I Suck At Yard Sales

There's a lot to like about Lowell, or so Lowellians would have you believe. Today, Karen and I woke up our two year old daughter (Briana) and our six month old daughter (Bridget) early in the morning to head toward the big white north known as Lowell. On the agenda for the day: yard sale.

Now, I suck at yard sales. Luckily for me, Karen's cousin (Karlene) and Karlene's husband (Tommy) organized a yard sale for this morning. Joining in on the yard selling fun were a couple of their friends as well. So all in all, there were a lot of items being sold today at Karlene's yard sale.

I must say, I do find it interesting as to what sells and what does not sell at yard sales. I would think that the never-been-opened items would sell quicker than the slightly-used ones. Interestingly enough, that is not the case.

For me, the main things that I was looking to get rid of were my Dell keyboard (which was never used because I use another keyboard), a 300 piece poker chip set, and this awful tree face thing that I received in the family "ghetto" swap.

I was quite ecstatic to see the keyboard go. Interestingly enough, the tree face thing was sold. Hurray! And it turns out, no one in Lowell plays poker. Just kidding. Sadly, I was not able to sell the poker set (also from a joke swap). Two out of three isn't bad.

I think the most memorable sale for me occurred later in the day when a group of young girls came to peruse the stuff. One of them was quite excited about this Asian sun umbrella that I had received from a friend's wedding. Technically, Karen received the umbrella as it was given to all the women at the wedding, but it was my friend getting married.

Anyway, the girl wanting the umbrella insisted that I take more for what was charged since she thought it was worth so much more. Granted, the cost was not that much more. But still, it was a nice gesture on her part (so much so that it obviously sticks in my mind). These young whipper snappers... Just kidding.

Needless to say, to see how excited she was about this sun umbrella was really nice. The sun umbrella was going to have a new home where it would be cherished more and used more, and I liked the thought of that.

Needless to say, it was a good yard sale. It was probably better for Karlene and Tommy's friends as they got rid of a lot of their items. One of her friends got rid of her items early on as one buyer scooped up her stockpile of toys. It turns out that the buyer donates the toys by shipping them to kids in Portugal.

Anyway, following the yard sale, we celebrated our meager profits by going to where else: Kimball Farm in Westford. A trip to Lowell would not be complete without a trip to Kimball Farm for ice cream. Yummy! I had the apple crisp with pumpkin ice cream. Delicious! In my opinion, there is no better place for ice cream.

All in all, it was a great day. The kids were great too, which is always a plus. If anything, the only thing that detracted from today was the traffic on the ride home. We generally hit some form of traffic heading south whenever we head anywhere north. Today's ride home was just awful. I think it took almost one and half hours to get home. But like I said, all in all, it was fun today.

I Suck At Yard Sales

on saturday, karen and i took part in the ever popular precursor to ebay... the yard sale. now, i suck at yard sales. the idea of the yard sale, however, is quite interesting: get rid of old stuff by selling it. and surprisingly... people will actually buy your old stuff... much like ebay!

my favorite sister-in-law (janine) had organized the yard sale. she had organized a yard sale a couple of years ago... (even though it seems like just a year ago)... nevertheless, it was time to have another yard sale. after all, a lot can accumulate in two years.

needless to say, karen was pretty excited about the yard sale. karen doesn't particularly enjoy clutter too much. my threshhold for clutter is a lot higher than hers... probably because i'm more of a pack rat than she is. anyway, the two of us rummaged through our old things hoping to get rid of them via the yard sale.

(pictured below is wally... being sold.)


unfortunately, karen and i did not sell that many things. we were, however, happy to get rid of what we could. it's strange... but i was quite excited when we sold some of the stuff that has been sitting in our garage for quite some time. i was pumped to get rid of things like binders, picture frames, cologne, board games, jesus, etc. (yes, we sold jesus.) sadly, the orange couch that has been taking up so much room in our garage did not get sold. (thankfully, the orange couch did not follow us home.)

interestingly enough, karen and i barely made more profit than my niece (kaleigh) and nephew (pj). kaleigh and pj were operating a lemonade and brownie stand during the yard sale. pj has a goal to save enough to buy a big wall-e robot. needless to say, they were quite the salespeople...

janine and my favorite brother-in-law (pj) did very well at the yard sale. they sold a ton of things... primarily child related. when all was said and done, we had a great time just hanging out and trying to get rid of things. it was fun.