Yard Sales

I hate yard sales.

Let me clarify that a little. I love going to yard sales, especially ones that are non-specific; by that I mean yard sales that are not simply selling all of one thing - children's clothes and old toys; all car parts; personal-care stuff in bulk, picked up at store clearance end-caps and sold en masse in a yard sale. What I hate is having yard sales.

Okay, maybe hate is a strong word when associated with yard sales, but anyone who's ever had a yard sale can probably understand.

First of all, you have to pick a day (or, if you're going to do it for the whole weekend, or, at least, several days, a weekend), and make sure ahead of time that the weather is good. Then, the morning of the yard sale (or the first morning, if it's a multiple-day event), you've got to get up very early and start dragging out stuff (yes, that's the technical term): tables (even if this includes closet doors propped up on chairs), boxes of sales-stuff, stuff that won't fit into boxes (that old lawn mower that you've meant to get rid of), place everything onto tables (well, except for that lawn mower), and make sure that it's spread out in some kind of order - books with books, DVDs together, etc. Then, you've got to make sure your yard sale signs are where people can see them and be directed to your yard sale. This can be dicey, especially if you're silly enough to try doing this by yourself; put the signs out at main streets before putting stuff on the tables, and you're liable to have people driving by while you're opening that first box of stuff to put out. But put the stuff out after you've set up, and there's a good chance people will come by while no one is watching the sale. Yup, best to have at least one other person helping out. Either way, though, figure it's going to take a good hour (or two) to completely set up. I can almost guarantee that half-way through the morning, you'll remember that one or two items that you really wanted to set out in the sale; this happens almost every time I've had a yard sale.

Of course, the weather isn't necessarily a problem if you've got a garage with a secure-able garage door. You can set up in the garage a little at a time during the week before the sale, knowing that if it rains, you can still have the sale. And if the weather is nice, you can drag one or two tables out on the day of the sale so that people driving down the street can spot the sale easier.

Then there's the wait. If you're lucky and lots of people wander by, you won't have much of a wait. And, of course, at the end of the sale, there's the clean-up, where you put everything away...

My last yard sale was held on a weekend where there was a thirty percent chance of rain. Yes, 30%! That might sound crazy, but hear me out. This is Florida and summer is the rainy season. Thirty percent was the lowest chance of rain we'd had for a few weeks, and what looked like the lowest percent in the near future. Besides, the rain was predicted to show up mid-afternoon, giving me (and my daughter, M.H., who'd wanted to have the yard sale) all morning and a couple of afternoon hours to sell stuff. Besides, the previous Saturday, when M.H. had really wanted to have the yard sale, we'd had a fifty percent chance of rain, which, of course, meant putting the sale off by a week. And then, on the 50%-chance-of-rain-day, it didn't rain until after 5:00 that afternoon. Dang, I thought. We could have had the yard sale and had it over and done with! Thirty percent chance of afternoon rain sounded good.

Saturday morning, I put out the tables, then hung out the signs before rushing back to finish setting up. As some point, I texted M.H. to let her know what was up; she texted back that she'd be over in a little while to help out.

Over the next hour or so, there was a steady stream of people coming by. Quite a few stopped, some bought stuff, while others slowed down, glanced over, then kept going. M.H. came by with her daughter, G.H., and the two of us kept fairly busy.

At some point, the clouds started rolling in, slowly, at first, then rapidly.

"I hope it doesn't rain," M.H. said. I agreed, then mentioned that it wasn't supposed to rain until mid-afternoon.

But within a few minutes it started sprinkling. We started grabbing some of the stuff that would be ruined by the rain - books, the closet doors being used as tables, that sort-of thing.

But suddenly, the rain poured down in earnest. It was like standing in the shower, fully dressed, while we scrambled around dragging stuff in, shouting "Grab that box over there!" and "Help me drag this box in now; it's falling apart!"

Once we got everything in, I lent M.H. clothes so she could put her soaking wet clothes into the last load of laundry she was doing at our place that week.

Neither of us was happy. The week before, when there was a 50% chance of rain, causing us to delay our yard sale plans, it hadn't rained until after 5:00. Now, when the rain chance hovered at 30% of afternoon showers, making it look good for a sale (or, at least, a better day for a sale), it had rained before noon. Yes, we groused. We were definitely not happy.

But finally, we got our acts together and started going through the yard sale boxes that we'd dragged inside, picking stuff to save for a future sale, stuff for Ebay, stuff for M.H. to donate to Goodwill on her way home, stuff to throw out. It took an hour or two.

"At least we made some money," M.H. said.

Finally, stuff set into groups - future yard sale/Ebay stuff, donate bag, other stuff thrown out - M.H. and G.H. got ready to leave. "I'm so over yard sales," M.H. said as they headed out. I had to agree. It had been a fiasco.

Yes, it rained the rest of the day. So much for 30 %. And yes, when it looks like I'll be having another yard sale sometime in the sort-of near future.

Not that I'm in any hurry.

Going To Goodwill (When I Thought of Staying Home)

It's one of those rainy, dreary days when one almost feels like curling up on the couch, wrapped in a quilt, with a good book or movie. A cup of tea and homemade cookies wouldn't be a bad idea to go with said book or movie. And if one has a fireplace with available wood, that'd be great.

Before you ask, no, I'm not in the frigid north, where snow has been piling up on top of snow, on top of even more snow and horrible temperatures. I'm in sunny Florida, except that it's not sunny. It's cold (by Florida standards) and dreary and rainy. The high today is supposed to be 50 degrees this evening, 57 degrees tomorrow afternoon. (The meteorologist for WFLA, Tampa's NBC affiliate, just mentioned the "freezing rain;" the flip side is that it's also supposed to warm up in a couple of days.) My daughter, M.H., who spent 15 years living in Rhode Island with her husband and daughter, has informed me that it's finally nice out, at least temperature-wise. I still say it's cold.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I figured I'd do some tidying-up, as well as some writing, forgetting that I'd mentioned to M.H. that yes, we could go to the Goodwill retail store where her brother, my son M., works.

She remembered, though. She figured we'd pick up some stuff to sell on ebay or at a local music store. M. had picked up DVDs and CDs at the outlet store he works at with the idea of selling them. The retail store sells DVDs and CDs for 60-cents a pound, giving an enterprising person a chance for a decent mark-up. Earlier this week, he'd brought out the stuff he'd bought over the past month or so and checked with Amazon and Ebay to see what similar items were going for. Anything that had a decent mark-up, he posted. The rest he brought to the music store, sold a bunch of stuff, then sold the rest at a pawn shop across the street. Before you humph about it, he managed to turn maybe $5 worth of movies and CDs into $28 and change...and that's not including the stuff he has posted online! M.H. figured that if he could do it, so could we.

When M.H. called this morning, I sighed. I really didn't want to go out, but figured, well, why not. "Sure," I told her. "Come on over. We'll see what happens."

The retail store was a little farther than I'd remembered. It had been years since I'd been there, and while I knew exactly where it is and how to get there, when you don't go somewhere on a fairly regular basis, distances become a little warped. M.H., her husband B., and I talked about this on the way there.

"How much farther is it?" she asked. We were coming up to a traffic light at Ninth Street; the store wasn't too far beyond Fourth Street.

"Don't tell me streets!" she huffed. "Tell me how long 'til we get there!" Apparently, that's how they give directions in Rhode Island. M.H. and B. talked about hearing directions that went, "Turn right where the old Blah-blah restaurant used to be...yeah, it's the new Dunkin' Donuts now...and go for another two minutes..." I'd lived in New England for a number of years and had heard directions like that. How had I forgotten?

When we finally arrived, M.H. found a parking space and we headed in. Even with the chilly, rainy weather, there were still people wandering in and out of the store, which was basically part of a warehouse. Actually, Goodwill takes up the entire building, but has it segmented off into different spaces: two stores, along with other stuff, all warehouse-ish.

Even though M. had described the store fairly well, the reality was a little different than I'd imagined. It also turned out we probably should have arrived hours earlier, as much of the good stuff was already gone.

We sighed and got to work picking through bins. For a while, any CDs and DVDs I ran across got stuffed into the oversized shopping bags. At one point, an old man walked up to me, handing over a stack of CD cases.

"I decided I don't want these, and since you're buying a lot of music," he said before wandering off to stand in one of the two checkout lines. It seemed a little strange, but then, it seemed that a lot of the normal shopping rules didn't seem to apply here. You don't walk up to someone in, say, Publix and say, "I notice you're buying a lot of cans of tomato soup, so you might as well have the ones I picked up, too."

I glanced in the CD cases the man had handed me--maybe eight or ten of them--and every single case was empty! I'd already run across an empty CD and DVD case already, but the fact that he'd handed me this many empty ones...I put them down near a cash register.

In the end, while we didn't get quite as much stuff to sell as we'd anticipated, we did end up with a good start. M.H. even ended up with a working vacuum for $2 and a small flat-screen TV. (Note to self: Next time, we'll need an earlier start.)

After getting home, I plopped the bag of stuff I'd bought on the dining room table while M.H. tested the TV and vacuum. The TV didn't work, but the vacuum did. (At last report, the TV apparently needed a fuse, which M.H. was trying to find. We'll see how well it works.) After putting her stuff back in the trunk, M.H. and B. left. The rain started back, colder, drearier, and definitely looking like it would've been a snow-day, had we been up north.

Back inside, J. was pulling stuff from the bag and looking through the pile, shaking his head.

"You didn't check this stuff too closely, did you?" he asked. Apparently there were a couple of mis-placed CDs: an Eric Clapton CD rested in half of a Rolling Stones case; Pink Floyd rested in a Rage Against the Machine. Two double-CD cases sported one CD. I sighed. (Another note to self: Make sure to check the CDs and DVDs a little closer to be on the safe side.) After fixing myself a cup of tea, I posted most of what I'd bought on ebay.

I now have cookie dough setting up. I made several kinds of cookie dough, including my Grandma Hallock's oatmeal cookies and a bowl of gingerbread men dough. Should be ready to bake this evening. I wish I'd fixed the dough before going out so I could send some home with M.H. The stories those cookies could tell...

Here's to homemade cookies and tea on a rainy evening after a day doing stuff I hadn't quite planned. A change of plans can be a good thing...this afternoon was.