One last time!

We were so amazed by the results of our fundraiser sale. I'd estimate that we sold at least half of what we started with, but we still had tons of stuff left. So we decided to do a sale one more day, this time at our house.

We picked Thursday, the 21st. Luckily Chad was off in the morning and Chad's mom Sue was willing to watch both boys in the afternoone while he was working. We took a few hours the night before to get some of the big things out and put up our signs, and then got up bright and early Thursday morning to set up the rest. Honestly, we had a hard time getting motivated this time. Even when dealing with one household's "stuff," garage sales are hard work! Try having a sale with 40 households' "stuff"! (Not that we weren't extremely grateful for everyone's donations, of course!!!)



We had decided to get rid of the big items anyway we could, so we put low price stickers on them and told people to make us offers. This worked, and we sold almost every large piece of furniture left. We also sold quite a bit of the odds and ends left. All told, we made another $470 in just that one day!!

A wonderfully sweet woman at our church baked us some cranberry oat scones (she told us they were for us to eat or sell, whatever was easier on us...how sweet is that?), so Griffin manned a table to sell those for us.


When you add that to our big sale, and the Children's Sale check I finally got (remember the sale I needed all the hangers for?), and some other items I sold on Craigslist, we've made over $4,100 for our adoption fund!!! We could not be happier! (and we got our garage back!)

Sale Results!

First, let me say a huge thank you to everyone who supported us and our adoption by stopping by, telling their friends, and donating items. We absolutely could not have done it without all of you, and we are so grateful for the support! I have more specific thank you's, but I'll get to those in a little bit.

First of all, the total amount made! We made...











over $2,500!! We were so thrilled with that, and it felt like all of our hard work was totally worth it.

We have been sorting, pricing, and organizing the items for over a month now. Poor Chad made roughly 1,238 trips to pick things up, and I spent about that many hours going through everything once it got to our house. We were blessed with donations from friends, our parents, neighbors, church family, and complete and total strangers-definitely what amazed me the most. One couple, whom we had never met before in our lives, gave us all of the leftovers from a sale they had, including a complete darkroom set-up and several pieces of furniture. We made several hundred dollars just from their items.

We received SO many donations. Two weeks before the sale, our 3 car garage was completely full, so we started bringing it all inside the house. Pretty soon, our entryway, dining room, and family room were stuffed to the gills with clothing, furniture, and electronics. I took video...it's pretty funny! Our house totally looked like an episode of "Hoarders!" We started separating out things we thought might just need to go to Goodwill, and stuck all of that on our front porch...I'm sure our neighbors just loved us. Super classy!

Friday we started at 9 am, loading up vehicles to haul it all over to the church shelter. We were so lucky that several wonderful people volunteered to help us move it over. Ben, Mel, Sarah, and Marilyn...THANK YOU!! I think it took 15-16 truck/carloads to get it over there (next time we would rent a truck!). Most of our helpers left, but Sarah stayed the entire day and helped me set up. This was an enormous task, and I could not have done it without her. My mom and dad also helped by entertaining Cooper most of the day. Once Chad's mom took Cooper and got Griffin from the bus (they took them for the whole weekend...thanks Mike and Sue!), my mom headed straight to the sale and helped there. Again, could not have done it without her! We were pretty much set up by 5 pm, which was good timing since we had opened the sale up from 5-8 pm that night.


People started showing up a little before 5, and we stayed very busy right until 8. At the end of the night we had made $750, and I started having hope that maybe the sale would be worth all the time and effort! Chad stayed overnight since everything was sitting outside-poor thing, he did NOT get much sleep!

The next morning we were set to open at 8, and by 8:30 only one or two people had come. I started to get very panicky that the night before had been the majority of people coming, and just as I was about to throw up, people began to arrive in droves! Whew! From 9 until 4, there were almost always 5-10 people shopping at any given moment. This is what things looked like around 10 am...



Chad tried to convince me that setting up the XBox and TV we were trying to sell would prove to everyone that they worked. I'm pretty sure he just wanted to play video games!


We decided to hold a bake sale, and three wonderful friends baked delicious treats for us. Annie, Jen, and Sarah (yes, the same Sarah who also helped set up for the entire day before)...you guys rock!! We made $50-60 just from the bake sale. One of my favorite moments from the whole day was a gruff, burly man who picked 6-7 baked goods (they were $.50 each), handed me a $10 bill, and told me to keep it. I thanked him and asked if he was going to eat them all now (jokingly). He replied, "Oh, I'm diabetic, so I can't, but my aunt's in town so I'm going to bring her some treats." What a nice man! Another lady bought two kids' coats, and told me she was donating them to a coat drive...what a great way to help two causes at once!



By 4 pm we were ready to be done! We began to pack things up and transport them back our house. My wonderful mother (who had been there all day, again!) helped me, and Chad and my awesome dad made trips to the house. We sold at least half of what we started with, but still had tons of trips back. At least this time everything fit back in the garage, and I finally got my house back-yay! We were done at 10 pm, and not a moment too soon...I think Chad and I were ready to fall asleep standing up!

I was just so blown away by everything about the sale. I kept reading in other blogs, when they were describing fundraisers, how God "blessed their socks off," and that is exactly how I felt.

I love this song!!!

Much to come on the garage sale, maybe later today, but first I MUST share this song with you. I found it this morning on another adoption blog I read(http://flipflopsandlipgloss.blogspot.com/) and completely fell in love with it. If I could tell my daughter anything right now, it would be what these lyrics say:

"I’ll find a way to get you here
If it takes my fleeting breath
Another sunrise hits the ground
And it’s a dark lonely sight
Lightyears away I hope you know
There is somebody searching
For the way to get you here
I will get you here"

We are trying, baby girl...we are coming, I promise!!

The song is called "Amos Story" by Aaron Ivey, who has four children, three of whom are adopted. This was written for his newest child, whom they struggled to get home from Haiti after the earthquake earlier this year. Check it out-it is beautiful!

It's almost here!

Tomorrow is the big day, as we get set for the garage sale and have a few hours of preview shopping. This is the text of the post I have written for Craigslist (but I'm not posting it there until tomorrow morning). Tell me you don't want to shop!

We can’t even begin to tell you how big this sale is!! We’re adopting a baby girl from Ethiopia, and every penny raised will help with adoption expenses. Over 40 families have donated items, and we have thousands of really great things…no junk!!!

Tonight from 5 pm-8 pm, and tomorrow from 8 am-4 pm

Come find us at Mt. Auburn United Methodist Church’s outdoor shelter, 3100 Stones Crossing Road. The church is just west of SR 135. See map below for more detail!

Specifics:
Kid stuff…boy and girl clothes from newborn-size 14/16-lots of great brands like Gap, Gymboree, Justice, etc.-most items are $1. Also several winter coats/boots/snowpants, and Halloween costumes. Tons of toys and other gear as well!

Baby stuff…two cribs, two high chairs, two single strollers and one double stroller, tons of baby gates, infant car seat and convertible car seat, blankets, baby toys, and much, much more!

Adult clothes…we weeded through and got rid of everything outdated-what‘s left is awesome! Tons of great brands like Gap, Columbia, DressBarn, Dockers, Carhartt, Harley Davidson…every item is either $1 or $2...great deals!!!

Furniture…computer desk, end tables, coffee tables, console table, desk, kitchen table, nightstand, bar stools, and more

Electronics…TVs, including a Sony Trinitron, shelf stereo, all in one printers, nice phone systems, and more

Scrapbooking/Stamping…tons of Stampin Up sets (many brand new), plus other stamps, scrapping storage, embellishments, paper, and idea books

Kitchen…cookware, tons of pots and pans, utensils, two brand new china sets, dishes, new toaster oven, Cuisinart ice cream maker, KitchenAid, Pampered Chef, etc.

Home décor…candles, picture frames, vases, wall art, mirrors, sheets, rugs, storage, quilts…again, we weeded out the older things, and everything left is in great shape and very current

Holiday…three full-sized Christmas trees, tons of other Christmas décor, Halloween and fall décor

For the guys…lots of small tools, camping equipment, sports equipment, grill, XBox and games, and much more!

Books…tons of adult and kids book, most $.50

Miscellaneous…a clothes press, vintage sewing machine, Boyds Bears, antique ironing board, Depression glass, and SOOOOO much more!

There is literally something for everyone! You will not go home empty-handed J

We will also have cookies, cupcakes, Rice Krispie treats, and yummy breads/muffins for sale as well!

Please come out and support our adoption by finding some treasures! Look for the huge signs with green writing and pink posterboard. See you there!

Where We're At...

I know I haven't posted in awhile, and quite frankly it's because I am up to my EARS in garage sale details! We have been absolutely inundated with donations to sell, but every item requires pricing and sorting, so I have been working on that every spare minute. I promise that in the next day or so I will post pictures of our house and garage, just so you can see the sheer madness I am trying to describe. Suffice it to say, our house currently looks like we need to be sent in to the show "Hoarders"!

In adoption news, we finally had our first meeting for our homestudy last night! YAY! We met with our very nice adoption specialist for three full hours, and talked about all kinds of things...adoption in general, why we decided to adopt, why we chose Ethiopia, our thoughts on transracial adoption...we packed a ton into the time. We meet two more times, and then we'll get our completed homestudy after that. This is a super big deal because we need the homestudy to send our immigration paperwork in and be allowed to bring a child into the country. One step at a time, but I am very excited to really be underway in the homestudy process! We have to each read 3 adoption-related books (so far I've read one), and take an 8 hour online class as well, before the homestudy is complete. I'll bet you can guess what our top priority is as soon as the sale is over!