd looking at my life on display like that. There were clothes purchased during different times in my life, decorations from my single-days apartments, hand-me-down cookware that has been replaced with the latest and greatest. A few of the highlights of things I managed to sell:

* David's original Play Station with games. Now a nice little 7 year old boy will get to enjoy pretending to be an NHL and NFL start.
* A pot that was clearly from the 70s as evidenced by it's yellow hue. I do believe my mom had that pot before I was born. This is now the proud possession of a nice older gentleman with a hearing difficulty.
* A beautiful silky nightgown given to me for my wedding but which never quite fit me correctly. This is now (and this is a little weird for me) in the ownership of one of my neighbors a few doors down. I'm just glad she's not someone I really know or interact with. That would be weird.
* Both of David's and my twin size comforters from our college dorms.
* Two yellow unused sleep sacks which I thought I would love but later learned that neither of my kids really liked them. These will soon belong to the brand new twin nephews of my shopper.
* An unused baby blanket and a set of earrings that were never worn. These were purchased by an man from India who is here on a temporary work assignment. My little garage sale was his very first garage sale experience. I felt quite honored to have made him a pretty good deal. The baby blanket is for his son - due to arrive in the world in just a few weeks - who's birth he will miss. And the earrings, for his wife, a sweet little thing to say I miss you and wish I could be there. (Okay, I don't know that's what he'll say, but I imagine he'll say something nice to her when he explains the care package)

It's kind of nice to know that some of our old items will find good use and care with someone else. I think the thing I liked best was talking to people about what they were shopping for and why. I have a few garage sale finds still in use in my own home.

And the bonus part of the day... $112 profit (before the $9 we spent on pizza for dinner). Not too shabby for 5 hours sell time.

The best news... everything in the sale that wasn't re-homed made its way to the Goodwill donation center and will never clutter my home again.

*Here they call them garage sales, where I grew up we called them yard sales (it was always warm enough and never rainy so there was no need to use the inside of the garage as a back-up plan) and you northeasterners may known it as a tag sale.