Treasure your relationships, not your possessions. (Anthony J. D'Angelo)

I'm not sure how coherent this post will be. I've been awake since 3 am, after only 4 hours of sleep. The only reason I'm writing this now, instead of going to bed where I belong, is because of my determination to make it through NaBloPoMo.

My sister, mom, and I had a yard sale this morning. Since my sister lives almost an hour south of me, I had to get a very early start in order to help get things set up. Rather than face any teasing about my well-know difficulty in sticking to a time schedule, I went overboard and arrived before anyone else was awake. Heck, I was down to my sister's house before Dunkin Donuts opened up for the day! I sat in her yard and knit, watching the sun come up and listening to my daughter complain how I was a terrible parent for forcing her out of her bed without good cause. (It was actually a pretty good start to the day.)

Yard sales are interesting things. I love to go out on Saturdays mornings, stopping at random sales in search of unknown treasure. I'm a easy mark for romance novels and kitchen gadgets.

But having a sale is different. It's difficult. Realistically, I know that everything I've put out is junk. Otherwise I wouldn't be selling it off. (Okay, I'd probably keep it all if I had the room for it -- which I don't now that I've moved into the apartment -- but that doesn't change the fact that most of it is unnecessary junk.) But as soon as some stranger comes along, dismissing my things as junk and unworthy of purchase, my feelings get hurt and my defenses are raised. And even if they want to take my junk home with them, I face the problem of putting a price on the item. It's junk, so I should just let them haul it away and be done with it; but on the other hand, it's something I obviously loved at some point, and is therefore priceless. When I finally manage to reconcile myself into giving a price, I resent any haggling over it.

All in all, it's extremely stressful. I would be better off to just donate the entire lot to charity. But at the end of the day, it was very nice to have a pocket full of cash.

The best thing about the day was that I got to sit and chat with my family as we waited (and waited, and waited) for the crowds to appear.