OK, I'll admit it...

I iron.

So there.

Mr. Jenny home offices but I always iron his shirts. After I hang them out on the line to dry. I like when he is crisp and neat and smells like sunshine.

Cuz, yea, well he is my sunshine.

AND...

I have now successfully trained him in the art of garage sale spotting.

Saturday morning I was being a lady of indulgence sleeping in until 6:15 when he came in sweetly and said, "The neighbors are having a garage sale!"

I sat up instantly and said "Who?"

"Tom and Judy on the corner," he said and then told me, "Hurry, there's a lot of people there already!"

So I leaped out of bed (OK, it was a pathetic leap but a leap none-the-less!), threw some semi-matching clothes on, tried to comb the snarls out of my hair and then hopped out the front door pulling my shoes on as I went!

It was a huge garage sale and there were tons of people there. All the cool stuff was sitting behind the cashier table already sold.

With a tear in my eye (Hey, I get emotional when I miss out on stuff like this, don't judge me, K?) I turned to go and then I spotted this on a table of plastic containers! I am always a sucker for a metal box. And this one was cool...a little patina, a cute little latch. Geez, Louise!

I opened it up and look what was inside...prepare to say "Awwww..."


...and after I grabbed my treasure Mr. Jenny and I tooled around the neighborhood, drinking a latte from Dutch Brothers coffee and hanging out.

And even though I won't use this to iron Mr. Jenny's shirts I will think of him whenever I see it in my laundry room.

Because this is Father's Day. And he is the best, kindest, most wonderful supportive, loving and supportive guy in the world...to all of our kids and Grands and to me. Oh, and did I mention, he's now a well-trained garage sale spotter!?!

Yea, he definitely deserves those crispy, neat, smelling of sunshine shirts.

My little travel iron treasure is linked to Debbie's Garage Salen! Visit the rest of the cool treasures by clicking here!

Get your motor running...

...so you can head to Lowes to buy some paint stripper.

We heard a rumor that one of our neighbors was moving and they were going to have a garage sale yesterday.

So...

I made Mr. Jenny get out of bed and come with me.

We drove by the house but there were no signs out and so we wandered through the rest of our neighborhood looking for garage sales. We stopped at some...nothing cool...

And when we went back by the neighbors house, the side gate was open and there was a small cardboard sign by the road that said "Garage Slae".

I figured that was close enough, so we went in the gate.

Ummm...

OK. These people have seriously wayyyy too much money. He is an attorney and most of their stuff was pretty contemporary. But dirt cheap. And we got to see the entire house in the process of her showing us the things for sale! I always love a free house tour when I can get one!

On the way through my husband spied a really cool old-fashioned desk chair which he grabbed for 20 bucks and I saw this bench and table set. It is made out of an old bed.

I told Mr. Jenny I was going to buy it for 40 bucks. He looked puzzled.

This is probably why.
But look how cool the set is. Minus the HD flame stuff.

The lady we bought it from said she had paid someone 200 dollars to paint it up with the Harley logo.

And I'm probably going to pay 10 bucks for stripper to take it off!

We also bought a bookcase and a bunch of kids books and some cool measuring spoons and a giant wicker hamper.

I'm linking this post up to Debbie Doo's Week 3 of Garage Salen! You can visit her blog but just clicking here!

So...you know that lady? (and a giveaway)

The one I told you about all crabby and mean on Thursday trying to buy stuff that wasn't for sale? She came back on Friday! First thing.

When people come to my garage sale I am really nice. I smile at them! I say good morning! Yea, I am all kinds of charming.

But when I saw her walking up I almost didn't.

I almost went into the house.

But...

I decided to be a good, little garage sale hostess and I said, "Good morning!" in my chipper, happy voice...

AND...

She looked sheepish.

AND...

I said, "gosh, weren't you here yesterday? I bet you came back to buy those dishes, didn't you?"

AND...

She looked sheepish. And said, "no", and then bought some stuff without haggling at all and then went off.

AND...

As she was leaving she turned around and SMILED AT ME and said, "Thank you!"

Hmmm....

What the heck was that all about? And there was the lady that I gave all the free stuff on Thursday. She had wanted to buy this little lamp for two dollars but I couldn't make it work so I told her just to take it and if she couldn't figure it out she could just throw it away. Yea. She came back with her two dollars. Said we just didn't turn the switch on. I said "you came all the way back to give me two dollars?" and she said "fair is fair", gave me a hug and left.

And there was this tiny little pregnant girl who was literally counting out pennies to buy this baby calendar and bib set. And I told her just to take them and I thought she was going to cry.

And there was this guy that came in and wanted to buy the benches I had stuff setting on. And got all annoyed when I said they weren't for sale. And said it was "deceptive advertising". Ummm.... OK.

And although I almost thought I would hear from his lawyer for all the emotional trauma I caused him by using a bench that was not for sale...(gasp, the horror of it all) I didn't get served any papers on it...I did however find a little typed note in my front door on Saturday morning telling me to call this number because the people had stopped by the garage sale on Friday and wanted to buy our house. Ummm.... OK. That will be 1 million dollars please...

And there was the lady that came in at the end with residents of some care facility...she had 38 crumpled up 1 dollar bills and asked what she could buy with that and I had Mr. Jenny pretty much fill up her car with everything we had left.

And that was that.

Except for...

I had this cool thing I was going to sell that I've never used and then I pulled it out to do a little giveaway with.

I figured since you couldn't come to my garage sale I would let two of you experience it long distance.

The first prize is this really cool Southern Living at Home casserole dish in a little iron stand in an elegant french vanilla color. I love it. I just have never used it and somehow after six years I doubt very much that is going to change anytime soon!
The second prize is a secret. It will make you laugh. And it will make you a little bit happy. I'm not saying what it is but it is worth about $22.50 - tax not included.

So...

To win I am just going to use all the comments from my recent garage sale posts and put them into the Random Org pot and select two winners.

To win, you have to be a follower of my blog AND any comments to the garage sale posts count. If you've left a comment already on a garage sale post I don't care if you leave another one.

I'll have Mr. RO select the two winners on Tuesday morning. There will be two posts on Tuesday - one for Story-Time Tuesday and the winner announcement...

...and that's all I got! Except for a really cluttery house AND an empty refrigerator...so I'm signing off for now to get all my work done so I can spend the afternoon reading Alphabe-Thursday links!

Yee haw!

So… there was this lady…

At the garage sale yesterday.

She was quite irritating. She walked around picking stuff up and asking why we were asking what we were asking. If it was a 50 cent thing she would say “why is this 50 cents?” And I would reply “ummm…because it is.” What I really wanted to say is "because I said so!" But that never worked well with my kids and I suspect it wouldn't have worked well with her either.

After she did this for awhile she decided to focus on some dishes I have on some metal racks, obviously not in the garage sale. At least six feet behind the garage sale tables. But she was quite irritated that I would “taunt” her with these dishes and kept insisting she wanted to know how much they were. Finally, just to make her go away I pretended to check the dishes and said “oh, you’re right, they are for sale…they are $250 for the set. Should I box them up for you?”

I’m a jerk. I’m sorry. And there was this other lady who told us how to find out if bills were counterfeit. She bought 20 bucks worth of stuff. After she was gone I remembered I didn’t check her bill to see if it was fake. It wasn’t. Boy, that was a close call.

And there was a lady who I offered our bags of free stuff to. She looked like she could use free stuff. She asked me what was in there. I said “free stuff”. And she said, “like what kind of free stuff?” And I said I have no idea but it’s free. She didn’t take the free stuff.

The next lady did and she was all excited to get free stuff.

And there were the adorable old people who kind of tottled around with their canes and talked about memories in their wavery voices. I love their stories. I always want to get them a chair and some coffee. And to be honest, I’ve done that more than once.

And there was the guy that kept taking pictures of Mr. Jenny’s 1948 Jeepster. He gave me his number and asked if I could get Mr. Jenny to call him. When Mr. Jenny called him he asked if it would be OK if he brought his Dad over today to look at it. Said his Dad would be really excited to see it…and was it for sale?

And there was the lady that saw the Starbucks Cappucino maker and actually squealed. She stood with her hand on it and called her friend who is looking for one. She said she had to run to the ATM but would be right back to pick it up! Mr. Jenny kinda/sorta told me “I told you so.” Mr. Jenny kinda/sorta may possibly pay for gloating. According to the memory of I have of our marriage vows I am the only one allowed to do that. Ever.

There were the smilers, and the serious people, and the talkers, and the quiet ones. And the ones who grabbed everything in site and then put it all down in different places. There was the guy who picked up the x-box for $25.00 and kept asking me if I was lying about the price?

There was the lady that came up to our little table holding a knife pointed straight at me. I put my hands up and said “don’t kill me!” and she looked at me like I was crazy.

And perhaps I am.

Crazy that is.

Because why in the world would I possibly enjoy this parade of humanity through my garage on a day pushing 100 degrees by noon?

I have no idea why.

But I do!

And it’s starting again in 20 minutes so I’m hitting publish now!

Oh, and bring money. Come buy stuff.

But you can’t buy the Jeepster or the not-for-sale-dishes! So there!

Sigh.

More garage sale conversations...

So...

Moving into the pricing phase of the garage sale there are more interesting conversations.

Son: How much should I ask for this?
Me: I dunno. Two dollars?
Son: Two dollars!
Me: Too much? Too little?
Son: I don't know. I was just surprised.
Me: Hmmm...

... and...

Mr. Jenny: Why do you have $40 dollars on this Starbucks cappucino machine?
Me: I thought that seemed fair.
Mr. Jenny: Well, it's in perfect condition.
Me: I know...but it is a garage sale after all.
Mr. Jenny: Well, I think it was almost $400 dollars.
Me: And we got a lot of use out of it.
Mr. Jenny: Well, change the price to $60.
Me: OK.
Mr. Jenny: Well, maybe change the price to $80
Me: OK
Mr. Jenny: Well, change the price to $100
Me: Sigh.
Mr. Jenny: Maybe we should just keep it. (taking it back into the house where it will reside in the cupboard for another 2 1/2 years)

...and...

Neighbor: Hey, are you getting ready for your garage sale?
Me: Ummm....yea.
Neighbor: Well, do you care if I look at stuff?
Me: Ummm... well...ummm.... sure...
Neighbor: Hey, didn't you buy this at my garage sale for $5?
Me: I have no idea.
Neighbor: Well, you have $10 on it...maybe we should split the profit.
Me: Ummm...sure...ummm....I'll get back to you on that.

...and...

Daughter: Hey, does this say $7 ?
Me: Yes
Daughter: Why?
Me: Because it does.
Daughter: Well how much did it cost?
Me: I have no earthly idea.
Daughter: Well did you google it?
Me: ummm.... No.
Daughter: Did you look on e-bay?
Me: ummm.... No.
Daughter: Well how did you know to price it at $7.
Me: ummmm.... Go away now.

...

But my very favorite garage sale pricing story is when our oldest Granddaughter was two. I had read some silly book on organizing a garage sale with multiple people by color coding it. I got all these little round stickers in about 8 different colors and marked every single thing of my sisters and my kids and my parent's neighbors in different colors AND I made a little chart.

Julia, however, thought she would help by taking off about 80% of the stickers.

"Gwamma," she said proudly, grubby fists overflowing with crunched up color coded circles, "Look, I help you!"

I just sold everything, divided up the money and said "yea, that color coding system was not all it was cracked up to be!"

And now, I leave you with this...

An average garage sale in the United States nets $239.46. For about 30 hours of work. Netting around $7.98 per hour. Minus the emotional stress which puts it at around $3.60 per hour. Plus the fun of chatting with 100 total strangers which adds at least $2.00 per hour.

So for $5.60 per hour I am going to give each of my children around sixty bucks.

Hmmm...

If you'll excuse me I think I better go sneak that cappucino maker back out to the garage!

Happy Monday!

Sigh.

Conversations about planning a garage sale...

Our kids all have stuff to get rid of and they are all trying to make extra money due to salary cuts, houses not selling, etc. and we have the best garage sale neighborhood in possibly the Universe so...

Instead of donating it all to Goodwill as we have so often done in the past...

A garage sale is happening here on Thursday and Friday.

Here's how we prepare for an event like this at our house.

Once we decide when it's going to be kids start dropping stuff off in boxes. And boxes. And boxes.

And I start going through cupboards thinking of things to get rid of.

And about that time is when the phone calls and conversations start.

Daughter: Mom? Will you be hurt if I sell something you gave me?
Me: No! Will you be hurt if I sell something you gave me?
Daughter: No...ummm....well....what is it?

20 minutes later:

Me: Daughter? You know those plates I have in the cupboard that we bought at that garage sale with the birds on them? Do you want them?
Daughter: Why? Are you going to get rid of them at the garage sale?
Me: Yes...
Daughter: Ohhhh.... well I kind of want them but I don't have any room....
Me: OK, well I'll just keep them then.

20 minutes later:

Mr. Jenny: Ummm.... did you put this in the garage sale pile? (Holding up some hideous plate printed in orange and putrid brown)
Me: Yes.
Mr. Jenny: Well, maybe we should keep it!
Me: Why?
Mr. Jenny: Well, it's sentimental.
Me: Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know. Who gave it to you?
Mr. Jenny: I don't know but I've had it a long time so maybe I should keep it.

20 minutes later:

Son: Mom? You know that box of garage sale stuff I dropped off?
Me: Yes?
Son: Well, I put this such-and-such in there and it is brown and about 1/2 " tall and I didn't mean to put it in there so can you get it out and save it for me?
Me: Ummm.... sure. Which box is it in?
Son: I'm not sure...one of them.

By text:

Daughter: Do u have all garage sale stuff out?
Me: Not yet. Why?
Daughter: I want to C what there is.
Me: Oh.


And then there are these conversations when they actually see the boxes of stuff in the garage:

Kid: Mom?!?
Me: WHAT!?!
Kid: Did you see so-and-so is selling such-and-such I gave them.
Me: Why? Did you want it back?
Kid: No, but...
Me: Well, aren't you selling such-and-such so-and-so gave you?
Kid: Yea, but...

...and...

Mr. Jenny: Do you know you put all these books in the garage sale pile?
Me: Yes? And?
Mr. Jenny: Well, I might want to read them someday.
Me: You want to read a love story between a mutant and an alien with three eyes from Galaxy 17?
Mr. Jenny: Well, OK, probably not that one...I'll put it back.
Me: Sigh.

And in this pile of mish-mash stuff is some weird things. Things like the grill from an old jeep that I bought at a garage sale thinking Son #2 would like it hanging on his garden wall with vines trailing through it.

Ummm.... not so much.

Things like all the beat up stuff I bought to help the neighbors son at his Eagle Scout garage sale thinking I might someday need 4 sets of fairly hideous old silverware.

Ummm.... not so much.

Things like 43,619 baseball hats, many of which are adorned in support of giant pumpkin growers everywhere! Don't ask! Do you need one?

Ummmm.... not so much?

Things like a 3 1/2 foot tall stack of National Geographics. If you're around my age you might remember looking through them to see naked natives many years ago. I thumbed through a few of them, saw a few naked natives and was it as thrilling?

Ummmm.... no so much!

So I'm heading out to start putting stuff on tables and pricing things.

And sometimes when I actually start getting stuff out of boxes is when the real fun starts!

But I'll tell you about that tomorrow.

I have a date with a sharpie and a roll of blue masking tape!

Happy Sunday!