I'll give you 100 guesses as to what's going on in the above picture. If you guessed that my Mom likes to dumpster dive then you got it wrong. If you guessed that my mom doesn't trust what her son threw out into the dumpster then you were correct. That's Mom just double checking what stuff of hers I loaded up into the dumpster. It was a long, long weekend, but one that needed to happen.
This weekend was the final estate sale. What was planned as a two day event wound up turning into three. While I was ready to shut it down on Saturday afternoon, out of respect for Mother's Day, my Mom suggested we just "keep it open" on Sunday to see what happens. Well, if you open the doors they will come, and they did.
Having an estate sale is a daunting task. First you have to get your house ready for it, and then you have to figure out what's going to be sold. That entailed emptying out the basement and attic, still a ton of stuff still up there, and staging things to be sold. We started out outside but then dodged the rain so then just about everything had to dragged inside. Green painters tape was used to tape off rooms we didn't want to have people searching though, but that didn't stop anyone. At one point I was mowing the grass, more on that later, and my Mom came out screaming, "Someone's giving Theresa a hard time". This was classic. I should have got a picture.
So a guy, nice guy in the end, is looking for jewelry. Theresa is nuts when it comes to hiding her jewelry. So she keeps it all tucked under her stuff in her underwear drawer. So during her patrol between the first and second floor she finds this guy in her dresser with her underwear tossed on top and her jewelry laid out. He had a scale and a loop and was doing what estate sale-jewelry guys do, they hunt for treasures. By the time I got up there she had him empty his pockets on the bed to make sure he hadn't lifted anything. The guy was petrified and explained over and over that's what people do during estate sales, basically dig for treasures, and yes, even into the drawers of your drawers. In the end they were besties and he dropped a lot of money on jewelry she didn't want anymore. It was funny, but it took a while to settle everyone down.
Over the course of three days we unloaded everything we could. From "We're not budging" to "Just take them all". My truck sold. The bedroom sets gone. Pictures gone. Tools gone. Kitchen table outta here. We sold things we think we never would, but in the end felt good that the load was lessened. Theresa even let her "Pinocchio Plant" go.
I always hated that plant. Sold. Now what to do with what's left. The Vietnam Veteran's will be coming today to take what's not going to the local church thrift store or doesn't wind up in the dumpster, under my Mom's watchful eye of course.
Mom drove up from Florida for her 80th birthday and Mother's Day and wound up breaking her hump instead. At now 80 she was a beast, and her idea of running through Sunday proved to be golden. We made thousands, with the truck sale being the big ticket item. The only bummer of the weekend was either Theresa or I misplaced, or someone lifted, $2,100 from the till. I hope it shows up, or the person who took it was in desperate need. I don't have time to ponder over it. Move on, and move ahead.
But the highlight of the weekend was having, what I think, were the next owners of the house over for two visits. A nice young couple who were have been in the hunt for an old house, in this price range, in this location. They have been battling the multiple listing, overbidding, and cash offer competition that exists out there today. I basically told them, here she is, here's the good, the bad, and the ugly, here's the price with no games. If they want it it's theirs. Otherwise it goes to MLS and a realtor and the bidding wars and games would begin. We'll see where that goes. But I now feel the work we have ahead is getting ready to move out, not to get it ready for the market.
And why not have some fly fishing content on this, once was, a fly fishing blog. After we shut down Friday I snuck down to the river. It was just about mid-incoming tide and there wasn't much water around. I made a ton of casts and wasn't feeling it. Low water. No bait. And no cormorants fishing for herring. I made my way to some rocks that would look like a good place for a fish to lie in wait, if the bait and water was up.
So I made a cast between and just above the rocks and let whatever current there was carry my herring fly down. As soon as it passed the rocks a huge swirl and then chase went down. There was a good fish there, in water no more than two feet deep. I rested that spot for about five minutes before repeating and the next ambush was with more intent on eating, but I never had a chance to set the hook. So for the spring 20206 season that is my fish that got away story. Still none to hand but a good and much needed two-hour session to pause for a bit.
There's no time to rest now. Mom's heading back to Florida tomorrow. Theresa has a full week's work and I have to get ready for next Monday when the mental health semester that I'm teaching begins. It'll be lecture, labs, and clinical for four weeks, with afternoons and evenings spent finishing up those things I told the kids I'd do before we sell. I think we're getting close to getting close.
Of course the hunt for a house down there will continue. I must have hit on the Zillow site 1,000 times since January, now it seems like we should really be zeroing in on a potential home. But there's a ton of people from around the country looking at sun City as well, as I've joined a few social media groups on Facebook. They have their eyes and hearts set on doing them same thing we are. The only difference now, with the price that we think we can get for out house, is that we can bump up the price range search a bit which gives us a home that's a little bigger and more updated. It's all going down as anticipated, but there's still a ton more to do.