Garage sales are “jumbles of goodness”

You can’t see me but I’m raising my hands toward the heavens and being thankful it’s almost SUMMER. Yes, I said it – that wonderful S word called SUMMER. I’ve felt a warm breeze tickle the back of my neck letting me know it’s almost arrived. This means barbecues, swimming, and for me cleaning out my closet. Isn’t that a winter chore, you say? Not for me. When summer comes I long for simplicity, clean lines, and an even cleaner house to walk into and say, “Ahhhh.” The sparser my closet the better I feel. So with that said this means it’s time for a garage sale.

I am in love with garage sales. Ever since I was a kid and we held them in our big old tin garage, I’ve loved the ebb and flow of tables set up with random plates and knick knacks. That push and pull rhythm of dickering over a price, and the satisfaction of walking away with something you didn’t know you needed. Normally, in any given June, we set up back at my Aunt Fern’s house in Benton. Benton sales take on a life of their own and we love to carefully join our things with hers creating a jumble of goodness. Just saying “jumble of goodness” makes me smile. It’s more than a sale it’s a coming together of time, talking, and the rearranging of things that shouldn’t have more meaning in your life than your relationships. Unfortunately there will be no sale for us back in Benton this June. She has too many things going on, as do we, and everyone else that brings our things to her garage. No sale for us. That being said, I still need to have one so come LATE June I will be having one at my house. We will set up under our newly renovated (to us) garage and let everything spill out. My aunt will join us, as will my mom, sister, and anyone else in our family that has something they need to sell. It’s an easy way to make some cash and I for one can’t wait.

My closets are near to bursting with shoes, shirts I don’t need, dishes I no longer use, and random things that await discovery in the back of my son’s closet. My husband has things he’s been wanting to sell but doesn’t want to drag them to Benton, so yes, they will be drug out at our house and slapped with a price tag. I may even dig deep into the recesses of the basement and see what I can find down there. That will be a dirty job but well worth it. We will artfully arrange our junk into a semblance of order – just enough so that people will feel they are uncovering treasure in the gently laid out piles. I don’t love hoards of “things” anymore and as I get older I just want to get rid of everything. I want to be able to jump up and leave for three months to another country if I want to and not worry about all the stuff I have stacked at home. Simplify has been my motto for awhile now. I’m working on it one minute at a time.

I do miss our Junk Fling – that sale we started almost 14 years ago now. We would gather and glean, paint and rejuvenate all things that were old and decrepit. We would make them new, yet vintage – with that crusty old look that we perfected to a T. I miss those twice-yearly sales with a vengeance, with the lines of people chomping at the bit to dig in to our offerings. We are on a new chapter of our lives and it’s not in the cards. The memory stays though, digging in my side just for a time. The profitability is there and if the passion were too then I would do it in a heartbeat. For me though, my passion lies in words and the structures of them by putting them together carefully so they convey my meaning. Maybe I’ll actually get that book written about garage sales. Now there is a combination that would be unbeatable. 

You can find this and all my other columns on The Holmes County Bargain Hunter.