Garage Sale

This is what my garage looked like on Friday morning at 6:30am.

There was barely enough room to get through it, let alone work in it.  Back in September, I had this *great* idea to have a fundraiser garage sale to help pay for our adoption.  I sent a FB message out to friends and family in the Austin area, asking for donations.  At the time, I wasn't completely sold on the idea.  I didn't know how much stuff I could gather, and I didn't know whether or not the results would be worth all the effort.  After a few days, I got two messages that encouraged me on.  One was from a friend at my Tuesday morning Bible Study, and the other was from my Aunt.  Both were promising me left-overs from their garage sales which would be taking place on October 15 and October 22.  After that, I decided to go for it, and I set a date; Friday, October 28 and Saturday, October 29.  

On the 15th, hubs and I loaded up the baby, drove to my mom and dad's, borrowed my Grandmother's van, drove up to Georgetown and loaded up her garage sale left-overs.  Gram's van was completely full, front to back, top to bottom.  We made the hour long drive back home and unloaded the goods into our garage.  Those goods filled half our garage!  By this time, we'd also received some donations from a few other friends and family.  Our big day was still two weeks away.  

Over the next week, I worked when Juliet was napping, sorting and pricing things.  Many of the things from my Aunt's sale were priced, but some weren't.  Also, much of it needed to be sorted into categories.  In addition, each time my mom came, she brought a fresh load from herself or her friends.  On Saturday the 22nd, my other friend brought me a load of left-overs from her garage sale.  She was kind enough to sort through the left-overs and only bring me what she really thought would sell.  After she left, I got a little worried.  My garage was only a little more than half way filled.  Would this be enough stuff to make a profitable garage sale??  I wasn't so sure.  

That night, as I pondered my situation with one week to go, I began to pray.  I asked God for more "stuff".  Boy did He answer.  Over the course of the next week, up until the day before the sale, I had people dropping stuff off at my house.  My sale had only briefly been mentioned at my Tuesday morning Bible Study, but two very kind ladies from that study brought loads of their goods to me.  It was a very busy week.  In addition to sorting and pricing all of the new arrivals, I had two Wildtree tastings that week.  I also had a nasty cold.  I stayed home from church Sunday morning and slept until noon.  In spite of being sick, I worked in that garage until I couldn't stand it anymore.  

By the time Thursday rolled around, I realized I was a bit out of my league.  I had originally planned for just my mom and myself to be there on Friday, but I began to realize that just wouldn't work.  Fortunately, my husband was able to take the day off.  Two other lovely ladies from my Tuesday study volunteered to help us both days!  It was such a blessing.  

Friday morning came.  It started early.  Here are some photos from our sale.  

We had stuff stretching from the street into our garage and onto our lawn! 

This is Marcia, one of my volunteers.  On Saturday, she brought home-made breakfast tacos, coffee and muffins to sell to hungry and cold shoppers.  It was a chilly morning by Texas standards, starting out in the 40's.  

At the end of the day Friday, we packed everything back in the garage and counted our earnings.  We made about $532 on Friday.  Saturday we did even better.  We earned around $650 for a total of approximately $1180.  In addition, we had about 8-10 boxes of books left over.  My mom took half of those boxes to Half Price Books and sold them for $22.  I have the other half, but haven't made it to the store yet.  We've also got a desk, changing table, and Bumbo chair on Craigslist that we're hoping to sell.  Also, hubs sold some nice camera lenses on Craigslist for $40.  He's got a few left that he's still trying to sell.  Finally, I have a load of baby stuff to take over to our local consignment shop.  I'm hoping to get a few bucks off that.  All in all, we've definitely earned over $1200, and we're hoping to get that total closer to $1300 or $1400 when all is said and done.  

We feel so blessed.  God did more for us than I could have dreamed.  My God is too small.  I had a goal originally of $300-$500, and He blew that out of the water on the very first day!  Wow!  God has been teaching me that He is big, and He can do great things, far above what I can imagine.  Thank you so much for your prayers.  Thank you for your donations.  Thank you for coming alongside us with your encouraging words.  God is good.  Believe it or not, we're actually thinking of doing this again, but not until spring.  By then, we'll have had plenty of time to rest up after this sale!