I know...you are wondering about the termites. And maybe even the diabetes (I just went to the doctor), but let me tell you about today. Drop me a note or a comment and then I'll know what you want to hear about.
I'm sitting in my garage. It's raining. It's 60 degrees outside. I'm drinking hot chocolate and wearing a favorite hoodie that needs to be a bit warmer. (I still think of the end of August in college-in-Iowa terms---the hottest most sweat-dripping days came the first week of school as we moved into the non-air-conditioned dorms). The calendar says August 28th, but it is not August.
If you remember the post about the girls cleaning out their toys and wanting to sell them to raise money for the orphanage, that's why I am in the garage. At the sale. Numerous times I thought, "Why am I going to all this work to have a sale?" But the girls had a noble desire and I wanted to follow through with it. I knew we didn't have enough stuff for a great sale, but I wanted the girls to have a finished lesson. I checked and double checked the weather. But by Wednesday this week, I couldn't postpone the decision any longer. The weather was supposed to be good. I decided to do it.
It's noon (3 hours of sale). There have been 5 customers and lots of rain. We've made $16 dollars. And if one or two moms, or an eager grandma, with little girls between ages two and four would just walk up the driveway, they would find treasures (like a heart-stealing tiny stuffed iguana or a love poem in book form), beautiful shoes and some great dresses. But alas, it's cold in my bones with all this wet, I've moved into the warm house, covered the clothes rack with a tarp and am writing with the computer facing the garage. The neighbor across the street said one of the signs had fallen down. It's raining, hard. Do I bother to fix it? Will the crayola markers the girls used to color the sign be indiscernible? Not sure I have the heart to find out. I hate well-intentioned lessons that don't work.
What to do now? Do I pack up everything and save it until the neighborhood garage sale next June? Or do I pack it up and send it to some charity's thrift store? I hate it when effort seems in vain, but at least all this stuff has been sort out and won't go back in the drawers.
1 comment:
I have thought about you and your girls and the garage sale all day. I can understand packing it up and closing the door.
I thought of you again while reading an article in family fun magazine about "penny carnivals" as fundraisers for organizations. I seemd like very little work to set up/organize. I'll pass the article along when the pain from this rainy garage sale has passed.
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