Plot Monkeys

Over the past few months, in preparation for our move from California to Oregon this summer, I’ve been methodically (and ruthlessly) cleaning out each and every room in the house and getting rid of “junk stuff”. After living in the same house for 19 years, I have to admit that we’ve certainly accumalated a whole lot of junk, too. Stuff that we never should have bought or kept in the first place because we never used it! Yes, we’d become pack rats!

So, wanting to start out fresh and clutter free in Oregon, I decided that it was time to clean house in a big way. And I did. Out went furniture we no longer used/needed, clothes we no longer wore, games we no longer played, home decor that was outdated, crystal I never used, the girls in-line skates and razor scooters, TV, VCR, bread maker, Legos, blankets, books, comforters, curtains, artwork, craft stuff, cassette player, electronic gadgets, an old PlayStation that the girls no longer use, night stands, curio cabinet, candlestick holders, teapots (I have a collection and I weeded it out considerably), floral arrangements, Don’s golf stuff he no longer used . . . and a whole lot more. In fact, I had boxed up so much stuff while cleaning out the house that I had to rent a storage unit for it all until we had a garage sale!

Well, the yard sale was this past weekend, and what an experience it was! I advertised that the yard sale would begin at 7 AM, and by 6:30 AM cars were parked on the curb waiting while I put everything out on the driveway. As soon as I was done, they literally swarmed and overwhelmed me as they rummaged through my junk. These people were clearly die hard garage sale-ers and me, my daughter, and a neighbor who was helping out, could barely keep up with the steady flow of cars and people who came by. By noon, we were exhausted . . . and we did this again on Sunday, too. All in all, I sold $1,000 of “junk” – and that just goes to show you just how much stuff I had out there to sell! As the saying goes, “your junk is someone else’s treasure”, and that certainly held true this past weekend.

So, for the past few months it’s been “out with the old”, but not necessarily “in with the new”. Now that I’m loving the clean, uncluttered look inside my house, my new motto when buying something new is “quality not quantity”. This motto has helped me to not buy new junk just because it’s pretty or cute. From now on, anything new that is brought into our house has to serve a distinct purpose, or I’m not buying it.

OREGON UPDATE: For those of you who’ve been following my move to Oregon, we’ve yet to sell our house in California. The real estate market here is so bad, and getting worse each month that passes. We recently made the decision to rent our house here, and rent something up in Oregon until the market changes in a more positive way. I figure that will give us time to figure out where we really want to live in Oregon and find just the right house for us. The girls and I plan to join Don in July. That’ll give us time to get settled in and get my youngest daughter prepared for her new high school, and my oldest into college. All in all, we’re still very excited about the entire move.

Back to garage sales. Have you ever had a garage/yard sale? And if so, what was your experience – good or bad? And do you enjoy going to garage/yard sales to find great deals, or are they just not your thing?