You'd think a yard sale would be about money, or maybe money and junk, but our little Hollow's yard sale was about
people.
What began as
Sue's idea, grew into a seven family undertaking in our little back road community. Four close neighbors, two "extended" neighbors and one honorary neighbor banded together to finally get rid of our stuff. And we sure had a good time doin' it.
I'm telling you, our junk shedding weekend was worth it for every bit of community we experienced.
I knew it was gonna be a fun kind of yard sale, when my neighbor dropped off a hay wagon at my place, so I could load my stuff at my convenience. Hay wagons make instant yard sale tables, ya'll.
You probably recognize this green and gold beauty
from the time our trusty neighbor helped us out when the Rugged Mountain Man wasn't feeling well and our yard was turning into a hay field.
He also broke out his vintage John Deere to haul the hay wagon down the hill to the yard sale site and volunteered his flat ground by the creek and road for our yard sale. It's much more visible from the road than my driveway, which I will note, I once dubbed "El Diablo," Spanish for "the devil."
The Blossoms and I enjoyed our ride down to the yard sale site so much that our little Hollow may have a neighborhood hay ride in its future this fall. You can bet that Sue and I will be working on that one!
De-cluttering, letting go and de-junking were the creed for the week leading up to the sale. It felt so good to be letting go; even the Blossoms said so. This was really the first time that they looked at their possessions and successfully weeded out some of them. I felt like we made real progress there. We re-homed an entire trash bag of stuffed animals, after having a little photo shoot to help us say good-bye to a few that were on the borders of sentimental territory.
Each morning started bright and early for me. Though the weather was chillier than of late, "there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing choices." The girlies and I dressed for the weather and were able to enjoy the people, instead of shivering and complaining about being in the elements. I'm glad; I really didn't want to have to suffer through two long days.
I'm also super thankful for how much help the Blossoms were, especially Blossom1. She did a two mini-baby-siting stints when I headed down the hill to open my tents and uncover our stuff at the crack of I'm-up-before-the-rooster.
I was impressed that she toted her sisters down the hill, well-wrangled and dressed appropriately. I had my cell phone and she also had the panic button on my keys in case of emergency. It was a good and comfortable rung in her ladder of independence.
We set up in the rain and the forecast looked bad for Friday. I'll admit, we did pray hard about that. Our little city of tents was chock full of yard sale gold that fared well both days, even in the light rain of Saturday.
That was quite an improvement from the original forecast. We were all breathing prayers of gratitude on that score. I'm happy to say that we had steady traffic both days and we did very well for a back road sale.
For all the planning of our yard sale, one thing I wasn't too concerned about was how to entertain the thirteen children we have between all of us. I mean, we were setting up by a creek and woods.
That's the world's best free entertainment.
Those kids kept themselves busy the entire time. Many of them were wet, even though it was 50 degrees out most of the weekend.
With waders, rubber boots, sticks, teamwork and great gusto, they engineered a log bridge across the creek so they could roam the wooded hillside.
That log bridge made my jaw drop and then, break into a wide grin.
Getting to spend two+ days chatting with each other was absolutely AWESOME. The Dunkin Donuts deliveries were a huge plus too.
We are all different and yet, we savored the fellowship of each family. Yep, lots of stuff headed out and the rest was hauled away later, but the camaraderie was a treasured time for me.
Though I was exhausted, I sighed with satisfaction at the end of the day. It's funny to think that a yard sale was such an amazing experience of community and relationship building, but it was.
I like this quote my sister shared with me,
"Love people, use things," never the other way around.
PS - That's not all my stuff on the wagon, I really did get rid of my junk. It's what's left of seven families worth of stuff!
