Too Much Stuff

This morning we hosted our first ever yard sale. While we've become professionals at packing, unpacking, and settling into new homes, we've never lived in a yard-sale-friendly location before. And we've never down-sized before (all of our previous moves increased our square footage), so we've never had quite the motivation that we had today. We've spent the last couple of weeks thinking about what we should keep and what we should try to sell. I've had moments of feeling gloomy and resistant to getting rid of things--things that I know we don't need, but things that I love, or that I have loved, or that the kids love or have loved (or that I wish the kids would have loved more)--and I've needed to remind myself several times that stuff is only stuff. In the end I think I did a pretty good job of letting go. I only kept the things I felt passionately about (and that I knew would fit in the new house), and tried not to be too sentimental about anything (i.e. the stuffed animal horse that I got for my birthday when I was 10 years old). It was hard work.

We were in no way prepared for just how insane the actual selling part of the yard sale would be. Or how insane professional yard sale buyers are. Although we clearly stated that our yard sale would not be begin until 8:00 a.m., people started driving by to check things out at 6:30 a.m. By 7:30 there was no holding them back and there were easily 50 people packed into our driveway. I could barely squeeze my way through. Apparently some people were fighting over some of the toys! I didn't see any of that, though. I was too busy frantically trying to set things up!

The bartering part was the hardest part for me. I'm generally just kind of an agreeable person, and not having been to many yard sales before, I didn't feel like I really knew what the going prices for things were. So, even if I really thought $20 was an excellent deal for something, if someone wanted to buy it for $10, I'd mostly just say, "um . . . I guess so. Okay, fine." Not the best strategy, I realize. But we managed to make a huge amount of money, regardless of my poor selling skills. We made enough to cover the cost of moving (we're hiring movers), and buying paint for the inside of the new house (which is a pretty desperate situation). So, success!

Now that it's over, our house feels a little bit less crowded. And I think we feel a little bit more free. After dinner tonight, we took the kids over to see the new place for the first time. The house is all emptied out now, and the kids loved it. They were running like crazy through all the rooms, laughing and squealing (yes, hello, new neighbors, welcome to your new sound scape!), and we briefly considered just leaving it empty like that. Doing away with having stuff at all. It looked so spacious despite its small square footage. And so easy to keep clean!

The mudroom (also home to w/d and fridge)

The Kitchen

The Dining Room

The Living Room (door to playroom in upper left corner)

The Mama Room (office space)

The stairs (see why we're hiring movers?)

The top of the stairs (every space counts)

The Bathroom

The Kids' Room (one window is better than none?)

The Family Bed Room

I'm really going to try to make it a top priority to not have too much stuff ever again. I'm really hoping that this is something I can make work for me, and for us. I believe in it so strongly, but the pull of consumerism is also really strong. That said, today the consumerist in me definitely got beaten down a bit, watching everyone walk away with the things that were once ours. And feeling really happy to see them go.