Today I’m celebrating the fact that the hardest week of summer is already behind me! Well, I’m assuming it will have been the hardest week. The dreaded garage sale week. I have a huge sense of relief that it’s now behind me, though I’m not exactly jumping for joy because it was a pretty tough week. Again. Mostly because I somehow thought having a garage sale that would require me to be outside every possible minute for a week straight smack dab in the worst of allergy season would be a good idea. Um, no. It was a TERRIBLE idea. No wonder I’ve thought I had my allergies mostly under control the last few years – I was just being smart and going outside as little as possible! This year I was STUPID. Ugh, these last four days have been terrible. Can June just be over??
Ignoring the fact I was pretty sure I was going to either go blind or flat out die multiple times a day, the week went pretty smoothly. We were all too busy to have time to be in bad moods. (Trust me, it caught up to us this weekend, though!) The boys both started summer school on Monday and found enough friends in their classes that they’re pretty content with going every day. Caden also had a basketball camp immediately after school Monday through Thursday. He was disappointed he didn’t know anyone there and I think it was a hard pill for him to swallow that he wasn’t instantly a basketball star. But he didn’t complain about it and I’m proud of him for actually wanting to try something. Three of his summer school classes are basically gym classes, so after six hours of being fully active every day, we really just let him play video games all evening. Shepard alternated between games and friends and helping us set up the sale.
On Tuesday my mom came over and we worked all day to get just about everything set up that we could in the garage. But my greatest accomplishment was making this Chile con Carne from my Tex Mex cookbook I raved about a few months back. I’m not really a fan of chili in general because I don’t eat beans, I don’t like beef (only in tacos!), and big chunks of tomato are a turn off. (I don’t like noodles either, though we’re not noodle in chili people where I grew up!) But I was intrigued by this recipe with no beans, no tomatoes, WITH BACON, and a cacophony of amazing spices with a homemade chili paste. I made it in the crockpot in the morning and the smell all day long was driving me wild. It didn’t disappoint either! SO delicious. But also crazy spicy. Greg seemed irritated with the spice level and Caden kept smacking his head it was so hot. Shepard, who usually tends toward milder eating habits, actually loved it as much as me, though. I was just so excited to find a new beef recipe that we’d all at least eat!
I spent Wednesday morning running errands and afternoon making a couple batches of chex mix and cookies. Then we went out to dinner with Greg’s parents to celebrate Steve’s birthday a few days late and Father’s Day a few days early.
Shepard just really loves trying to take over every holiday and celebration and make it about him!
Thursday was go time! I made a couple more batches of cookies in the morning, just to be safe. In hindsight, I really should have made the cookies smaller, but I wanted them to be big and soft and extra appealing, so I used the muffin scoop for all of these. I’m pretty certain we didn’t even come close to making a profit since each batch only made about 10 cookies! I got smarter when I was making cookies late Thursday night and used the next size scoop down.
I somehow thought it was going to be pretty leisurely getting everything set up, but my mom and I were practically running to get everything up and going by noon like I had wanted. We had SO MUCH STUFF. And I wanted as much out on the driveway as possible for all the people that just slowly drive by to see if it’s worth stopping. Our garage is so far from the road that we need a good driveway draw!
We stayed open until 7pm on Thursday and sales were pretty steady. It might have been busier if I had had more time to strategize my advertising tactics. I just ran out of time. We had our prices super cheap because we were really just desperate to get rid of everything, not trying to make a lot of money. It was fun how excited all the customers were about the prices. I think almost every single person told us what they were going to use the things for and how happy they were to find such great deals. That part of the sale was really fun! I have so few interactions with people in my daily life that it felt really good to have so many positive ones in such a short span of time.
I let the boys stay home from summer school on Friday with the agreement that they had to help me run the sale and could not play games. You can see in the photo that Caden went against that from the start. Then they came up with some sort of rule that whoever was at the stand when a customer came was the one who would get the money and only one of them could be there at a time. So they were at each other’s throats fighting all morning about who got the customer and the money. We kept saying that they should just split the money evenly, but they were way too competitive to make that happen. Just dealing with them fighting and crying and screaming at each other made Friday much more stressful. Annie was also a lot more antsy and was sitting at the window behind our heads whimpering and whining ALL EIGHT HOURS.
It wasn’t anyone’s fault, though I also don’t think it would have happened if one of them had actually been sitting at the stand, but it was super windy on Friday and it knocked the umbrella over that was next to the lemonade stand and everything crashed to the ground. We got it all cleaned up and remade some more lemonade in a pitcher, but they were both just totally over it by then.
We had a lull in customers in the afternoon and I was so tired and itchy and sneezy that I was ready to just lay on the ground and take a nap. Instead Shepard and I ran to Kwik Trip to get some “fancy” coffee drinks to try and perk us all up.
I woke up early on Saturday with renewed vigor and made three more batches of cookies – making that 14 total batches almost entirely sold in the 2.5 days we were open!
Caden was at a sleepover birthday party, so the three of us stayed open until noon and ran a $1 fill a bag special. I was enormously entertained at how full people were stuffing their bags! Overall, I think the sale was a huge success. No, we didn’t make a ton of money, but we made enough that I think it was worth the effort. Our main objective was to just get rid of everything and we did pretty good! I basically had an emotional meltdown by the time it ended, I was just so wiped out and sick of trying to shred my eyes out of my head they were so itchy. Greg sent me in to take a nap and by the time I woke up he already had most of the stuff packed for Goodwill and had taken all the borrowed tables back to their owners! I just couldn’t really deal with anything anymore, so Greg took the boys to his parents for the evening and I stayed home to clean the house, trying to bring some sort of normalcy back to our lives for this week!
And that brings us to today, Father’s Day. For perhaps the first year ever, we decided to stay home and have a chill day to ourselves. We all needed the break after how exhausting the week was. Though it’s honestly turned out to be kind of a bummer of a day. Even with low expectations, things never work out the way I think they’re going to. The boys are cranky and full of attitude. I’m cranky because I’m so dang tired. Greg’s cranky because we’re cranky and ruining his day. Instead of just relaxing, he’s spent hours sanding our kitchen table so I could restain it, he worked more in the garage, he mowed and trimmed the lawn. Our meal schedule was thrown off because he sleeps in and eats breakfast around the time we’re all ready for lunch. So we had a “lunchish snack” at 11, but the boys and I were pretty hungry a few hours later. I ended up ordering pizza, Greg’s meal of choice, but then he wasn’t very hungry so it was a waste of the good meal he picked. This is a regular weekend problem we have, but I thought I had it figured out, but…I was wrong. So now we’re all just doing our own thing and maybe by tonight we can be happy and eat the special dessert I made him. Hopefully? I’m really just over holidays. There are too many of them. And they’re always a let down.
Sunday Intentions
So that was probably all WAY more than you needed or wanted to know about our garage sale! But hey – it’s over! I don’t have to talk about it ever again! 🙂 I am now blissfully looking forward to our week ahead. Life is going to SLOW DOWN. For real. I’m going to make it.
The only thing on the agenda for the next few days is summer school! There’s a fun looking library program Tuesday afternoon we might stop in at. And I want to go to the farmers market on Wednesday if it isn’t raining this week. Otherwise…nothing. I am planning to WORK. I am so excited to start sewing again. It always feels amazing after a little break. And it feels reassuring to notice how much I missed it! Plus the end of June and most of July are a rare time of year when I don’t NEED to be sewing for a specific holiday. So many months of the year are dedicated to that, but in summer I finally have a bit of freedom to be more creative.
Our only big day this week is Saturday. The boys are both going to do mini triathlons in the morning! I really hope the weather holds out because I think it’ll be so fun for them! Then Shepard is going to a birthday party. And then we’re all going to the Mallard’s Game for Greg’s work appreciation day. It should be a really fun day if we get good weather!
Well, that’s about it. I think I’m going to head out to the dog park with Annie and finally let her get out some of her pent up energy. And, you know, start up the allergy attacks again. 🙂
