Although he prefers going off on adventures, Finn McSpool was forced to spend yet another weekend loitering in the driveway. Luckily, this time no demons ate the sun causing Finn to run away in fear of the impending apocalypse. However, there was a little meltdown to get through and a Beastie version of a horror show, but in the end he did find a bed of green happiness. Who knew garage sales could stir up so many monstrous emotions!?

Prepping for the Sale

Normally Mr. Husband and I simply donate the stuff we no longer need, but with my pile of To-Sell-on-eBay items and the stash we’d amassed from a recent cleaning frenzy, I finally caved into Mr. Husband’s frequent comments that we should have a garage sale. So, bit by bit we piled up our treasures and started putting price stickers on them.

As usual, things were going pretty smoothly until Finn showed up.

-A beer puzzle!? We can’t get rid of that!!

-Finn, you don’t even have fingers to manipulate the puzzle pieces. It’s going in the sale.

Cue Monster Drama On 3, 2…..

Finn’s incredulity over the puzzle was nothing compared to the meltdown when he saw the mound of books we were getting rid of.

-Finn, don’t cry.

-But the books! I love books. They can’t go!!

 

-Finn, remember the thirty pounds of books you got last year at the library book sale? I think we have enough books to satisfy even your reading addiction.

-Okay, but you owe me a trip to the library for enduring this. 

Just when the book fiasco was settled and I was back to pricing all our junk, I heard a Beastie-sized scream.

-MOM!!! What have they done to you!!

-No Finn, that’s not your mom. You come from far better stock than that. You’re Irish Wool, not American Acrylic, remember?

You’ve Got to be Kidding

After seeing the horror of what he thought were his unravelled American cousins, I sent Finn off to do whatever it is he does all day so I could get some organizing and pricing done. Unfortunately, I think Finn used some of that time to set a curse on me because after months of not having a drop of rain, the very day we’d plan to have the sale, it rained in the early hours of morning.

Not, of course, enough rain to actually soak the flower beds or fill the rain barrels, but enough to make the driveway too wet to lay items out on the ground without ruining them. So much for plans.

The next weekend, I was determined to set up shop. This was the weekend of the eclipse and I had hoped that the dire apocalyptic warnings from the media might keep people in town and that those people might want to hit a garage sale or two. Um, wrong. Apparently people were too busy preparing for the end of the world to spend money in my driveway. The first day only two people showed up. However, they did both buy something so I had 100% of my customers making purchases! The second day was slightly better, but not much.

This was one of the busy times!

One More Try

Since everything was all set up, I figured I’d give the garage sale one final try last Saturday. Clearly, people had emerged from their fall-out shelters because they were stopping by on a regular basis and I even sold a few copies of my own books (yay!) and a neighbor bought my dragonfly drawing. All in all, Mr. Husband and I did end up making a fair chunk of change (mostly from that same neighbor!).

SOLD!!!

 

The Results

Finn, even though he didn’t do much to help set up, greet customers, or clean up, did enjoy the fruits of my labor by flopping into “his” bed of money.

Finn doing his best Scrooge McDuck impersonation.

-What are we gong to do with it all? Buy books?!!

-Nope, we’re heading to IKEA.

-For a bookshelf to put books on??!!

-(sigh). No, my caffeine addiction has killed yet another electric kettle, so I’m in the market for a plain old stovetop kettle and IKEA has a stainless steel one for a good price.

-So we can have a cup of tea while we read?

-Sounds like a good plan, Finn.

What have you been doing for fun and profit this past week? Finn will be back next week with a water-filled outdoor adventure (not in the new kettle), and I’ll be back next Wednesday with a little book-related news! Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

21 thoughts on “One Monster’s Trash is Another’s Treasure”

  1. Hooray!!! Congrats on the books and ART sale! That sea of yarn must have been extra traumatic for poor Finn… I’m glad he was able to end the day swimming in those dolla dolla billz instead!

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  2. Hahaha! Finn’s reaction to decluttering is uncannily similar to mine… “Look at this stuff! Sure, I haven’t used it in 3 years, but I’m so glad I still have it. Back into the cupboard of shame you go!” I hope he got over the trauma of seeing that yarn, too! Congratulations on your sales – my forays into e-Baying back in the day were much less successful – and how awesome that your dragonfly found a home. Now, inspired by Finn’s literal money shot, I’m going to get my market revenues from the weekend changed into low-denomination coins so I can recreate Scrooge McDuck’s legendary money pool. I might just have enough to fill a foot spa! 😂

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    1. Hey, you have to learn to wade in the money pool before you can jump in for a swim, so the foot spa full of low-denomination coins is a great way to begin your Scrooge McDuck-y future. Finn seems mostly over the trauma although since I could only get rid of one skein of yarn during the sale, he’s insisting I make a blanket to use up my embarrassingly large stash of “beastie skin” (as he now calls it).

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      1. Ooooh, exciting! I do love me a nice blanket… I made one for my friends’ first-born a few years back, and liked it so much that I made a grown-up-sized one for myself for travelling! Never again will I dread the refrigerated long-haul aircraft cabin. Is Finn getting one too, or is sleeping under spun Beastie leather a bit too nightmarish?

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      2. Hmmmm….I think you’ve just combined a Stephen King story idea, knitting, and Beasties all in one comment. THAT is talent! I’ve never actually finished a blanket (so many blanket bits, so few blankets) but the cleaning frenzy has motivated me to get some of this Beastie skin out from under the bed.

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      3. Ha! Why thank you! I think every knitter has an unfinished blanket square project lurking in their past somewhere… I know I do! I made mine when I was little and didn’t understand about guage, so I couldn’t figure out why my squares were all different sizes. At least my dolls and good luck trolls were never short of bedclothes! The pattern I’ve used recently for blankets is the Big Bad Baby blanket from the original Stitch’n’Bitch book… Your library should have a copy if you don’t already own it. It’s knit as one piece, so there’s no sewing together at the end! Score!

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      4. Mine is a shameful stack of blanket squares but not a big enough stack to make into anything but a very ugly scarf or hideously boxy sweater. Just looked up that Big Bad Baby Blanket. Looks tempting. I’ve been looking at a dishcloth pattern I have with a heart in the center, I figure if I just keep knitting that pattern across a few times and in long strips I could eventually have a blanket…or another scarf :))

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      5. That would work! Or, to save yourself working with 10 zillion balls of yarn at once, knit a bunch of “dishcloths”, each with a single heart, and sew them together… 🤔 You could also do the hearts in another stitch, and make them stand out by having a different texture, rather than a different colour.

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      6. I don’t know…I get into trouble when I do the “oh I’ll just sew the little squares into one big blanket” method. Better if I force myself to make it semi-big to begin with.

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