Saturday, May 23, 2009

5/21-22 Yard Sale

We are so tired tonight, but all in all it has been a good yard sale weekend. Counting the rainy attempt a couple of weeks ago, we have raised $782. That's better than we averaged last year, so I'm tickled! I think we confused a lot of people with the "Donations Only" concept, and I'm afraid it didn't translate very well with the non-English or limited-English customers. We'll have to work on that for next time.

I did learn that the "Donations Only" tactic works better on the Friday crowd. They are your "professional" yard-salers. They know what things ought to be worth and either offer that or a little more. The Saturday crowd either gets nervous because they don't have a clue what to offer for an item (hint, hint...why do you think I hate to price things? I don't have a clue either!) or they expect nothing at a yard sale to be more than 25 cents. Even a couch or something. So when they hear they can just make an offer, they gather an armload and offer $2. For those of you wondering, yes...I took the $2. This was sort of an exercise in faith. I simply trusted that it would all balance out in the end. And if someone wants to look me straight in the eye and take advantage of our adoption, fine. God knows, and if they have any conscience left at all, they won't sleep well tonight. It balances with the grandmothers who shared their stories and give us "a little something extra 'cause I know how hard it is (to adopt)." One dear lady even came with pictures of her sweetie to encourage us that we were doing a good thing by adoption. Another bought just a couple of little things and gave me $40. So see? It worked out.

I'm ready now to clean out the leftovers and get rid of them. Then we will start fresh later in June.

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