Garage Sale

Our ward has what they call a "Play Group." I never actually went until recently. I guess I was just a little bitter that groups such as "play group" and "scrap booking group" were having so much more success than "service group." Plus it was smack dab in the middle of baby nap time. Recently though I have been trying to move baby nap time to the afternoon so we don't have "church train wreck" time every week.
So I didn't go, until Allison got in charge of it for a while. She is a great recruiter. So Allison is not really the type of girl that would just sit around and chat while the children run amok (which I like) and we thought of having everyone clean out their closets and bring their stuff to playgroup to bring to DI or the Pennsylvania equivalent.
Then I got greedy. I thought- you know we could just have a yard sale and sell all this stuff. We could make lots of money. John and i have tons of stuff we could sell- we have some baby clothes that Claire has deemed unworthy of passing on (rightfully so) that some other people might want to buy. We made signs with cardboard and colored paper.
The day dawned overcast and about 50 degrees. The first car was an old couple who looked at Jamie's table and picked up her used alarm clock, then left. I don't think very many people came. Our neighbors came and they are awesome but they are the grandparents of these cute babies and they are from India and the parents don't really speak English. They bought Jana's Trike. And her scooter. And some of the clothes. the construction workers bought Jana's boom box. They were thrilled. Eliza Magland bought some toys. She is actually from playgroup and she braved the weather with her 4 week old baby. I am amazed at these women who seem so lucid only four weeks after labor.
The good news? It didn't rain.
The bad news- we didn't sell anything. It was sad- I think playgroup made about twelve dollars, which wasn't even enough to buy everyone ice cream at the next outing to Freddie Hill Farms. They sell their ice cream by weight though, so a seemingly innocent single scoop can cost four dollars.
Jamie braved the entire yard sale and helped me clean out my garage in the process. She wanted to sell her strollers so there they were- many strollers lined up on the lawn ready for people to see them. We waited and the strollers waited. Jamie was going to make lots of money. Except she didn't, and we didn't I guess I don't live on a busy street but the neighbors across the road bought a chair from me. I bought it for 2 dollars at a flea market. I think they paid five.
Of course, I couldn't stand that we weren't going to make any money on all this great stuff. So I took pictures of some of it and posted it on my ebay. Luckily I already had a username. I am already making 18.79 (without shipping) and I have only posted 4 items. true they are the nicest items I have, but I think I can say I've learned a few things. 7 things to be exact.

1. Eliza is the man.
2. Ebay is warmer than my garage Sale. this is my first garage sale ever and I didn't post it in the newspaper which I am told is the way to go.
   
3. Garage Sales in a brand new neighborhood where the oldest house is two years old don't seem as legitimate. but I feel like I did make more neighbor friends which is positive.
   
4. Baby only garage sales aren't really what most people are looking for. We could help Dana open her baby store with all the stock we had.
   
5. Maybe we could donate our profits to charity.
6. Danielle likes playing in the puddle that forms in the pothole of my neighbor's driveway.
7. Our neighbors are super nice. Mike let us use his driveway- he even moved his car- and the neighbors bought things- lots of people have visited since then.

Well I don't know if I will make it until Jen's public neighborhood yard sale or if I will bring my garage full of baby clothes to good will. Or maybe I will have time to sell them all on Ebay. This is what happens when we get involved in Playgroup. Watch out kids.