When Purging Becomes Extra Sweet

Before the school bell rings and we bid adieu to summer, we here in the Niles go out with a bang!  Our Annual Antique Fair draws hundreds of thousands of people to our neighborhood with a lure of antique treasures and great bargains since the whole neighborhood also holds garage sales.  We look forward to this annual tradition since it usually means an opportunity to clean up and get rid of our clutter and everything unnecessary. 

This year was particularly full since a lot of purging was accomplished thanks to our new love for simplicity.  The girls were surprisingly willing to see a lot of their plastic toys go (despite some last minute playtime for Ickey).  We already talked about the dangers of such play things for ourselves and for the earth and how we will be more mindful of the toys that we will add to their collection while also trying to keep their stash to the minimum and they are okay with that. So far, other than a need to go over their stuff animal collection again, their toys have been cut down significantly.  And although requests have been made for an additional pretend, non-battery operated toy (cash register to play store in), I'm taking my time locating just the right one.  We are definitely proud of what we accomplished so far.

I was also willing to part with a lot of my flower arranging books that I used as reference when I had the floral design business.  Unfortunately, the books did not get any takers this time so I'm going to try to sell them at Amazon first instead of donating them. 

It was a great two days of garage sale. Sales were pretty good for both myself and the hubby who got rid of a lot of his unused tools and of course, those got a lot of attention.  The only things left to sell are larger pieces -  frames, furniture (our single convertible bed/chair and maybe even the sofa...which will go on Craigslist) - so that we could purchase used smaller pieces and give us more room to pursue some of girls growing interest...piano lessons perhaps.

Some of girls "un-ebayable" wardrobe was also purged and the unsold ones went straight to donation.  However, my goal was to return the funds I spent (and still spending) for Mer's school wardrobe. So all of my sales from this garage sale went to that fund and hopefully more funds will be coming from the stuff that I did reserve for Ebay.

And with Antique Fair completed, it signals the next chaotic phase of this summer's end for us - the start of school!!! With only a few days left, I better get back to making sure that we have everything set!