Lately (as you may have deduced) I haven’t been picking up a lot of stuff at sales. OK, I did have my crazy rummage sale moment, but other than that, I’ve been extremely restrained. Part of the reason is just feeling a bit overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in my house and wanting to pare down on what’s already there, let alone bring in more random crapola. Well, I don’t think I would ever say NO random crapola, but I’m trying to keep it to random crapola that I really like and/or think I will use. Although obviously I have my weak moments (um, stretchy exercise cord thing with missing videotape?!). And it’s easy to justify a questionable buy by saying, “Well, I can always put it in our next sale.”

In my halfhearted attempts to de-crap-ify I’ve been unearthing things in my office/storage room that I’d bought at sales years ago and never used or displayed: a portable lime green 60s typewriter, a slew of random paperbacks, orange and black ski gloves, a needlepoint flamenco dancer portrait purchased from Meghan’s mom at the last yard sale we had just last summer. All of this is going into a big pile destined for our next sale (probably sometime in June if we can get it together). It always feels good to get rid of things you’re not using, and there is something especially satisfying about seeing it go off to a new home with someone who’s excited about it. Of course, it’s nice to make a few bucks too. But I do get oddly sentimental about some of the things I end up selling at sales. Not in the “I’m sentimental about it, so you have to pay more than it’s worth” way that Meghan wrote about earlier, but more like “this thing is so strange and great, and even though I don’t need it in my life anymore, I still feel that it should be properly loved and appreciated.”

Meghan and I seem to have a sale about once a year. Sometimes it’s prompted by one of us moving, but just as often it’s just because we decide that it’s time to lighten the load (and clear room for future scores). I think we’ve had about six or seven sales together, often with other friends or relatives joining in under the theory “the more, the better.” We always try to have the kind of sales we like to go to: lots of stuff, priced to make it go away.

Twice, when our sales have been indoors and we could set up in advance, we’ve done a “pre-sale” on Friday night, by invitation only. It’s extra-great when your friends get first crack at the good stuff, and it’s a fun excuse to have people over. At one sale I was getting rid of a lot of glasses, so I had a special offer: if you bought a glass, I would make you the drink of your choice in that glass, but you absolutely had to take the glass home with you. I did get rid of a lot of glasses that night.

The biggest and best sale we ever had was in March of 2004 … it was in Meghan’s old basement, and I must say, it was epic. More on that in a future post!