Ranch Naturalists

No time for nature & science

We held our moving sale yesterday. For the last several months, our house has been jam-packed full of boxes and items to review. Do we keep? Do we sell? Do we trash?

The mantra that worked for me was to keep thinking, “Someone is going to have to go through my stuff when I die”. I let go of a lot of things I had been holding onto since childhood that had been living in a box for 40 or more years.

I found it easier to let things go after I took a photo and stored that in my second (digital) brain with keywords that would let me find it again. It’s not the item that’s important; it’s the memory of the item.

The biggest thing we hate about yard sales is pricing, so we decided to go with one dollar for everything, except for a few (less than 10) items. At noon, after four hours, everything was free. The goal was once things left the house, they didn’t come back in.

One thing we did not expect or plan for was the huge neighborhood garage sale just a few miles away that started an hour before we did. Oops. I guess we really didn’t need to get up at four to get everything out ahead of the early birds.

Overall, I count it as a huge success. People were happy with one dollar pricing, and there was much less haggling than I expected. There’s still a lot of clothes and some miscellaneous stuff in my front yard with a big “free” sign, but it’s slowly going away. We had boxes and boxes and boxes of books that sold well, but when you start with thousands, you’re going to end up with thousands, no matter how many you sell. Luckily, a dear friend who came to help was able to fill up her car to donate to the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary, an another car from a member of the Friends of the Slidell Library was able to take the rest.

I’m glad we did it. I’m also very glad it’s over.

Next steps: All the things we said we’d do “after the yard sale”, and start building the fence to keep the cows out of the homesite. We’ll also start to pack up the things we can do without for a few months, at least. We’re planning to pack and ship in pieces with U-Haul U-Boxes, so we can take our time to get stuff moved, and it doesn’t have to all go together.

We’re hoping for the actual move to be in late summer or early fall, but at the moment, it’s a little too soon to tell. We hope to have a firm timeline by the end of April.

Still so much to do…