Trash or Treasure?

Yesterday and today we spent our time convincing others that our "trash" was their "treasure." I'm glad we did! We actually did quite well this year, doubling what we earned last year. Several differences were that this year Jason put an ad in a paper, there were two other sales on our street, and we had lots and lots of stuff! So, when you read that having a yard sale on a holiday weekend is a no-no, think again! It certainly worked for us.

We did have some shop-lifting. I can't believe we would have that problem at a yard sale. One lady pulled a tag off something so it wouldn't look new anymore. Then she pulled a tag off a bag of jewelry and tried paying Jason for it before I could catch her. When I put the price back on she tried to go way down on it and I refused. Thankfully someone else bought it later for the full price. We found a barrett set holder with the barretts gone - only $.50! Brother! Today I found an empty Ziploc bag stuffed in the clothing. Obviously someone took the jewelry set out, put it in their pocket or purse, and hid the bag ($1.00). It's not the money that bothers me, it's that people would have the gall to do it when we were right there!

We still have a lot of stuff left, though we have places intended for most of it. We'll donate the left-over stuffed animals to the AWANA store, the baby things to a couple in our church who have a grandbaby coming in three weeks, and the clothes to a thrift store that benefits a Christian crisis pregnancy center. Jason rescued a box full of things that didn't sell. It's the pack rat in him, he can't help it! I have two boxes of stuff I don't know what to do with - I don't really want it, but I don't want to get rid of it for free either. I also put several boxes of stuff out on the curb, as well as several larger things. Some neighborhood kids kept biking and/or running to our house every time we would add more to the collection. They took a lot of it - I'm sure their mothers are thrilled. I'm sure what's still there will be picked clean tomorrow; if not by them, by someone else looking for a deal. Jason is going to E-bay some larger items we weren't able to sell. They'll have to be marked as "pick up only" though because there's no way we can ship them. He already took the pictures while we were cleaning up, so hopefully he'll get them posted soon.

We know we really do live in a prosperous country when we have so much excess we have to lay it all out on tables and sell it to our neighbors. It truly is a bit of a rebuke.