Saturday, April 18, 2009

Zander Experiences a First

Those of you who know Donnie W are going to laugh at me. It had never dawned on me that Donnie was from Japan. I guess I don't think in terms of countries of origin or what not. He's American...and he is.... but today we had fun.

He lived in Japan until he was 8. Zander came out and said, "Ohayou gozaimasu," to Donnie. Donnie responded in a flow of Japanese. Zander got a strange expression on his face, turned and ran. Huh? Later he told us that it scared him to have someone speak Japanese to him.....we told him he needs to get used to it.

I enjoyed discussing Japan with Donnie. Great tutoring session. LOL

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.

Life Can Move On....

Oh, Praise God, it's OVER. We do NOT like having garage sales. I was not thrilled at the aggressive early birds (and I've not shared all that went on yesterday). I did NOT like sorting through 19 years of homeschooling...but it's over...and it will be good.

Our home still looks like a disaster after the whirlwind of the past week, but I have great hope that by Monday it will look "normal". I'll continue to weed things out. I hope to shortly be ready to divide our belongings into 6 different packer piles. (I really don't know WHERE to begin on this - but that's to obsesss about next week!) Betsy, Bobbie Jo - have you done this before? Any tips?

We all worked HARD yesterday to be ready for the sale today (little did we know how persistent garage sale attendees can be in Texas. I'm not sure how to handle this in the future...)
I DID tell homeschoolers they could come early and so we wanted to have the homeschool stuff out last night.....

We started very orderly...looks pretty?

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The homeschool wing of the sale....Notice these tables have stacks and boxes full of books underneath them. It's amazing to me that all but two apple boxes of books are gone. Wow - I didn't expect them to sell as well as they did....and many of the most excited were not homeschoolers.

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Yes, we hired guards for the driveway last night.

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7:30 - an hour before we opened. ::snort:: You can barely see myself and Deja's head....thanks Deja. Deja came over and helped us set things out, then she kept giving me the EYE when our early bird showed up and pressed me to make "deals" on all the big things. She reminded me that it was even 8:30 yet and I didn't need to make deals. Deja really walked me through this sale process. Her Mother and Grandmother hold estate sales for a living. It's not any friend that would get up at 5:30 a.m. to help you. ::snort::

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I still don't have that, "ah, the house is bare" feeling....but I AM happy with our results. We made well over anything we've ever made before. I've had a couple of offers to take the couple of boxes of things that I have left to the homeschool sale next week.....I can't attend as I have a farewell to attend - for me and Mandy. ::sigh::

You know....I teared up when our table sold. Silly? We bought two identical tables about 8 years ago...and we needed them. We loved them...solid wood...little drawer to hide cards. ::snort:: We've heard two won't fit in the kitchen area in Misawa quarters...so we sold one...but now I realize that there is no way 7 will fit around this table.....hmm.....and I sold the cart that held my laptop so I wasn't sure I'd be able to blog...but I guess I can. ::snort:: Oh, back to the table....I was fine watching all my well-loved books leave the house, the pool, swing set, picnic tables, canoes (ouch),bike trailer etc...but that table...all the dinners, games, puzzles...discussions...it really signaled to me that our family make up is changing...and it made me sad. (I only slept 3 hours last night so that could have something to do with my emotions). ::snort::

I DID hold back the baby backpack too....no one asked about it. I'm either going to find someone who doesn't have one and likes to hike and bless them; or I'm taking it to a consignment shop. Someone snatched up the Indisposable Diapers and Stacia's first sling....I was happy that the young family was so excited to find the cloth diapers. It's the small things that made my day....I think we got to visit with most of the city. LOL We'll miss this city....and that is truly a blessing because it took a long time for this to be home for our family.

Choosing Joy!
©2009 D.R.G.