So I have a new motto: In my way, in the trash... unless you are worth 25 cents, then into the garage sale pile.
I am ruthless, you guys. I am throwing out SO MUCH crap, and throwing an equal amount of crap into the "garage sale" corner of the attic. I went through the girls' room and got a huge bag of garbage and a huge bag of garage sale stuff. Behind their back.
So this will scar them, surely, to have toys practically ripped from their distracted grasp and tossed out/sold, but my question is HOW MUCH it will scar them. Are we talking years in therapy, or becoming a hoarder a la Oprah show style? Or is it more simply that they'll save all of their college texts JUST IN CASE and have a lifetime of bad dreams where they are looking for something but never find it?
Because I cannot involve them in the sorting process, NO WAY. I've already tried it. The results were them trying to put their old ripped torn art work from preschool in the sale pile and sobbing over the Dora doll that sings "feliz navidad" that they have NEVER ONCE EVEN TOUCHED. If given their druthers, they would keep everything, plus cruise all the neighborhood garage sales and haul home all of their discarded junk.
So most days you can find me sneaking up to the attic with an armload of confiscated CRAP, hoping they won't find it under all the other household stuff in the pile. If they do, whoo-boy, am I going to be in trouble!
(I've never actually had a garage sale, opting to dropping off loads to the Neighborhood Service Center instead. But this time we have waaaaay too much stuff. Any tips on garage sale do's and don'ts?)
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About Me
- Marie Green
- Tiny Town, MN, United States
- I am a mother of four, wife, doula, childbirth educator, and avid reader. My husband David and I have 10 year old twin girls (Jan '03) named Joan and Kate, and a 6 year old daughter (Sept '06) named Marin and a 1 year old named Olive. We are trying to live an honest, simple, and green life here in Tiny Town.
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9 comments:
More power to you! I am in the same boat,with the Rubbermaid containers of schoolwork and all those toys, toys, toys. Luckily, most of them will get passed down,and my son has already started playing with things my daughter long since discarded. But oh my goodness the amount of stuff we have! I don't have the patience for a garage sale. Plus, I live 1300 feet from the public road~not that helpful.
Ok, I should have been more clear: the stuff I'm hoarding away for the Sale is stuff they NEVER touch, and haven't for YEARS, but if they saw it, they would claim "I play with that ALL THE TIME". They have trouble getting rid of rocks- seriously ROCKS!- which they bring in and then never ever touch or look at, so agreeing to getting rid of toys is simply too much for them...
If I even THINK it has a value to them, I'm keeping it. Usually. =)
TOO FUNNY! My oldest two gather rocks, baby pinecones, anything, and then bring it in. And I find the stash months later.
GOOD FOR YOU. It will not scar them if it's truly stuff they don't pay attention to. Don't worry about it. Surely there will be some stuff they'll miss, but they'll be fine. It's just STUFF afterall.
One tip on the garage sale. Drop the girls off at someone else's house for the day. Otherwise they'll definitely be weeping over their sold items.
So your girls are going to bring pet rocks back??? :)
eh, they probably won't hardly notice! (at least as long as you aren't throwing out any prized possessions or anything!)
Good for you! SPring cleaning...
I've never had a garage sale, either. Good luck with that.
But I am RUTHLESS when it comes time to GET RID OF ALL THE CRAP, ALREADY. I am a rock star at throwing stuff away. I have to do it when A. is at work or class, though, because he holds on to EVERYTHING. Bah.
Good luck!
OOOOH I love this. We need to do this at our house too. Clutter drives me crazy and we have turned into toyland these past few months. Toys from the playroom are EVERYWHERE and I know my toddler doesn't play with half of this stuff. She just likes dragging it from room to room. As for the garage sale, well I've never had one so I'm afraid I'm not much help.
I so hear you on the "no, that's my FAVORITE ROCK/ STICK/STRING CHEESE WRAPPER!" The worst part about collective "let's clean up the house" events is how my kids' obsessive hoarding goes head-to-head with mine: we can't throw away ancient broken Happy Meal plastic crapola, but three (expensive!) pieces of the Thomas the Train collection? Meh. Out they go (me: NOOO! And don't talk to me about lead, I don't want to hear it).
Re garage sale: we had one once. It was very good for: 1. meeting the neighbors (we'd just moved in)
2. Getting rid of surprising things (broken skis? 1985 Commodore computer? two nasty biting lovebirds? check, check, and check)
The GOOD things, which we'd even listed in the newspaper ad, got lots of checker-outers but no takers.
Also: do it WITH someone else, so that you're not tied to the sale table for 5hours.
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