Cha-Ching! Yard Sale Update

The yardsale went VERY WELL! I am shocked to write this, as generally my yard sale experience is TOO MUCH WORK and in the end NOT WORTH THE CRAZIES, but despite a very wet Saturday, I'm over the moon about this sale. Most of it is thanks to my SuperMom, the original craftastic creator, who talked to the nut jobs, hung up clothes, and sat in the rain for hours as people just kept coming.

We were definitely helped by the city-wide sales supposedly taking place a few blocks north, so I'll have to remember this timing in case I ever get enough junk to purge again - though for a while, at least, I'm happy to be done. Sunday was gorgeous and dry, so despite my aching knees and back, I was moved to haul everything back on the lawn and slash all prices in half - there were some ridiculously good deals and it showed - people kept coming even as we were packing up the remainders for Goodwill. Now hubby and I don't have to panhandle on our trip to New York! :) YAY!

"HUGE MULTI-FAMILY SALE"

I've been buried, both literally and figuratively, in my yard sale preparations, which at least partially explains my blogging absence - I've been busy sorting/pricing/stacking up junk, and I just haven't had time to tackle any creative projects. I do hope this purge will set me up for a much more crafty summer - both in space as well as (hopefully) a little more funding :) Now if only the rain will hold off!

I find sales to be a double-edged sword - they're a TON of work, with no guarantee of making ANYTHING, and there's always that uber-awkward group of "shoppers" who want to interrogate you about your life, talk you down in price, and otherwise just be a huge pain in the @$$. Despite my firm attention to etiquette, I'm not all that friendly with strangers and don't feel I need to be doling out personal information to be pleasant. Small talk is annoying and uncomfortable.

My yard sale philosophy is this: I priced it at what I want for it. If I wanted less, I'd have priced it less. I'm not forcing you to buy anything, if you don't think it's worth it - move along. I price everything (what I feel is) extremely cheaply, and honestly the tax deduction I'll get dropping it all off at the Goodwill is probably worth a lot more than the quarters you're offering anyways. I pretty much always say no when someone asks if I'll take less on an item.

But on the other side, cash is always important, so if it does work out and you make some money while getting rid of clutter, in what is essentially your free time, then that's pretty valuable, even if your "hourly rate" didn't live up to your expectations. And if you look at the day as an anthropological survey of your culture (or like a visit to peopleofwalmart.com) it can be kinda amusing.

A few sale tips I learned from years of our 8-family neighborhood sales:

-don't price anything under a quarter. If it's not worth a quarter, it's not worth your time - throw it in a free bag, or get rid of it off the bat. Alternatively, group a bunch of similar stuff together in a bag or box to make it a worthwhile lot. This also serves to cut down the amount/kinds of change you need - just quarters and bills.

-write a little note on the tag of what the item is. This is because of those few little douchebags who actually stoop to switching or removing price tags at garage sales - as if they don't think you remember the hours you spent tagging everything. And yes, I've had it happen. And it's never the really poor people.

-have someone sit with you, preferably someone you can stand to talk to for a whole day. This significantly reduces the awkwardness of staring at your customers as they rifle through your old crap, as well as passes the time more quickly. Potty breaks are also a plus.

-for multi-family sales, assign everyone a different color sharpie to write their tags. when people make purchases, remove the tags and stick them on a page for each color/contributor - at the end, you have an easy record of how much everyone is owed, and you can easily see the items that sold.

-hang clothes when you can. They're easier to look through and people are more likely to spend time actually perusing them than if they had to unfold and dig through piles. It might just be a "Minnesota Nice" thing, but people don't always like to make a huge mess of your carefully folded piles, nor do they really want to re-fold everything they look at - thus, they just skip it - no sale. :(

-candles melt in the sun. If you're in a garage this isn't as big of a deal, but since my sale will be out in the sunny front yard, it's something to remember. Also, the sun MOVES! Tricky devil :) At some point, you'll probably have to move the candles and possibly other plastic items/stickers/etc...Or peel them off the grass/table/other items.

That is all the wisdom I can muster - hopefully I shall emerge rich and relieved after this weekend, ready to kick off some Halloween projects (and blog about them) - GASP - since there are only 150 days left now! EEK!

Yay for Poison!

We're winning the weed war!

FINALLY.


Remember it looked like this when I finally gave up on the "natural" remedies and dumped on the weed kill:





Then a week or so later it sorta started to yellow and fade:





And now, this week, I'm proud to say the tides are turning and we appear to have the upper hand! Check out this shriveled mess:
Whoo hoo! TRIUMPH!

I'm not sure yet if I'll still have to rip out the carcases by hand, or if they'll just shrivel to dust and blow away (clearly my preference, though I'm not very hopeful) but at least they're no longer growing and forcing my concrete apart. I think the "bush" in the middle of the driveway was starting to be a driving hazard.

Yay toxic sprays!

Weed War: Update from the front lines

Weed casualties are spreading! I woke up today to find mass damage working its way through the bright green invaders, it must have taken a while to soak in. The vinegar smell is also gone, so maybe that means its finally gotten to work. I still think I'll dump a few more gallons, and hopefully avoid having to pull all these little buggers up (its so time consuming and difficult! Those weeds are STRONG!)

Update: Weed War

My driveway still smells like pickles.

My driveway is still full of weeds.

BUT!

Some of them are starting to falter! Take that, evil weeds. See the few sad & shriveled pale weeds dying between the sprouts of healthy burly ones? I consider that somewhat of a triumph. We're going to need a lot more vinegar...

The Vinegar experiment

Our driveway has a few big cracks, and growing out of those cracks WAS a few green weeds, but is now practically a bush. I've watched enough "Life After People" to know that weeds strive for world domination and were we to turn our backs for a moment too long, they'd overrun our society and tear down all our monuments and libraries. (The same show is why I'm terrified of riding the NYC subways under the rivers - it's really interesting, but only feeds your paranoia) So far I've let our weeds get a little head start (I've been busy!) but it was getting close to out of hand. Something had to be done.

I read this post on "The Long Thread" that said you could use vinegar to kill weeds in a more eco-friendly and non-Norm-poison way, so I thought I'd try that. Last night I dumped a full gallon of vinegar on the driveway, pouring it carefully down each row of green and singing a "Happy Death to You!" tune.

My driveway smells like pickles.

My clothes, shoes, and skin smell like pickles.

I really don't like pickles.

I woke up this morning sure I'd find only twisted weed carnage left....but it pretty much looks the same. Of course, the temperature dropped dramatically over night, so maybe they need to slowly cook in the sun? I forgot to snap a picture, but I'll keep you updated if this has any effect...so far I have a bad feeling I'll be stuck ripping up stinky pickled weeds.