the big sale

We went to the first meeting in January, not really knowing much about this "Heritage Tours" Senior trip.  But by the end of that hour long meeting, while sitting on the stairs in that cold high school cafeteria, I was certain of one thing.  

Kara had to go. 

I had felt the spirit very strongly that night and I had to hide my tears from the other parents and students and even from Kara. 

 I just knew she had to go. 

 And as I sat there I became determined that I would do whatever I had to to make that possible.  

The price was $2,500. 

 Steep, especially for the unemployed.  

I laid in bed that night racking my brain for a way to make it happen.  I could work at Hobby Lobby until I had saved the money.  Babysitting?  Weeding?  I thought seriously about having Trevor, Kara and I sell our plasma. 

And then in the wee hours of the night it came to me. 

I would have a garage sale.

Now this was not going to be just any garage sale.  Oh, no.  This was going to be spectacular, if a garage sale can earn that sort of adjective.  My sisters and I are frequent garage salers.  It is a past time we love and hate at the same time.  We are often times frustrated with false advertising (don't claim it is HUGE when you have one card table with some knick nacks on it!).  We hate dirty garage sales and we love organized ones. We also have an issue with prices.  If it is a garage sale it needs to be cheap people!  We don't really care how much you paid for it originally or what fancy store it came from.  We pretty much want it for a dollar or less. 

This was my chance.  My chance to hold the perfect garage sale.  Clean, organized, well advertised, loads of stuff and dirt cheap.  I had never had one before (Trevor is kind of against them, he believes all

excess should be donated to DI) but with Trevor's blessing, just this one time, and with the help of my sisters we were up for the challenge.

First, I contacted everyone I knew.  I asked them if they had anything sitting around that they were going to take to DI.  If they did I would take it off their hands for them.  I explained my purpose, pleaded my case and.the response was completely overwhelming.  For the months preceding the big sale, my garage was stuffed and stacked with more items than I could have ever imagined.  

My basement looked like a clothes store had exploded. 

 I was overwhelmed with gratitude for my friends and family, for their kindness and generosity.

In the 2 weeks prior to the sale, my sisters and I worked for hours and hours each day.  We sorted all the clothes into gender and sizes.  We cleaned and sorted and taped up tons of toys, making sure all the parts were there.  We bundled gobs of bedding sets.  We washed strollers and bikes and fish tanks.  We tested TV's and electronics and labeled everything.  We divided all of our merchandise into categories, kitchen, bathroom, decorations, holidays, outdoor, etc. We sorted books, hundreds of them into different genres (are we crazy?).   And then we priced every last item.  And we priced them cheap!

It was long, hard, dirty work.

And believe it or not, we loved every minute of it.

(This is the toy section)

We were up until about 1 a.m. getting ready the night before the big sale and then up at 5 a.m. to get it all set up.  In the dark we pulled out tables and laid out clothes and golf clubs, and power tools and dining room sets and beds and desks and weight sets and skis and snowboards and costumes and cribs and area rugs and lamps and potty chairs.

And by about 6:45 the people came.

And we were officially open for business.

We always had the customer in mind so we also provided baked goods and donuts, soda and water.

(Can you see the line of strollers?  I think we had 15  for sale!)

And you want to know what else we had.  We had lines.  I am not kidding.  There was usually a line of about 5-10 people waiting to pay.  I kept looking at my sisters and mouthing the words "we have a LINE at our garage sale!"  At one point we had 30 cars up and down our street.  We even had Silas working his Spanish magic with all of our Spanish speaking customers.  

It was amazing.

We each overheard several people say that this was the most organized, clean garage sale they had ever been to.  

My little clean organized heart was bursting with pride. 

And as a true and real answer to a humble prayer we far exceeded our needs for Kara to go on her trip.

This trip that I knew she needed to go on.

And I couldn't have done it without the help of so many people.  I am indebted to my good ward and neighbors, to Kara's friends who spent hours helping us, to my kids and husband who practically went without a mother and wife for almost 2 weeks, and to my sisters who worked, literally as hard as I did.  

I am so thankful.  So very thankful.

After it was all over and we had hauled the last thing to DI, swept off the driveway and re-fluffed the grass, Brandon said to me, "Mom, that was totally fun! Can we do it again next week?"

My answer was a tired to the bone, exhausted......"NO!"