Bye-bye, clutter!

God smiled on Jordan and me today and gave us a fantastic yard sale. It was sunny and hot, but Jordan remembered our beach umbrella in the attic and set it up for us. My parents were kind enough to keep Suzi for us--overnight! They also loaned us two folding tables for display. We had a steady stream of shoppers, and they all seemed to think our prices were reasonable. Every shopper was honest (I am always paranoid about people trying to trick me into giving too much change; it happens periodically at work), and we had several people buy a big pile of stuff. Just when we thought we were done selling, because our end time of 11:00 had come and gone, we had four or five late shoppers drop by. One guy asked Jordan what he wanted for "all this" computer stuff. (Yay!) We ended up making as much as we'd hoped for.

The only kink in our otherwise flawless day was (allegedly) our town's director of public works. We put up signs early Friday morning and when Jordan drove by in the afternoon a few of them were gone! We thought perhaps we'd put them in a bad place, so we looked up the regs online. It costs $5 to get a yard sale permit in our town, which we didn't know, so Jordan went down to town hall and requested one. They told him since we don't live inside town limits we didn't need one. "Then how," Jordan asked, "am I supposed to put up signs?" The lady said she didn't know, but explained that this man dislikes the signs so much that he spends his free time driving around picking them up if the people don't have a permit--even if they TRIED to buy one and were turned down! If this is true, I feel sad for him that he can't think of something more productive to busy himself with. I mean, he evidently drove by yesterday and today looking for signs to take down. The helpful lady at town hall told Jordan one location and method of putting up a sign so it'd probably be left alone, but it got taken down too and Jordan had to replace it again mid-sale. Perhaps someone should explain to this man that yard sales, particularly in our current economy, are good for the community. They save people money so they can spend more, for example, patronizing local businesses. (And our local businesses, well--some of them are pretty desperate for customers.) Yard sales are also good for the environment because when people buy used, it saves things from being thrown away and new things from being manufactured needlessly. Perhaps I will write him an email.

We are just about to drop off the stuff that didn't sell at Goodwill. Looks like it'll only take one trip! Then we will go to the recycling center and, finally, the dump. I'm even more thankful for the spaces this has opened up in our house than I am for the money we made! And later this afternoon, Suzi permitting, we will all be thankful for a nap :-)