Garage Sale Report

We did it!  Thanks to some really great friends and my mom, we had another successful garage sale!  

We had items from over 15 people and raised $970 for our adoption fund! 

 We took over my friend Jean's garage and driveway last Saturday:

Loads of people came to shop, despite the crazy weather:

 Jean is a design rock star, so made nice signs for the sale.  The sign ranslates to, "People, adoption is expensive, please don't barter too much."

My mom finally catching a break and some water.  It was a HOT day!  Don't you love the nice patio set?  Jean donated it to the adoption sale!

Here's one of the three vehicles that were full of items for the Sheler House, The Link and the Goodwill.  I am glad that everything will be put to good use!

 Jen, me and Wendy.  Fried.  I love these ladies!!!  They were a ton of help.  Wendy gets extra kudos for delivering coffee drinks TWICE--hot in the morning and cold in the afternoon!!

Thanks for the help ladies!!

Here we go again....

So our second (and last) adoption fund garage sale is underway!  We've had a ton of generous donations from people and really appreciate the support.  We have had lots of friends give their time and items to help out.  It was going to be a one day sale (a friend's neighborhood has a big sale every year, so we thought we'd take advantage of the traffic).  It was raining this morning, but good old weather.com {that I will never trust again} said that the storms would blow over.  So, we set the monsterous sale up--we had a few people show up, but also had lots of dark strom clouds loom over us.  After the ginormous rack of women's clothing fell over, we decided we were doomed.  So, we brought everything in and worked on pricing the items that were added to the sale this morning.  Then MORE people showed up--meaning more than we had when it wasn't raining.  No one could barely move in the garage, but people dug through stuff anyway!  We'd be ready to shut the garage door, then someone else would arrive.  We ended up with about $140 in sales, not too bad for not even being open!  On top of it we sold a nice patio set via phone for $150, so we had close to a $300 garage-sale-not-open-day!  I'm hoping for no rain tomorrow and a successful sale!  Then everything will get boxed up and sent to The Link (thrift store in New London that a United Way group I am involved in helped make over) and my daycare provider's sale (we recently found out that her daughter is raising money to send care packages to the troops).  Thank goodness we have had a ton of help because garage sales are exhausting!

Wednesday night set up went smoothly thanks to these ladies!!

Barb checking out the shoe selection!

 While loading up items that we priced for the garage sale, this was sitting on our table...it made me smile....

Like it?  It can be yours for $3!  Or maybe $2?  All of the prices are running together in my head!

Jean helping to hang things after the nasty Friday morning weather!

Jen laughing after we dragged everything in, that's about all we could do at that point! 

Check out all of the clothes behind her!!

Garage Sale Round 3

Garage sale round #1 landed us a little over $1,200!  The leftover items were being stored at a friend's house and her son recently had a sale and set some of our items out, so we made another $230!  Now we are prepping for another (final?) sale at another friend's home.  They have a big neighborhood sale on Saturday, so we decided to take advantage of it.  We've had a lot of items donated (thank you to you!), including lots and lots of kids clothes (which sell well)!!  Barb and I priced quite a bit on Saturday night after a long day on the water.  Tonight Jen and Barb came over and we finished it up--a bad storm rolled through so we had to drag some of it in the basement to price for a bit.  The good news is that we found more for the sale while we were down there!
Here are some of the goodies we have to sell:

It's a ton of work to get everything together, but it's been fun spending time with friends to do so!  Thank goodness I have people willing to help!!  And, the sale part is fun--I love seeing what sells and who buys what. 
Of course, a garage sale isn't going to come close to funding a $22,000 adoption.  Have no fear, we have been saving and know that we'll somehow be able to make it work.  Part of having the sale is about raising awareness that we are adopting.  If we are connected to our birth mother privately, things may proceed faster and we will save $5,000 of the expenses through Lutheran Social Services.  It's been fun educating people about the adoption process, and it has been really uplifting for me to get support from so many people.  This process has been tough and the support of others has given us so much strength.  Just yesterday Jamie said, "Heather, if you look back over the past year and think about it, it's just a nightmare." Yep, that's why we do our best to work through the challenges one by one....when you combine them together it seems so hard to conquer. 
We're doing what we can today to make progress--prepping for a garage sale that will get us financially closer to covering our $22,000 in adoption costs!

Garage Sale Day #2

The second day of our big adoption garage sale was COLD, too, but at least we saw a sneak peak of the sun every so often. Jamie was there with me most of the day and we got additional help from Kari and Mary Kaye. We had some friends stop by to visit which was really nice! The grand total from the two days was $1,219! UNBELIEVABLE! With Mary Kaye's monster cookie sale (she makes the BEST cookies and sold them at work for $2/cookie) and another donation we received, we are well over $1,300! We have a lot of people to thank for the great sale--so many people donated their items and time. We have a decent amount of things leftover, so boxed it up for a sale later this year.

It was fun to answer questions about our adoption during the sale. Lots of people asked where we are adopting from and were surprised to hear "Minnesota". Most people assumed we were adopting out of the country.

One woman commented that she serves as a guardian for pregnant women from time to time. She worked with a woman that placed her baby for adoption last week...they found the adoptive family through word of mouth. Of course, I was thrilled to meet her! She mentioned that she will be working with another woman soon, so I gave her some information about our family and our number. Before learning more about adoption through research and training, I think I would have been more aggressive and excited. But, we've learned that the right match will come along, and that you will know when that connection is there. So, I figured if it's meant to be, she'll call!

We met another woman that was about my age and was adopted. She said her birth mother tried to locate her, but she didn't have any interest in meeting her birth mother. After all, she had a mom and a dad, and that's all she needed. It was interesting to hear her perspective.

It was a very encouraging day, and we're $1,219 closer to covering our adoption costs (about $22,000-$25,000)!

Garage Sale Day #1

So here we are freezing our butts off on day 1 of our adoption garage sale! Yep, that's me and Jen (Kari needs to learn how to focus a bit better with my camera!). Despite the cool weather and mist, we had a great first day of our sale. We made $766!! We were so lucky to have had so many great "junk" contributions from friends, and the help of others to price and display everything. I say this a lot, but we are blessed. It's true.

Jen cracked me up, if someone tried to barter too much, she'd playfully add, "Come on, it's for the adoption!" And, it worked! :) One nice lady had me keep the change from her purchase (about $10!). She has a son (adopted) and is being placed with a baby in a few weeks through our county foster care program. Another guy that was hemming and hawing about each thing he was going to purchase gave me an extra $5. Another lady heard about the adoption and said she had to go and buy more stuff! I had some great conversations with many that gave encouraging words, asked many questions about our adoption, and told me "Good luck!" when they left. One woman who has a daughter that is struggling with infertility. She, too, tried IVF without success.


A few friends stopped by to see how things were going, it was so nice to get the support. Jen made sure we had warm coffee drinks handy. Chloe came to help for a while. Friends celebrated with me when I called to tell them the total from the day. Yes, we are blessed.

The garage sale did more than just raise funds for our adoption. It gave me a chance to feel lots of support, talk about our plans for adoption, and educate many people about the adoption process.

It was a great day. Let's pray for no rain tomorrow!

I had a fun Sunday lunch date with Dana in St. Cloud. It was fun to catch up with her in person! She brought a ton of great things for the garage sale, as well as all of Tanner's 4T clothes for Griffin. It was fun to look through Madi's old clothes and see the fun things Dana got for her on our annual fall shopping trip to Albertville. Mary Kaye and Helen were ohhing and ahhing over all the cute clothes! Griffin was excited to see a Batman windsuit in the massive pile of clothes! :)

Thanks to some great friends and my super hubby, prepping for the adoption garage sale is going well! Jamie picked up Mary's tables on Monday night and moved all of the items that Mary Kaye, Helen and I priced to Kari's garage--LOTS OF WORK! Mary Kaye was great and helped Jamie load the van and watch Griffin. (I had a work event.) Barb was a sweetheart and brought some tables over, too!

Last night Mary Kaye, Helen, Kari, Beth, Jamie and I set up the tables and racks and put all of our items out. Mary Kaye and Helen told me I had a lot of stuff before, but I didn't agree until I saw it all placed out! It's awesome! Griffin was happy, too, because the Easter Bunny dropped off a cool dump truck with a tool set at Kari's for him to play with. The Easter Bunny wasn't smart enough to include batteries, but Kari saved the day!

While putting things away, I got an exciting call from a friend that is going through the adoption process, too. Things are moving along well for her--I can't stop smiling! I am thrilled for her family and feel so much hope for ours.

More garage sale items are arriving today, so we will get those priced and ready to go! Everyone has been so supportive and generous!

We may be running into a weather problem, but we'll make the best of it. Bring on the umbrella and hot coffee! Jen will be there helping me sell on Friday--we are sure to have a great time! Whatever we don't sell will be boxed up for a sale later in the summer.

It's been fun working with friends on this garage sale, and feeling the much needed support for our adoption process. Life is good.