Yard Sale Weekend!!!

Hmmmm..."yard sale weekend". That could be a description for almost every one of our weekends but this was OUR yard sale weekend! Since last July, we had been planning on getting rid of some stuff that we no longer wanted and no longer needed. Some of it was household items or old clothes that we no longer needed and some were items we actually found at garage sales years ago that no longer held any value to us. For whatever reason, we just never found the time to have the sale or, when we did, the weather forecast told us that our timing was not right. Well, finally we decided to do it. Saturday. One day only! We had boxed up enough items to bring to Monica's sister's house (about four blocks away which is where we would hold our "multi-family" yard sale) and took vacation days both Friday and Monday to extend the weekend so we would still have time for "us"  We advertised on craigslist and created a few signs for the local yard salers out there and we were ready to go! But first, we had Friday!

Since Saturday was OUR garage sale day, we decided to look for any estate sales that were happening on Friday. We were very, VERY good not to look at Saturday's ads at all! We did not want to think about what we might be missing! We found two sales on Friday in neighboring towns so that made our hunting a little easier! 

This was the sign for the first sale. We knew the Tag Sale Company as we have been to several of their sales and we sometimes find things and sometimes we don't. Aside from some records (we got 12 albums), there was nothing for us. 

The sign for the second sale. It was another Tag Sale company that we knew and there was not a whole lot here but we did find a few items including an old scrapbook from the 1930's with lots of greeting cards and gift tags lightly attached to the pages (we both LOVE old greeting cards and gift tags). The scrapbook, alone, made the trip worthwhile!!! 

There were several scraps of material with designs on them in the second sale. Monica was holding up one of them being a clown for the camera! ha ha!!!

We spent the remainder of our day running errands, doing the food shopping and laundry, stopping at a Thrift Shop (we couldn't resist...it was on the way home),putting the final touches on our yard sale preparation (including hanging the signs) and picking up some Chinese Food for dinner. We did have to wait until early evening to hang the signs because of a passing shower but once the showers passed, the weather would be perfect and the rainbow above our house told us so!

The rainbow! 

  

Here are some of the things we found on Friday:

Some Christmas records...

...some more Christmas records...

...and some MORE Christmas records. Well, we had these already but they were in such great shape (better than the ones we had)! And then we got...

...some more records! 

A few more items including some cocktail stirrers (the plastic ones are wedding stirrers from 1949 and have a martini glass design at the top), a Siesta Ware mug from Storytown in Lake George, NY (where Rob went with his parents when he was a little boy), an unopened deck of cards with the "Hills Supermarket" sticker (the supermarket where Rob went with his parents and grandmother when he was a little boy) and old Christmas card display clips in its unopened package.

The scrapbook from the 1930's, filled with greeting cards, gift tags and pictures they cut out from magazines!

Here are some of the greeting cards inside the scrapbook! 

We got up early on Saturday, brought the remaining boxes to Monica's sister's house and started setting up at a time that we thought would be comfortable and unrushed.  Lo and behold, the early birds set upon us about an hour before the start of the sale. Although we were still unpacking, we did not turn them away. Our goal was to get rid of some unwanted items and make a little money. The early birds are usually good buyers anyway so, although this added a lot of pressure,  we let them search and one couple spent about $70. We had one small group of people in the early afternoon that we actually caught trying to steal from us (they put an item in a pre-packaged $1 bag and tried to hide it from us). Rob took over all the remaining negotiations with them and held firm on every price we gave them, choosing to let them walk away rather than accommodate the thieves. They did give Rob the price he asked for on a few items after they tried to negotiate and walked away from other items. As they left, Monica heard them say they would return after the sale had ended to get the items they wanted for free (thinking we would put them out on the curb at day's end). We did not. We are donating the leftovers to local Thrift Shops. In the end, we made almost $300 and got rid of some unwanted stuff but it was a busy, busy day...so busy that we completely forgot to take any pictures!!!! Our next yard sale will be...um...never! It was a long day and a lot of hard work! Maybe we will forget the stress by next year! 

On Sunday, we spent Father's Day at Monica's sister's house with family. It was fun! 

Rob and Monica's dad listening to doo-wop music on Youtube. Monica's dad knows just about every doo-wop song ever and has so many of the original 1950's records on vinyl. He even has the concert programs from all of the Alan Freed shows he saw (and other shows) including shows with Buddy Holly!  

Three our of the four days from our four day weekend completed. We saved the last day to just have fun, enjoy the weather and each other's company. More on that later!