DATE: MARCH 10, 1998
I spent all of yesterday over at the old house cleaning and mucking-out. It turned out to be pretty fun. It was just me and Dad for most of the day. We still had all of the junk over there that we were originally going to yard sale. And then putting on a yard sale seemed too hard---so we were going to take the junk to the D.I. Then even that seemed too hard and too far to drive, so Dad decided to haul it all off to the dump.
Well, we start hauling the junk outside, and Dad turns to me and says, "Awwww, go ahead and make up a sign, Janna, let's sell this crap. Even if we only make a couple of bucks."
There was nothing decent to make a sign with, so I rummaged and found 2 trashy pieces of paper and some old craft paint and cobbled a couple of tatty signs together, using a piece of toilet paper as a paint brush.
We hung one of the signs on HWY 59...excellent for advertising to Our Friends of Colorado City (monarchs of the yard-sale-world). The other one we put on the windshield of my car which was parked out front. Dad was loving it and was giggling constantly.
Even though it was a Monday, and we started at about 10:00am, and hadn't even advertised in advance, we ended up making about $110.00 dollars and getting rid of most of the pile of junk. Pretty nifty.
Neither of us wanted to sit with the yard sale though. I kept saying I'd clean and he could sit there, and he said, "No, I'll clean and YOU sit there." I did NOT want to be the Yard Sale Girl, but I was stuck with it. I can't believe that people bought some of that crap.
Near the end of the day, I started selling everything that was left for a quarter. We made approx $20.00 bucks that way. Do you REALIZE how many grotty pieces of .25-cent junk you have to SELL TO MAKE FREAKING $20.00?
I also sold all of my manky old clothes and only kept the things I actually wear. And it sold. Someone out there is going to be very poorly dressed.
The old house is now totally empty and pretty much cleaned. But even clean, I know that I would be discouraged if I were moving in there. I think it'd discouraging to move into anywhere that isn't brand new, or recently built; there's grunge that can't be gotten rid of.
It's unsettling to think that after today, we won't be going back to that house. We can't just walk in. We'd have to knock and be invited in. It'll be someone else's house, their home, and they would live there and bash around all those familiar rooms.
