The Objects We Love

At long last we prepared our previously loved items for.....

...this. I will tell you it feels GREAT to finally sell a lot of the stuff we've been saving the past couple years. Lots of baby and kid items, books and toys. Although I spent an entire 12 hours tagging there was still a lot that wasn't tagged so we didn't bring everything out all at once and this picture was taken near the end, and this is what was LEFT.  There were two tables in the garage as well which you can't see because it's dark. We're still going to have a sizeable donation for the NW Center for the Retarded.

We also got to meet a lot of neighbors which was really nice.

The kids have been looking forward to having a lemonade and cookie stand all summer. They were so cute!

Evie painted the sign. We have to settle up and see what their actual profits are because they have to pay for the ingredients. The lemonade was a bit of a bust. Apparently our prices were too high and the weather wasn't hot enough to entice many of our customers. But when you spent $4 on organic lemons and make it fresh squeezed it should be worth a bit more, I think. Next time we're selling Minute Maid.  The chocolate chip cookies were a hit. I think that was the problem, given the choice between a huge cookie or a glass of lemonade which are you going to choose? Chocolate, duh!!! Evie was a trooper and stuck with us both days while Adrian went inside and played Wii. Should they split the profit? Well I think I'll let them settle that.

My cosmic reward for all this work. Bigger than the money we made was the surprise event of the weekend.....

We found the long lost "Kitty". We nearly lost her forever since our first customer of the day came to buy our sleeping bags. Luckily he didn't(he was a little too big), and later on Kitty was found in the bottom of one of the bags. She'd gone missing when Evie was very small. Kitty was Evie's favorite lovey. When she was 4 she had her first ballet stage performance. She had to wait with the dancers backstage while we parents watched the other dancers during the show so she brought Kitty to help her be brave. When it was time to perform she wouldn't go on without Kitty, so Kitty had her moment on the big stage.

Here they are together before the show.

It has been driving me crazy for years. I even searched on E-bay for a replacement.

Even if I didn't sell a single thing at the garage sale it would all be WORTH IT just to find Kitty!!!!

The fact that we made $767 is just a nice big bonus! The money will pay to finish the kid's play house. It's a good arrangement since a lot of the items sold, they felt were "theirs".

In the process of pulling out items we no longer need or use, we rediscovered toys seldom played with. Evie claimed she was too grown up for Polly Pockets but it turns out they still have some appeal. And though I thought Ainsley was too "young" she actually enjoyed playing with them with Evie.

It was such a cute sisterly moment. Though Evie was ill and you can see it in her face here. Now Ainsley caught it. Hopefully she'll fare better than Evie who was sicker than I've seen her in a long time.

This is a very weird virus. She woke up this morning at 6:00am all crazy like she was wired on coffee. Not the way a fever usually affects a person. I wanted her to have a bath since her trach and g-tube needed cleaning. I substituted her doll for another drink and wet doll since I'd discovered last week when we put her doll in the pool, that just like Ainsley, holes into the body don't mix with water. But she pointed to the doll and then pointed to her trach and from that I deduced that she wanted the doll with the trach. Then when I brought her "dolly" she pointed to the imposter and said "Bye-bye."

She really loves this doll.

I hope we don't ever lose her. Maybe soon I'll post instructions on how to make a trach dolly of your own.

How we form attachments to the items we own is interesting to me. Lately I've been watching episodes of the show "Hoarders" on TV and it scares me. After this weekend I feel lighter.