How to have a Garage Sale!

No, I'm NOT going to give you step by step instructions!  Just going to share about our very successful sale this past weekend.

E---N MO has a city wide sale in the Spring and in the Fall.  Kirk and Stacy have a great place to have a sale.  Their garage is big and their driveway is fairly level, and they live in a great housing addition, too, only a block off of a well traveled road. [like that run-on sentence??]

Anyway, we had a great sale last Spring with Stacy's sisters and her Mom, too.  The kids all know that we NEED to get rid of a lot of the STUFF that has collected in our house over the past 30+ years. I tried all summer to go through stuff and get a bunch of it ready for the sale this Fall.  I did get some work done, but there was always something else that needed doing ,too.

Two weeks ago, we did take a load down to their house, but most of that was stuff that we had brought back from previous sales- intending to try and sell it again. Once we got all of that out of the garage and a corner of the basement where it was stored, it was easier to get motivated about getting more stuff together.

We ended up taking three more van loads-2 during the week prior to the sale and one the night before .  We spent Thursday night at their house so we would be ready EARLY Friday morning to get everything set out for the sale. Stacy's Dad and Kirk made an awesome rack to hold ALL of the clothes[except one small table of baby/kid clothes] that ran 2/3 of the way down their driveway.  It was great to not have to worry about the wind blowing a rack over, or a rack collapsing because it had too many heavy clothes on it! Other than an entertainment center for Kirk and Stacy, none of us had any really 'big ticket' items to sell this time. Stacy's mom[Debbie] and Ron and I and Kirk and Stacy were the only ones selling this time. We had a pretty steady stream of 'customers' all day Friday and up until about 2PM Saturday. Kristopher did bring a few things down Friday night and we put them out Saturday, too.

When we sorted out the 'remainders' we gave several boxes of items to Stacy's great aunt to sell in a 'senior center' store she manages, and several boxes to Goodwill/Salvation Army, but I believe we sold well over 2/3 of the things we had put out to sell. Stacy kept back a few things she wanted to try and sell again, and I did, too. We brought home one half full tub of knick knack stuff, and one fairly full of clothing and 17 empty tubs!![not counting the cardboard boxes of stuff we took, too.]

Now we need to sort through some more 'stuff' and get ready for another sale here in a couple of weeks!  I told you we need to get rid of LOTS of stuff!

Momma Gets a Day with Her Boys!

A little over a week ago, Karl called his Dad all excited.  He had found out that the Chiefs would be in St.Louis to play the Rams, and--that his boss had season tickets, and--that he wasn't going to use the tickets and Karl could have them. The game was on Thursday September3rd.

Anybody who knows us, knows that we are all Chiefs fans, so that looked like a great opportunity for some of us to go.  So Karl and Ron called around to the different brothers in Missouri, to see who could go--and of course everyone had to 'check their schedules' before they could answer for sure. [I had let them know last time they did something like this that if there were enough tickets, I wanted to go too!]  Meanwhile, Karl found out he could get 2 more tickets from someone else. It wasn't long before the calls came in that everyone could go!

We [Kevin, Ron, and I] left here a little after 10:00 AM and headed an hour South and East to get Kirk, then an hour North and East to get Kris, stopped for a Subway sandwich and drink to eat on the way and headed East on I-70 to St.Louis. Made a couple of 'comfort stops' on the way and got to downtown St.Louis around 3:00PM to pick up Karl.  We went for an early dinner, because we knew that the Cardinals were playing an afternoon game and we figured it would get busy in the restaurants when that game let out and also more people were coming in to town for the football game.  Had a great dinner in a rather large facility.  When we went in, there were about 2 other tables in use inside and 2 or 3 sidewalk tables, too.  By the time we were finished with our leisurely dinner, the place was really filling up!  We had strategized together and came up with a place to park that was not too far from a restaurant, or too far from the "Dome" where the game was played. The walk was easy for me [which was the point!] and the weather was great!  We entered the Lumiere Casino from the road area where we parked and went by tunnel, using moveable sidewalks, under the busy highway and came out 1/2 a block from the Dome.!  The gates opened at 5:30. Karl, Kris, Ron, and I had seats on the 30 yard line, seven rows up from the field.  Kevin and Kirk had seats in the end zone,2nd section up from the field, and 3 or so rows up from the concourse.  By the middle of the first quarter, we realized that there were a lot of empty seats around us so they came over and sat with us the rest of the game.

We had a lot of fun to gether.  It was nice to see the interaction and be a part of it!

 Some Favorites:  Ron making a deal with Kevin to let Kevin drive to St.Louis. So that Ron wasn't too tired to drive back when all of them needed to sleep if they could, so they could get up to work today!  Holding hands with Karl as we walked along the street toward the restaurant. Taking Kirk's arm so I could step down at the curb.Everyone sharing 'bites' of their different food choices at the restaurant. Kevin bringing his cane along for me to use if I needed it [thoughtful!]. Kris bringing along a 'mixed bag' of candy to share as we traveled.

Once we cleared the downtown area we had no traffic problems all the rest of the way home.  We stopped once for gas, etc. By the time we made the rounds to take Kris and Kirk home and got to our house it was around 3 AM.[Kevin drove his car to our house and then had to wake up and drive home!] Ron had gotten coffee when we stopped for gas, and he really wasn't very sleepy.  Plenty tired, though!  We got to bed as soon as possible, and got up around 9:30 or so this morning  Will admit that we have not really done much today!  It doesn't help that the weather is dark and rainy!  We'll probably have an early bedtime tonight!