Spring 2013 Yard Sale

We had just sent in our initial application to receive more information about countries and agencies when we found out our neighborhood was going to hold a neighborhood yard sale. 

Oh, this would be a great opportunity to raise money for the adoption. 

But we don’t even know what country we are adopting from. 

Who cares, we don’t have to tell people it’s for adoption.

But I want to tell people.

Someone might ask me about the agency we are using and we haven’t decided.

Would I be breaking some kind of adoption fundraising etiquette?

This is a brief synopsis of what was rolling around in my head at that moment.

Fortunately, after speaking with a few wise friends we decided to move forward and like a train speeding down a hill I was determined to make our first fundraising efforts a success.  I prayed and prayed and prayed that God would show his favor on us to affirm our decision to adoption only a month prior.

I began advertising almost immediately.  I brainstormed a list of anyone in the area who I thought might either donate items or come shop around at the sale.  I created an invitation for them but before I had actually sent the invitation I was approached by a family from our church.  They told us that they had been saving things for over a year in hopes to donate it to someone who was having a yard sale to raise adoption funds.  They were unsure who to give it to but heard that we might be adopting.  What is most amazing is that at this point, they had no clue we were even planning a yard sale.  I was so excited I went home and immediately sent out the invitations in hopes that others would be as excited to donate as this family.

After that, things started pouring in.  A bag here.  A box there.  I would be out running errands with the kids and we would come back and stuff would be all over our front porch.

Just getting started.

I set aside an entire day to sort and price items.  Even though  I am ridiculously meticulous and sorted everything into categories, it went faster than I thought it would go which was really encouraging.  Especially since we were still a few weeks out and I anticipated getting more stuff.

Saturday, April 13th, I went to a nearby neighborhood that was having a community yard sale.  I approached over 50 families and asked for them to donate what they did not sell to us so we could sell those items in our upcoming yard sale.  Nine families took me up on this offer and I spent most of the day making trip after trip transporting stuff to our home.  My grandmother was visiting and offered to help sort and price items.  This was a huge blessing because we literally could not walk into our living room or dining room there was so much stuff.

One of the many truck loads.

Another day... another load. 

Several weeks before, I had planned a clothing swap for a bunch of my friends.  We had done this one other time.  The basic principle is you bring a laundry basket or two of clothes, and leave with a few new outfits.  My thought in planning this was that anything leftover I would use for the yard sale instead of donating to charity.  The problem with this is that I planned the swap to take place on Monday, April 15^th and now our hose was already flooded with items for the yard sale.   Fortunately, a sweet neighbor of mine offered to host the clothing swap at her house.  After the swap I was absolutely astonished by how many clothes were left over.  I had my work cut out for me if I was going to sort the clothing by size.

Clothes that needed to be sorted.

Over the next 10 days I spent over 125 hours sorting and pricing yard sale items.  We had collected over 10,000 items!  The only reason I know that is because I repeatedly had to go out and buy more price tags.  I was thankful for a few friends.  One friend came over and helped me sort through all the baby clothes.  Another friend priced all the shoes.  And, one other friend came over 3 different times staying and helping until all hours of the night.

I'm pretty sure Josh took this picture because his crazy wife was sorting clothes at 2:00 a.m.

Women's clothes in the living room.

Women's clothes in our bedroom.

Men's clothes.

Youth clothes.

Infant and toddler clothes.

I realized that we had so much stuff that some people may not have enough cash on them to purchase everything they would want if we could accept a debit/ credit card.  I ordered one of the credit card scanners that you plug into your phone and was thrilled to include “we accept credit cards” in all our advertising.

At one point I considered asking people to stop donating because we had no room in our house to store stuff.  Our dining room, office, and bedroom, was packed floor to ceiling with boxes.  We had stuff in our attic and stuff in storage under our house.  We had extra furniture including a desk, a drafting table, and bookshelves taking up most of our living room.  Our front porch had stacks of plastic tubs on it.  We even had stuff in our hallway, so much stuff in fact that you had to turn sideways and slide against the wall to get through.  We ate either outside or on the floor in the kitchen for over a week.  My kids were going crazy and so was I.  But, I just kept reminding my self that if I were pregnant we would also be making sacrifices, they would just look a lot different. Read this post for more of my thoughts on that.

Can you even guess which room in our house this is?

In the midst of all the craziness, our sweet little Addi Grace turned 3 years old!  We had Lorax themed birthday party, which was a lot of fun.  Fortunately, one of her best little buddies also turned three a few days before so we did a joint birthday party at their house.  To see more pictures of the party and theme decorations you can visit my other blog Teaching, Training, and Tantrums.

The week prior to the sale, I advertised in any way I could possibly think of.  Facebook, Craig’s list, fliers, yard signs all along our street, banners made of butcher paper along our fence, and some ways I'm sure I can't even remember now.

Finally the day had arrived, Saturday, April 27^th.  Starting at 5:30 a.m. we began setting things out in the yard.  We had several of our neighbors surprise us and show up to help us set up.  What a blessing!  It took all six of us about an hour and a half to just get the boxes out of the house and set things on tables and blankets.   People started showing up as early as 5:45 a.m.  I made our first sale at 6:00 a.m. and by 6:30 a.m. we had made over $100.  I didn’t know what to think.  The sale technically wasn’t even supposed to start until 8:00 a.m. (Or at least that’s what I had advertised) but either way, I was thrilled.

Seasonal and holiday items.

Throughout the day we had several friends stop by and help.  Our closest friends brought a canopy that we set up over a table and used as the “checkout” station.  We also sold bagels and bottle water.  I was so thankful for all the help we had.   Our neighbors watched our kids for a portion of the morning.  We had a steady flow of people all day.  I began packing up around 4:00 p.m. but people kept coming.  It wasn’t until 8:00 p.m. that I closed and locked our gate and told people we were no longer selling items.  It was getting dark and rain was expected the next morning.  With the help of our dear friends who had been with us all day, we got all of it packed up and stored under our house.  We walked into the house at 9:30 p.m., ate dinner, and began counting the money.  As the number got larger and larger, my heart grew too.  It was swelling thankfulness and about to burst with joy.  My husband made the final announcement. $1,740!  I was in awe!  Our God not only affirmed our decision but he provided enough for our application and first installment with the agency.  We were ecstatic!  We really can’t wait to see how He continues to work in this process.