Yard sale, home office, the continuation

Our yard sale got off to a rocky start. We were talking about loading things up Friday evening, but there was a communication breakdown between Grandma and Norman. The plans were to set up at Norman’s, but he was not in favor of us doing so. After some back and forth, Victoria called Norman and got things clarified. Because of the several hour delay in determining whether or not we were actually having the yard sale, it was late when we finally got everything loaded up in Victoria’s car and my truck. I tried to back the truck into the garage to protect the furniture items from the threat of rain, but the load proved to be too tall, so we covered them with sheets and hoped for the best. Just moving items out of the garage, the living room and the goat barn, opened up a significant amount of room in all those respective areas. I will try to make the best use of all that vacant real estate as we reoccupy it. The encouraging part of the trucking off of our marketable stuff was that I was finally able to set up a makeshift home office in some of that recently provided territory.

That humble space is nothing more than a table with the MacBook, the iMac and the printer all in one location, but it is a great start to a home office. I was able to sit and work comfortable at that “desk” for several hours Saturday. I had to take breaks because I felt like I was getting overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task I am set upon. Mostly I went to the shop and worked on a lathe table I am building, but it helped to step away, pray a little bit and get my focus re-centered on the documents I am creating. There is no particular deadline – other than that I have imposed on myself. I have given myself through the end of the month to get the documents in order, but with the limited time I have to focus on them, that may be an unrealistic goal. Time will tell. At least I have a place to work now. A place where mama and I can easily work together.

As has been our fortune, or lack thereof, the yard sale was only moderately successful. We sold some items but none of the furniture items; even though the price we were asking was extremely low. Grandma will continue to market them, but I am not sure how. She is determined to help us get money for our trip to Honduras at Thanksgiving. I appreciate the enthusiasm.  Victoria posted several items or groups of items on Facebook – with surprising results. That will continue through this week. One particular item created a stir with Norman and Grandma; a saddle we have had sitting around for a couple years now. Norman did some research and thinks he discovered that the saddle is worth over $400. I have a very hard time believing that, but Grandma could not let it go. We were advertising the saddle for $40. Victoria had already gotten several people responding to her post of the saddle for the $40 price but Mama had her remove the post so we could remarket it for a much higher price. We will see how that turns out. The plan is to clean up the dusty saddle and repost it. If it sells at the higher price, we will split the sale price with Grandma – so I am confident that it will not drop off into the abyss of forgotten projects. If it does, I will sell the saddle for the original price at some future date. We have no need of it and it was nice to get it out of the garage. Someone can actually make use of it when it is purchased.

We almost put a trunk we have saved from the old farmhouse in Bowie into the yard sale mix, but once we looked inside to remind ourselves why we have kept it, it got put back in its spot in the pile of stuff we are keeping. Just to make sure when we move again, we will have items to take that with us we have absolutely no need of.

It matters little that our house is already full of such items.