“Judge not lest ye be judged…”

Had our annual garage sale this past weekend. Not much new to report on that end other than it kicked our asses. Weeks of prep, careful sorting and pricing, the psychological roller-coaster of: “Should we get rid of this precious piece of Greta’s infancy?” (the answer is usually “Yes”, by the way) seriously, everything about garage sales are hard. But, we’re kinda hooked. This is the fourth one we’ve had and, despite proclaiming that this year’s sale would be our last, we still carefully packed up a few boxes for next year’s sale, so, if you’re in the market for an electric can opener, talk to me in October 2013!

Anyway, this go around we didn’t make much money, but, we did get rid of a lot of stuff that has been junking up our garage for years, so, yay! The only thing we didn’t get rid of was some of the primo, name-brand baby gear that we had on sale. I don’t know why, but, people were not buying baby stuff this year. Or maybe they just didn’t wanna pay what we were charging. Either way, we brought a lot of baby gear home, hoping to sell it on Craigslist instead.

And then, this morning, got an e-mail from our garage sale buddies — the one’s who own the lawn we shill our wares on every October — saying that he got an e-mail inquiry about our Combi Shuttle Stroller and car-seat combo from a dude name SkumLove. Apparently, SkumLove missed the big sale and was wondering if the stroller listed in our Craigslist ad was still available.

Mrs. Yeti was, understandably, a bit concerned about inviting someone named SkumLove to our home, so, I e-mailed him back and then agreed to meet him and his wife in the Bob’s Big Boy parking lot by our house. And guess what happened? SkumLove was the coolest dude ever. Sure, he and Mrs. SkumLove were all pierced and tatted up and stuff, but, they were the most normal people we dealt with all day at the garage sale. And they were so excited to buy our beloved Combi stroller that I just wanted to cry. I know I shouldn’t care what happens to our stuff when we sell it, but, I get terribly attached to things and when they find a good home, well, that makes me happy.

And trust me, our stroller car-seat combo could not have a better home than it now has. And on top of all that, I learned a valuable lesson: do not judge a person by their e-mail handle because you never can tell. I mean, hell, I’d be $50 poorer if I had. Oh, and get this, SkumLove e-mailed me back later tonight to tell me that he and his lovely wife might want to buy our video baby monitor as well.

Yee-haw! Bring on the SkumLove!

People need to be pruning their shit, yo…

OK, maybe I’m just saying this because we are more than halfway through our vacation up here in Oregon and we are still helping my Mother-in-Law unpack her belongings from the move. Yep, part one of the vacation involved the helpful side of my wife’s family (don’t get me started on that other half!), Greta, my wife and I, a moving truck, two cars and four sweaty-ass days of moving. And yes, it was as totally not fun as it sounds.

But what really made things suck was the fact that my very sweet Mother-in-Law — really, she is the best and I love her to death under normal circumstances — had failed to prune anything from her vast collection of crafting gear. I’m not kidding, man, if you took the time to actually create something from every scrap of fabric, yarn and crafting paper in that damn moving truck, you could clothe an entire city for a year. Or, you know, maybe a small island community. But still, it was a lot of shit!

And you wanna know what sucked even worse than the sheer volume of shit we moved? Now that we’re unpacking her shit, my Mother-in-Law has decided that she is finally ready to part with tons of it. Hmmm…that kind of thinking would have been so much more helpful, you know, before we loaded your boxes onto a truck and moved you to another state! Oy…

Anyway, having just gone through something similar with another aging relative, all I can say is: “People need to be pruning their shit, yo…” We have had two garage sales recently and every time we have one, my wife and I prune more shit from our already cluttered garage. And yeah, it sucks to get rid of stuff you love or loved, or thought you could never live without, but, man alive, it sucks even worse to have to wade through someone else’s boxes of insanity later on down the road. So, do you loved one’s a favor, people, and please, for the love of God…prune your shit!

Alright, this concludes my anti-hoarding rant for the day. Thanks for reading!