Today marks 14 days until our garage sale, and four days since I got sick.  Blech.  Lots to do still!

This is going to be a slightly different sale; every time I’ve had one – and there have been way too many – everyone says I have to “price” things.  I hate doing that, not because I don’t have an idea as to how, but because there is so much STUFF.  Not like we scan in a tag and ring up the customers, you know?

So this time, I’m setting everything out and advertising a “make offer” sale.  No prices, and by probably noon – if we haven’t melted – we’ll convert to a “free” sale.  Okay, not a sale-sale, but you know what I mean.  After all, the point is to get rid of this mountain of stuff, not really make any money.

Here’s what I don’t understand – people who actually make money having a garage sale.  The best I ever did after oh, about 20 sales over the years, give or take a few, was $200.  I know people who ALWAYS make that much, or more.  Usually, after ads and permits, and I come in around $50.  Tops.

This time, I’m telling myself that I don’t care – I just want it gone.  In fact, I’m arranging for someone – anyone – to come pick up the leftovers on Monday.  So there.  Gone, gone, gone.

The storage unit is filing up fast – we have probably another load to take this weekend; unfortunately, the garage is filling up too, but most of that will be used up, sold, given away, or taken with us.  Did I mention I have a lot of books?  I could probably open a used bookstore, but I don’t want to get rid of any of them!  Of course, when we move in, if something doesn’t fit, it doesn’t fit – we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I have sold a few things, via Craigslist, and am portioning some others out to friends and family.  And we tackled my son’s room over the last few days.  Wow.

The only things left in his closet are his laundry basket, a few pairs of shoes, and hanging clothes.  Somehow, the “bag up all the clothes and shoes that do not fit [or have holes]” doesn’t translate well into kid-ese.  Of course, since kids (and grown men) tend to “look” for something in a room by standing in the middle and gazing blankly at eye level for 30 seconds, this may be perfectly understandable.

Anyway, half his room his spotless; the other half, well, some of the things in the clean half seem to have migrated there, but several boxes were packed or put in the sale pile out in the garage.  Whew.

The third bedroom has a bed.  Really.  And an empty laundry basket which, come to think of it, I could stuff with extra pillows and blankets.  I knew something would go in there, may as well take care of that right now, before I forget….

Okay, where was I?  Oh yeah – half my office is packed, but it occurred to me that the coat closet and bar cabinets could possibly be declared disaster areas.  In fact, the coat closet can barely be opened, I think because a towering stack of…something…fell off the shelf at some point.  Not sure I want to know.

Obviously, there’s a solution to the bar problem – drink up!  Seriously, with all this cold medicine in me?  Let’s just say that packing could then move very slowly, or very quickly, depending!  Come to think of it, it’s not all alcohol in there – I think there might be a box or two that we haven’t touched in three years.  Maybe I should just throw them out, without even looking?

Coming up will be closets and dressers.  And taking stuff off the walls, which of course is accompanied by filling nail holes and touch-up painting.  Ugh.  Call the men in the little white jackets, please, I’ll probably need their help.

I’ve posted the background over the last few days, here and here; now comes the story:

We decided to downsize and move into an apartment.  I haven’t lived in one since, oh, 1989, and never in a big complex – you know, one with pools, weight room, clubhouse, tennis courts, etc.  The one we picked has a lake, too.  Should be interesting.  Of course, it does have washer/dryer hook-ups, one of my requirements; haven’t used a Laundromat since about 1985.  Our new place, however, requires stackables – which means, of course, washing about three items per load.  Sigh.

Whenever we’ve moved, we’ve had a system of packing.  First, we start with all the stuff we can find that we want to get rid of – this time, since we’re downsizing as well, I have a good excuse to get rid of things I’m just tired of, like our bed.  I can deal with just a metal frame, till I find something I like better.  So we’ve listed lots of things for sale, and thrown out some others, and I’ve already gone through all those boxes of “memorabilia”.  Even found some things that my daughter was supposed to have taken to her own place, three years ago.  Grrrr.

And, big news, I finished shredding!  Two boxes of papers, receipts, etc., two years’ worth.  I am so utterly sick of that cheapo shredder – but it did the job, and I only had to un-jam it twenty times or so.

Anyway, now we’re on the walls.  No, not climbing them, packing up whatever is hanging on them; that, and any knick-knacks that are still lying around.  So my house isn’t “pretty” right now, no big deal.  This might take a day, or even half. 

My son was tasked today with getting rid of stuff in his room.  First, he brought out the old X-Box, the one my husband took apart three times to make it work again, and which we now use for parts.  I took one look and handed it over to let my husband make that call; check another thing off my list.  Son also brought me a box of rocks.

My kids seem to have a thing for rocks.  My daughter had a boxful that we moved from Missouri to Colorado to another house in Colorado (’cause Colorado doesn’t have any flippin’ rocks, ya know) to Texas.  And twice more.  We finally ditched them.  My son, however, thankfully, has no such attachment.  He found the box, the contents of which he’s collected since we’ve been in this house, and took out one arrowhead and told me to dump the rest.  Great kid!

My husband is not a fan of moving rocks.  Or books, for that matter.  I did point out, a year or so ago, that if I had, say, a Kindle, moving would be a lot easier in that respect…. 

After the walls and knick-knacks are finished, we’ll move on to a very broad category of “stuff we can live without for a few weeks”.  I’ll pack up a lot of the kitchen, the linen closets, out-of-season clothes, movies, CDs, DVDs; my son will pack up toys, Legos, miscellaneous stuff, Legos, his desk, Legos, and more Legos.  Yes, we have a lot.  We graduated to them after the train phase.  Oh, we have a lot of those too – they multiply at night, when everyone else is sleeping. 

And we’ll be having some company in the coming weeks – who fortunately never stay with us, so it’s all good.  In fact, they may not even make it over here, we might have to just meet someplace else.  No worries.  But, just in case, my house does have to be clean – and for showing purposes too, of course.

Which is another issue.  I first emailed the property management company on June 11, giving 30 days’ notice, and asked what we needed to do prior to vacating; I also asked if we could terminate on July 18, which is earlier than the lease is up but more than 30 days’ notice.

A week later, I wrote him again.  This time he answered, sort of – said “sounds good, let me know when I can show the house”.  I’m not too worried about this part because, another week later, he has yet to list it as available.  I still don’t know what he wants us to do, like carpets, cleaning, windows, etc.  Of course, there are things we have to do, or rather, my husband has to do: fix the basement door that the dog scratched, fix the screen door that the cat tore up.  Plus the usual move-out cleaning.  Guess owning a cleaning business, a few years or so ago, comes in handy now, huh?

So, we’ll muddle through.  If I can get over this head cold in a reasonable amount of time, that is.  Never rains but it pours, right?  Figures.  I do have a bit of energy at the moment, so I better get in gear…M minus  three weeks!