Neighborhood yard sale

This past weekend we had our annual yard sale at Valerie's mom's house. It was a doozy for us because we were selling all of the clothes Ari and Emilie had outgrown. Valerie worked diligently for weeks pricing and organizing all the items to the point where I don't care if I ever see another two-piece shirt and pants combo again.

Last week we spent most of our evenings working on preparations for the sale which was to begin Friday morning. We hauled all our totes up from the basement into the Pilot, then drove them to Julie and Kevin's only to unload the Pilot and take them up another flight of stairs to where they were to be stored until it was time to set up for the sale. Wednesday, we took our last load over and then started setting up for the sale, so we had to bring everything back downstairs. Thursday, we finished setting up for the sale; I was spent.

I worked Friday and my dad was in town Saturday for Ari's t-ball game, so I did not have to help with running the sale. My mom and Valerie pretty much ended up running the show and we had a very successful day. One lady alone bought $50 worth of baby clothes from us. Valerie and I made more money at that yard sale probably than all the others combined so we were pretty excited. Our excitement did not last long, however.

Saturday morning, Valerie had taken the Civic in for a check-up at City Tire because the carriage was rattling pretty bad and had gotten worse and worse over the last couple of months. We were hoping it just needed new shocks and praying it didn't need new struts. Towards the end of the sale, Valerie got a call from City Tire letting us know the Civic needed new struts (ouch) and the cost of the repair was pretty much exactly what we made at the yard sale (double ouch). We were bummed.

All in all, it was a bittersweet sale and I'm glad it's over. Sure we made a lot of money, but we pretty much broke even because of the cost of the repair. Oh well...easy come, easy go. There's always next year.