will you take a $1 for this?

every summer (minus only a few) for as long as i can remember my family has a garage sale. the first one i remember was at our house in yakima when i was a little kid. various members of my family would get together and we would have a monster garage sale. in those days, i had a stand where i would sell cold pop and snacks. running my own concession stand was a big, big deal and i can recall going to the store with my dad to buy the pop, having my own cashiers box, making my sign, waiting on my customers, etc.

usually in august, family members get together with their "treasures" and we have the sale at my parents house. we have a very specific process. each family has their own specific color of tags, all items must be tagged with the specific cost, and each person can make decisions if they want to come down on a price for their own things. people usually start showing up and circling our garage sale about an hour or so early - the "early-birders" as we call then. then when we give the ok, they come running (i literally mean running) towards the one item they want to get to before anyone else claims it. game on at that point.

everyone marks their things before they came over on friday night for the pre-sale party, family only. we check out the goods that others have brought to see if there is anything that we can't live without before the sale gets set up saturday morning. saturday morning the sale usually starts at 8, so we are up early and getting the tables set and the boxes unpacked. the security team (typically the guys) keep the early-birders at bay until it is go time. there are donuts, coffee, fruit and other goodies for us to eat before the craziness begins. we have a $1 pool where family members can predict how much we will make that day. zach calls it "price is right rule" - closest without going over, minus bob barker and his thin little microphone.

once the sale opens, the craziness begins. after a few hours, the title of this blog comes in to play as people start trying to dicker, and sometimes we make a deal, sometimes we don't. it is funny seeing the stuff that people will buy, and if you watch us closely, you see some high fives - and some looks between us which says "wow, can't believe you sold that" - when the item we weren't sure would go is sold. when the day is done, we count up the tickets, divide out the cash, have some pizza and cold drinks and share stories from the day - as well as stories from previous sales. you would not think that garage sales would produce good stories, but we have had some hilarious antics and customers along the way.

my sister took the pic of me on the morning of the sale (what you see is less than half of what we had all combined when everything was out). i was really nauseaus in the morning and so i couldn't help get things out before the sale started, i got up right before we opened. that was frustrating because i could hear the buzz of the family moving in and out of the house. it is always a lot of work before and during the sale, cleanup usually goes pretty fast. but, it is hands down one my most favorite days every summer. i love the traditions of the day, but i love being with my family all day long most of all.

this year some of my parents neighbors started hauling random things out of their houses when they saw how busy our sale was. my cousin mark walked down to one of the other sales and asked how it was going. the guy said "pretty good, but not as good as that big one down the street." mark said "yeah, i know, they are pretty busy" and the guy said "well, from what i have heard, one of their kids lives in seattle and they buy abandoned storage units and bring the stuff down here for the sale. that's how they have so much stuff." that kid from seattle would be me and i think that story is about as funny as they get. as much as barrett and i enjoy watching "storage wars" now and then, the thought of us buying the stuff in abandoned units is hilarious. we didn't even take anything down this year because i just didn't feel up to all the work it takes. but next year i think that we will load up a u-haul just to give the neighbors something to really talk about;)

time to head for bed. i have my stitches out tomorrow afternoon from my biopsies so that is super exciting (insert sarcasm here). on friday, i go back in to have the rest of the tissue removed my derm wants to take from the area where the abnormal mole was. that is going to be painful because he will then stitch it up in the same area where i am having stitches removed tomorrow. but, if those tests come back clean confirming the abnormalities are gone, the pain will be worth it. that is the chant i will keep saying to myself on friday when he is working on my arm.

happy monday all - another week begins.....

*photo by sassy Denise Hamilton