Saturday morning, we got up almost a little too early due to the curtains not doing a good job at blocking out the rising sun, but hey, better than sleeping in late LOL. So later that morning, we got ready to go to the local community rummage sale. Once we got there, there were so many people, mostly senior citizens, messing up the clothes and other items, that organizers huffily have to fold up and straighten out the clothes again. We looked through the clothes, and what bothered us the most is when the jeans are mixed together that alot of times, I have to make sure the jeans (with the inside tags) are for women or men. but even worse, alot of jeans have no inside tags so my husband and I have to spend a while, figuring out if this is for women or men and thinking, will this fit? Crazy.
We moved on to items, such as books, kitchenware, collectibles, etc. My 3-yr-old son was trying to figure out why a bunch of kids were surrounding a big box. Within minutes, he brought to my husband and I a little beetlebug car and a toy ambulance. I asked my son if he found anything for his 1-year-old brother and he dragged my husband to the big box. Unfortunately, there was nothing safe nor appealing to my youngest son, so we left it at that. Then there was a bake sale, held by a local school that my oldest son will attend in the fall of 2011 (if we live in this community longer,......) and there wasn't much selection at all. The parents that were helping out didn't look so friendly nor motivated. The prices of baked goods were a little higher than what I could normally portion out and calculate how much each ingredient would cost to make a yummy finished product. Oh well, I'll make my own Almond Roca squares ;)
While we were looking around, we get so many odd stares from senior citizens and we just don't know why. Even I see other young families attending the sale, the senior even stared at them, too. Made me wonder,"What, you never seen young people living in this community at all?" Oh well.
Now, you readers are going to be asking,"So what did you buy in the end?"
-A pair of jeans for my husband
-a hamburger patty maker (I am no good at making patties by hand :S )
-a set of 4 ice mugs (you place them in the freezer so the water in the mugs turns to ice and have cold, refreshing drinks)
-a beetlebug car and a toy ambulance
-two baseball caps, because my husband collects them
And the total of all of the items above came out to $2.50 :) And we were there for a half hour.
Later that day, my parents came out to our house for BBQ supper, and coincidentally, my mom was at a church rummage sale in our hometown that VERY same day. Mom found many more books for the boys in great condition (as well as books for herself and Dad) so she bought them at $2 dollars for 15 books. The books she bought for herself and Dad was The Far Side cartoon book ( a must-read otherwise there is no humor in life at all) and quite shockingly, a biography of Babe Ruth, told by himself to an author who wrote his book. The rest of the books for the boys, there is so much more to read at bedtime so that is good.
Until next time,.......................
Monday, April 26, 2010
Monday, April 19, 2010
The Season has begun,............
...................., and the garage sales have started already.
So why have I chose to blog about garage sales as well as yard sales, rummage sales and auction sales? For starters, it's about "everything old is new again". Or, it's about,"it's cheaper to buy things from garage sales than to pay full price at department stores". Or, it is simply,"You never know what you are going to find what you never expect to find in places". Okay, so there has to be millions of reasons to go garage sale-ing.
When I was growing up, my parents loved attending farm, residential and estate auction sales. There were so many things up for biddings, and and most of the bidders bidding outrageous prices were old farmers and senior citizens, who then would buy them, take them home and put them in places that would soon be forgotten. Crazy. On weekends in springs and summers, my mom would find out about garage sales so she and a friend would go and check out what the seller(s) have put out. She may say,"nothing's new" otherwise she would come home with Tupperware sets that were badly needed to store dry goods and leftovers. As I get older, churches started holding charity rummage sales, and it never occurred to me that the good things that I would have picked up could have been used years later when I had my first apartment (heh heh, imagine the paycheque from a crafts store would not cover a nice set of plates and cutlery from Walmart at all?) Then, garage sales were happening all over, so my friends and I would get in the car and drive all over the city to garage and yard sales. All over, I could find a set of pots and pans in very good condition that I could pay at 90% below department store prices (Sorry, Zellers and Walmart! ) and my friends would find junk treasures to decorate their apartments and townhouses with. When I took cooking classes, my classmate and I would not go home until we stopped at a Friday garage sale and she would find great toys to buy for her young daughters (her common-law husband would not be impressed at first, but was shocked that the girls kept themselves busy with different toys without annoying the parents at all). I do not think I would stop there in garage sale-ing at all.
When I met my husband, I went to his apartment, and I would find next-to-new items, such as table and chairs and furniture, as well as motorcycle ornaments and such, and he would tell me that he never shopped at fancy stores for them at all, because he jumps at chances in garage sales for deals. We just never stopped there at all. We did hold a few garage sales of our own to sell items we no longer have use for, and yes it did sell well. Even when we had to move from the small town to the city, we would write on the big poster "Moving Sale: Everything must GO!" Yup, almost all the items were sold. We even held another yard sale in the city after we moved, more unused items went, and that was better.
For us, I don't think we would ever give up on garage sale-ing at all. It is not just toys, dishes, clothes and knick-knacks we'll find, we would find gardening supplies we need, even storage shelves and book cases we will put them to use (better than disorganization) as well as vegetable and flower plants that people will sell (one lady in the city sold tomato and pepper plants as she planted them indoors and they grew successfully and realized she the has no room to place extras in her garden so she sold them, and that was okay since they were sold cheaper than at greenhouses). Even hanging baskets and large pots for yards and container gardening, hey, why not? Better to put them to use than to watch them put away in storage just to be forgotten.
Well, this weekend is the local community rummage sale at the rink, along with the bake sale that the school is holding so we'll be going there. Even my landlord and his girlfriend can't wait to go to auction sales every weekend.
Let the season of garage, yard and auction sales begin!
So why have I chose to blog about garage sales as well as yard sales, rummage sales and auction sales? For starters, it's about "everything old is new again". Or, it's about,"it's cheaper to buy things from garage sales than to pay full price at department stores". Or, it is simply,"You never know what you are going to find what you never expect to find in places". Okay, so there has to be millions of reasons to go garage sale-ing.
When I was growing up, my parents loved attending farm, residential and estate auction sales. There were so many things up for biddings, and and most of the bidders bidding outrageous prices were old farmers and senior citizens, who then would buy them, take them home and put them in places that would soon be forgotten. Crazy. On weekends in springs and summers, my mom would find out about garage sales so she and a friend would go and check out what the seller(s) have put out. She may say,"nothing's new" otherwise she would come home with Tupperware sets that were badly needed to store dry goods and leftovers. As I get older, churches started holding charity rummage sales, and it never occurred to me that the good things that I would have picked up could have been used years later when I had my first apartment (heh heh, imagine the paycheque from a crafts store would not cover a nice set of plates and cutlery from Walmart at all?) Then, garage sales were happening all over, so my friends and I would get in the car and drive all over the city to garage and yard sales. All over, I could find a set of pots and pans in very good condition that I could pay at 90% below department store prices (Sorry, Zellers and Walmart! ) and my friends would find junk treasures to decorate their apartments and townhouses with. When I took cooking classes, my classmate and I would not go home until we stopped at a Friday garage sale and she would find great toys to buy for her young daughters (her common-law husband would not be impressed at first, but was shocked that the girls kept themselves busy with different toys without annoying the parents at all). I do not think I would stop there in garage sale-ing at all.
When I met my husband, I went to his apartment, and I would find next-to-new items, such as table and chairs and furniture, as well as motorcycle ornaments and such, and he would tell me that he never shopped at fancy stores for them at all, because he jumps at chances in garage sales for deals. We just never stopped there at all. We did hold a few garage sales of our own to sell items we no longer have use for, and yes it did sell well. Even when we had to move from the small town to the city, we would write on the big poster "Moving Sale: Everything must GO!" Yup, almost all the items were sold. We even held another yard sale in the city after we moved, more unused items went, and that was better.
For us, I don't think we would ever give up on garage sale-ing at all. It is not just toys, dishes, clothes and knick-knacks we'll find, we would find gardening supplies we need, even storage shelves and book cases we will put them to use (better than disorganization) as well as vegetable and flower plants that people will sell (one lady in the city sold tomato and pepper plants as she planted them indoors and they grew successfully and realized she the has no room to place extras in her garden so she sold them, and that was okay since they were sold cheaper than at greenhouses). Even hanging baskets and large pots for yards and container gardening, hey, why not? Better to put them to use than to watch them put away in storage just to be forgotten.
Well, this weekend is the local community rummage sale at the rink, along with the bake sale that the school is holding so we'll be going there. Even my landlord and his girlfriend can't wait to go to auction sales every weekend.
Let the season of garage, yard and auction sales begin!
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