Cleaning House

I finally had a yard sale this past weekend. Yes, I know it is November. Yes, I know that people usually don't do yard sales this late in the year. My husband was threatening to throw everything away though so I figured it was now or never. I have made him move those boxes around for the past three years. I always meant to get rid of everything but things always came up so the pile actually grew and grew and collected dust. A local preschool offered to "host" the sale for a small donation from each person selling and it worked out pretty good because the school is located on a busy street.

So here is what I learned about yard sales:
-I am definitely a rookie when it comes to having one. I had no idea what I was doing.
-apparently just showing up and setting everything out on a table is not such a good strategy
-your stuff isn't going to go for nearly what you think it is worth
-people are cheap,cheap,cheap
-be prepared to haggle and don't back down!
-it is a lot less stressful if you have at least one other person to help you and if you price things beforehand
-next time(of there is one) I will color code everything and use a master price sheet

I was genuinely surprised at how cheap and aggressive people were with my things. I was second guessing myself on a lot of things because people were commenting on how they didn't want to pay what i was asking. I ended up settling for a lot less than I could have because I was unsure of myself. I have a feeling that some of my things will probably be resold for a bit of profit. Oh well. lesson learned. at least the garage is somewhat organized now. I spent about 4 hours out there yesterday afternoon organizing and going through things. Our plan is to be able to park the car in there by December 1st.

It is amazing to me how much stuff we collect as we move along in our lives. I am the type that gets distracted easily so it was very difficult to stay on task while cleaning the garage. Every time I would open a box I would sift through it and get caught up looking at old pictures and art projects. Little toys that got shoved here or dropped there. I have talked about "cleaning up" and becoming more organized for the past three years but I just can't seem to get it done. I hate clutter but it makes me sad to get rid of old things. I guess mostly stuff that Chloe made or gave to me. Its all just stuff though and its not the stuff that matters.

We will see how long the cleaning streak lasts. I'm sure I will find another project to focus on before too long.

Winter seems well under way. Stay warm. We'll talk soon

Kristy
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Catching Up

  Well the last time you heard from me I was a little over halfway through my horrendous pregnancy. Things actually ended up going pretty smoothly the last few months. I was able to embrace the fact that this would be my last pregnancy and I think God healed me of my sickness and allowed me to really enjoy it and I felt I was finally able to really bond with my baby before he was born. Things got pretty busy there for a while. Once I was well enough to have my pump taken out, I was nonstop. I felt like I had so much to catch up on.

 We stumbled upon a great house(we had been half heartedly searching for months) about a month before my due date and decided rather in a hurry that we needed to go ahead and take a leap and try to get into it before baby Jacob got here. That was an insane week. Yes, I said week. We somehow packed up and moved our entire place in 7 days. All of this while monty was putting in  9-10 hour days at work.Oh and did I mention that we painted the entire house. All 3 levels. 8 rooms total. all different colors... and not just a coat of white. We decided that we should go ahead and do custom paint in each room. Well, we had to score,soak & rip off the 20 year old wallpaper that was plastered all over the house first, then we had to prime, then we painted. seriously. what were we thinking?  

The kitchen had no floor and we were tempted to leave that lovely trim. not really.

 This was the bedroom in the lower level off the family room. Again, no floor. and some mold problems. My husband had(has) high hopes for this place. Glad he could see through the mess. I on the other hand, could see nothing but what needed to be done.

 This burgundy wallpaper was the bane of my existence. I hate wallpaper. hate it. We have been in the house for about five months now. We are slowly getting settled. We still need to re-do the family room downstairs. My dear husband really wants to decorate it in everything UT but we promised Chloe that it would be half fun hangout room for her and her friends and half playroom for the boys. Im sooo bad at decorating and have no idea where to begin as far as picking a color palatte.

 We are in the process of fixing Chloe's bedroom but we have been having issues with flooding and had to have the floor ripped up again and had industrial dehumidifiers all over the place for a week. I will have to take some pictures of the rooms that are finished so you can see all of our hard work. Wait, that would only give you one picture. I have yet to complete one entire room. There are 2 or 3 things in each room that I still need to make it finished. Maybe I will get around to that this year. Hope you all have been doing well. I promise we will catch up more soon.

Have a blessed day my friends. Talk to you soon....

Kristy