Scott keeps telling me to write the blog posts like I’m writing to my closest girlfriends (Sticky, C, The Aviator, Seven… + 10 more).  Look, I’ll tell you right now that’s not gonna happen.  Out of respect for my mom and dad who didn’t raise a lady to drop the F bomb every few sentences (which may or may not accidentally happen here and there), my sincere inability to not overshare when I’m talking to them and the fact that really inappropriate things make me laugh out loud, you’re sort of stuck with much more than when I’m being “professional” and a little less than girls on a weekend get-away.  I’ll try to adjust as we become closer.

Yesterday we participated in our second embassy yard sale.  The first one was a disaster.  I had to call in reinforcements from the office and even folks I don’t know very well stopped to lend a hand.  Yes, it was ‘that bad’ and yes my personal trials had to take precedence over real work for about an hour.  I was slightly more prepared this time, but it still sucked.  Set-up was supposed to happen between 8 and 9 am.  The Colombians don’t believe in following all rules all the time so they started shopping around 7:45.  It was messy and unorganized.  Luckily, Scott is kind of a wheeler dealer.  He took it as a challenge to get as much as he could for each item.  I’m a seller. I took it as my challenge to clear the table.  We managed.   

I set myself up for success: stayed up late the night before, drank a good part of a bottle of wine (don’t judge, I was dealing some IRS nonsense) and only managed to have 1 cup of coffee that morning prior to leaving the house.  Smooth is the opposite of the word that comes to mind.  At one point, towards the end of the event when I was ready to call it a day, a nice gentleman in a suit came to the table. As he was walking away I said, “Hey, got a dog?”  “Yup.”  “Have some soap.” “Ok.”  Sure enough, he tucked that soap into his suit and continued on.  Scott decided that’s what you call a lead magnet (fancy advertising lingo for a hook) so he set up a free table.  Sure enough, that got a lot of attention and more buyers to our table.  He’s really getting the knack of this whole advertising thing.  Then we had another guy (decidedly not in a suit this time) stop at our table.  He scooped up almost everything (ties, belts table mats, cloth napkins) into a big pile.  “20,000 pesos?”  Scott, “Whoa… uh, there’s a lot of stuff in there.”  Me, “Yup, sold.  Take it.”  Then he reached for something he hadn’t initially included – sort of a weird strip of seatbelt material with velcro patches on each side.  “What’s this?”  Me, “Don’t know.”  Him, “Can I have it too.”  “Yup”…. and that is how you get rid of a table of stuff that you don’t need.

We made 1.4 million Colombian pesos.  Sounds like a score, right?  It’s not as impressive as you might think, but it’s not horrible either.  In USD that’s about $400+ (depending on the exchange rate which is currently really good but not as outstanding as it has been all year). 

I don’t consider myself a hugely sentimental person.  But it sure was hard to watch the kids toys walk away in the arms of other people.  I know there’s no space in the RV and paying to store them for a year is ridiculous since the kids would have have outgrown them by they time we’d see them again.  But even believing in the logic, it was still weirdly sad.  I let myself feel it yesterday and last night…. sadness for no real good reason.  Then I went to sleep and woke up to a beautiful sunny day and a workout in the park and time with the kids and I’m back on track.  I think I have a handle on the important stuff.  After the yard sale I said to Scott, “Well… its only stuff.  At least we still have the kids.”