Overwhelmed and Pooped!

The past couple of weeks have really been rough!  My sister and I finally just quit going through Mother's things and called it done for now.  The weekend of the 5th we had an estate sale here at my house.  The response was amazing!

Sister made many, many trips back and forth from Tallahassee all week with loads of things and thank goodness was unable to get everything here!  I went to the local police station and told them what we were going to be doing and asked for their help with security.  They said they'd increase their patrolling, but we didn't see them!

On Wednesday, the 2nd, a friend of my sister brought 6 6' tables and several card tables.  I had 1 6' table, a card table and 2 smaller tables.  2 other friends of my sister each brought an 8' table and a card table and my sister had a couple of card tables along with 2-3 card tables of Mother's.  Even with all of these surfaces we still had things on the ground and things we didn't put out!

We had ads in the local paper here and the Tallahassee Democrat and folks started driving by when the tables were set out on Wed.  By Thursday folks were stopping by, so I put a sign at the end of the driveway saying Estate Sale Saturday 8-4, laughable now that I look back at it.  We made sales Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday!  Wow!  I packed the last of the things on Tuesday and got the final table out of the yard and onto the front porch.  That was a relief!

The main things that made it so hard was the weather.  It was unseasonly hot and each day we had 3-4 downpours/storms!  We got so good at tarping and untarping tables that at the end we didn't even think about it, just did it.

We were also extremely tired by the time Saturday finally rolled around.  We stayed on my front porch until 3:15am Friday morning just to keep an eye on things and finally couldn't take it any longer.  My sister and her dog (mine were boarded) slept in her car until 6:15am and I slept in my bed until 6:15am and then we started again.  A retired antique dealer that my sister met the weekend before came over from Tallahassee early Friday morning to help us price things.  By about 10am she was so overwhelmed that she call her husband, daughter and 2 friends to come over and help! and Sharon came on Friday to help also!

Friday night we were so tired that we decided we had to lay down and try to get some sleep/rest, but we were both too tired and too keyed up for any rest to be restful!  I made a dummy in one of the chairs on the front porch and with the back light from the living room it looked real. Sister and Maria started the night (@ midnight) in her car, but ended up on the sofa in the living room and once more 6:15am came mighty early!

The sale went quite well on Saturday and we were relieved when the last of the shoppers left and we tarped the tables for the final time.  We both agreed that neither of us could worry about what was left out and sister went home and I went to bed.

We packed up Sunday and Monday...but we still made so many sales on Sunday that we stopped packing and just sat on the porch until rather late.  Sister went home and was back again first thing Monday morning.  We finished our packing, but also made a few more sales.

We each took a car load to sister's house on Monday and I took another load on Tuesday.  Either Sat or Sun, I can't remember which, sister came over and we had breakfast at the Rare Door and each took another load to her house and I think I took another load over another day...wow!  The brain is gone!!!

The good thing it I'm on my way to reclaiming my house.  I know it'll take a while longer, but it's much better.  Yesterday I took a car load of empty boxes to the dump and that pretty much cleared out the carport (at least of the extra stuff!).

A few things of mine are missing.  The big pot and dipper I keep on the front steps for rain water are gone along with a couple of big boxes of candles...things I'll get over.  But dang it, the big pot was Murr's!

Well, we are doing it all over again this weekend at sister's house.  We think it should go smoother as most things are priced and we are more seasoned.  Wish us luck!