So, You Want To Have A Yard Sale?
I loathe cleaning. I hate packing up old toys, books and clothes.
Each bag and box feels like pieces of my heart are heading out the door.
Needless to say, my husband loves it. He would throw out every toy in the house if he could.
He is always looking for excuses for "cleaning out" and my participation in a yard sale event was all he needed to start heaving out the bags and yelling at the kids.
Saturday, May 26th is Yard Sale for a Cure day, which even I can admit is the perfect excuse to get rid of some toys, furniture and anything else that litters my husband's conceptualization of a modern home.
We did a yard sale last year. It was a lot of work. We promised the kids we would use the money for some family fun. Instead, we just frittered the coins away in parking metres and paying for babysitters. (I know, guilt.)
But donating the money towards breast cancer research seems like a better idea. The fact that one of my closest friends is dealing with the loss of her cousin makes it seem a little more poignant.
There are lots of reasons to host a yard sale. Your kids will learn valuable lessons about business, organization, and giving back - which means they will yell a lot at passer-byers and at us for trying to sell something that they haven't even thought of in a year. It is a yard sale truth that a toy looks a lot more desirable when it is sitting on the front yard with a sticker on it than it did at the back of a shelf.
We get the kids involved in the culling process, but we also do some while they are out of the house. This can result in questions down the road like: Where is my _____? By now, my kids know to ask: Did Daddy throw out my ____? Ironically, my husband's enthusiasm for holding yard sales is in direct opposition of his tendency to purchase anything from them. The idea of used toys freaks him out.
The Yard Sale for a Cure website has lots of ideas on how to put together a sale, along with signage and other tips.
If it is just too late for you to weed out all the unloved items in your home, the site also has a handy search feature where you can find a local sale near you. Organizations like 1-800 junk also hold huge sales with some of the good stuff that they have carted away from people's homes. I got a great almost-new bike for my son thanks to them.
But even if you have missed this year's sale, don't worry. You can still pull off a sale the following weekend. But I won't be stopping by -- no more junk for us!
Have you ever had a yard sale? Do you buy things at yard sales?
Want more chaos? It is hard to believe but it has been a year since news of the "genderless" baby hit. I wonder how is baby Storm?
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