The Joy of Garage Sales
Now that another crazy week of working on Ezekiel Project campaign stuff is out of the way, I get to have fun on the weekend doing one of my favorite things — going to garage sales.
In a sure sign that spring has arrived, the Advertiser contained about a dozen garage sales. My first venture out to a sale was actually Thursday night, to check out the quarterly sale at the Presbyterian church down the street. I found a few clothing items for Madeline, a couple of books that looked interesting, and I indulged myself in a fifty-cent guilty pleasure — an Indigo Girls cassette tape circa 1989. Ah, the memories. I know, not very edifying, but oh so fun to drive down the road and sing along to!
This morning found me rising at 7am (well, that’s when my alarm went off, anyway), to go to one garage sale in west Ames, then coming home to feed Madeline and give Tony a ride to his haircut appointment. Then it was off to get a cup of coffee and drive to Huxley for a neighborhood sale there. Even though my goal is to get summer clothes for Madeline at a cheap price, I also found two pairs of shoes for myself in almost perfect condition (total for the two pairs — $1.50) and a pair of Abercrombie jeans for a buck. The jeans turned out to be a little large, but nothing a belt won’t fix. I did find a few cute things for Madeline, though not all of them for this summer…some probably won’t fit until next fall or winter or maybe even spring/summer ‘06. But whatever the case, they will all come in handy eventually.
This was just the first weekend of the 2005 garage sale season…and I can’t wait for more! It is such an adventure to see the huge stack of items I can come home with having spent only a few bucks. And it sure beats buying things at store prices. Even clearance prices and consignment store prices can’t compare with buying items at garage sales for 25 cents or 50 cents each. The only thing better is free hand-me-downs!