This Saturday is the Annual Garage Sale at the home of our great Patriarch and Matriarch. Last night Curt hauled tables and our first load of “stuff” over to his folks’ house. We have two days left to explore more nooks and crannies for possible sale items before people start flocking around Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. Dad and Mom’s neighborhood join forces, with up to thirty families selling stuff in a few blocks. All in all, this weekend is a great source of encouragement and thankfulness.
Garage sales are the great astringent of life.
They make me thankful for:
• The incremental nature of annual cleaning. If you never go through your stuff until you are almost dead, the overwhelming task would finish you off. Each year we imagine we won’t find anything to sell after our thorough pruning a year prior. We are either self-deceived (i.e. we didn’t clean as well as we thought) or our tastes and passions have changed (e.g. little bunny decorative items now fail to make us sigh with pleasure) or an item has served its useful life in our family (porta potty – don’t ask). Here is the best part: it gets easier every year. One sees progress. That itself is a huge encouragement.
• Because it is an annual project, you can focus on different areas in different years. This year, my husband went into the attic. Ayup. I need to go through the linen closet and our CD collection. The point is that you don’t have to do every thing every year. Lord willing, and the creek don’t rise, we’ll do it again this time next year.
• The feeling of buoyancy that comes with letting go. It is not quite as good as losing twenty pounds, but a close second.
• The sense of martyrdom and sacrifice. One needs a brave and stolid heart. My great relinquishment this year is two boxes of empty canning jars, which reduces my collection of empty canning jars from 120 to 104. I remember with fondness a time with three hungry boys when those jars were full of applesauce, salsa, peaches and grape juice. I worry about selling the empty jars, lest my sons forget the former glory days of their martyred mother.
• A renewed love and respect for my folks, the ones who gave me my husband. They love the beauty of a clean and ordered life; I keep hoping if I stand close to them it will rub off on me. Their example constantly inspires me, but on these weekends my love for them surges.
While I surveyed my house for potential sale items last night, I listened to this delightful piece from Three Men in a Boat
George said, “You know, we are on a wrong track altogether. We must not think of the things we could do with, only of the things we can’t do without.”
George comes out really quite sensible at times. You’d be surprised. I call that downright wisdom, not merely as regards the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life generally. How many people on that voyage load up the boat ‘til it is ever in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think is central to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are only really useless lumber?
How they pile the poor little craft mast high with fine clothes and big houses, with useless servants and a host of swell friends that do not care a tuppance for them, and that they do not care three ha’pennies for. [with…, with…, with…]
It is lumber, man, all lumber. Throw it overboard! It makes the boat so heavy to pull you nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage, you never know a moment’s freedom from anxiety and care, never gain a moment’s rest for dreamy laziness – no time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o’er the shallows, or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies white and yellow, or the somber-waving rushes, or the sedges, or the orchids, or the blue forget-me-nots.
Throw the lumber over, man! Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need – a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends, worth the name, someone to love and someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink; for thirst is a dangerous thing.
~ Jerome K. Jerome
A Living Pencil 
love it love it love it…. the last paragraph of Three Men in a Boat (one of my favorites!!!) and your description little bunny decorative items now fail to make us sigh with pleasure…. a garage sale… one thing we (a cultural thing?) don’t “do” – charity organisations, secondhand shops, household workers, family members are normally on the receiving end of clean-ups; however, i’m a great cleaning-up fan: if i don’t use something (it gets 2 years to show its worth) it follows the latter route.
@sonskyn – Sonja, I noticed the plethora of charity shops in the UK. Not everyone in America does garage sales, but in our region they are common. I don’t think many hold one every year. I first heard of Three Men in a Boat from reading How the Heather Looks. I’m glad to hear it is a favorite of yours. I can’t keep from chuckling as I listen to it.
This decluttering bug is one I really need to catch. Or corrective lenses to cure *house blindness.* Clipped from a newspaper article on Spring cleaning….After we live in a house for a while, the wear and tear of family life can slowly take its toll. We may not notice the gradual build-up of clutter and accumulation of minor damage in the form of breaks, tears, leaks and cracks that can result in a certain shabby look to the home you love. Interior decorators call it being “house-blind” or getting so used to a room that you unconsciously overlook what is spoiling its beauty … like that dusty, bedraggled silk ficus tree in the corner that looked so good five years ago. Some day, I will get a *round tuit*
Carol, this one really hit me. I have such a need to declutter and for me it is hard to find time and motivation at the same time. I love the quote from the book – one I had not heard about before. Also Dana’s, above. Another good one. I sure need that “round tuit.”
You know what I would really like? I would LOVE to see a photo of this garage sale! SERIOUSLY. I have now met your neat in-laws and admire this type of order…not that I will ever “arrive,” but it’s always something to shoot for, if you know what I mean. That creative part of me will never allow me to completely let go of everything I really should…So, pretty please, will you take at least a few photos for us?
I don’t enjoy garage sales, but the Amvets send me a plastic bag every month to fill with *stuff* and set out on the curb for them. I try to do at least a bag a month. With 4 kids, outgrown clothes and toys pile up and can quickly become a mountain.That quote “from the boat” hit the nail on the head! Loved this post!