Yard Sale

Saturday at 6:30 am I was up driving around Columbia with my bright green signs and packing tape getting all my signs up to advertise for the big sale.  I got home and started loading stuff onto the lawn as my husband ran out the door to work.  (yup, on a saturday, after working darn near 60 hours mon - fri, and carrying a pager that woke him up several times in the night) *sorry, just had to whine about that for a second*  I hauled all that junk up from the basement and stuck it out on the lawn.  I was trying to keep the kids asleep as long as possible, so I was trying to keep quite and keep the dog quiet too.   I had Chinook locked in the kitchen, or so I thought, until he darted out and took off full speed ahead.  Dang dog!!!  I followed him around for over 30 minutes, not chasing, just trying to coax him home.  After he went so far away from my house that I couldn't see it anymore, I had to call Ellen (my neighbor) to come over and check on my kids.  Here I had invited everyone and their dog to come to my house, and now I've left it wide open with my four children and all that we own inside.  Lucky for me, Ellen is a sweet woman who was willing to run over and find all 3 (Liza was at a seep over) of my children awake and wandering around the house calling out... mommy... mommy.  She had them all sit on the sofa and watch tv while she stood in the yard watching for me chasing the dog.   Luckily a fellow dog owner saw me chasing Chinook and came out for a walk with her dog, Joshua.  Chinook took the bait and I got him when he was taking a good sniff of Joshua.  Back home in time to continue setting up.  The kids got dressed and came out to run their little "store" at the yard sale.  We stayed out all day and made about $80.  Not too bad.  But when I did the math of now long it took me to collect the crap, make the signs, put up the signs, stand out in the yard, pack all the left over crap into the car, take down the signs and run it all to good will,  I probably made about $2/hour.  :-)  Oh well it was fun, and you know, I only do yard sales once a year, if that.  I feel about 1000 lbs lighter!!!  I love getting rid of junk, but I have a hard time making decisions on the spot, so I always stuff it somewhere, to decide later.  Then I get a big pile of decide stuff, and then it gets overwhelming.  I am so glad that the task is done.  We had some lovely visits from Barbara and her boys, and Vanessa and her girls (she also made a whopping $6!! from some little stuff that she brought) and we sold a change table for Suzanne for $13!  Big sales from the pals.  I got a little sun kissed as a bonus for sitting out there.  We were so lucky to have a beautiful day.  We packed it in right before the little bit of rain started.  It was a great day!