Canche Chronicles: We buy a storage unit

Well we have had a pretty busy last two days. It all started on Friday morning. I wanted to go to another storage auction and David didn't have to work so we all went together. It started at ten so we had plenty of time to get showered and eat breakfast and get out the door. We arrived in plenty of time and ended up waiting a couple minutes for the auction to start. They were only selling off four units so it was a quick sale.

The first two were really just awful. They had super gross couches in them and tons of junk strewn all over the floor. The auctioneer tried desperately to get people to bid but no one wanted any part of it. By the end he was asking for five dollars and we were all just standing there staring. Both of the units got closed up with no buyers. As we were walking to the third one I heard one guy say, "that was about the worst unit I've ever seen." The third unit did not have any super big items in it and was not near a full. There was a crib and a couple other items that looked nice so I asked David his opinion and he said it was a green. We ended up getting the unit for $100 which was fine except that was the highest we were going to go so we paid the most we were willing to pay. Not going to lie, it felt pretty crazy. We closed it up and acted like we knew what we were doing and then went to the fourth unit. The fourth unit had one big over-stuffed chair in floral fabric in it and a tv. The people who won it got it for $20. Afterwards the storage unit owner came up to us and said that he would give us the first two units if we cleared them out. We declined telling him we only had a minivan and there was no way we could get that stuff out of there. I felt like saying, "dude, if we didn't want it for $5, we don't want it for free either!"

We paid the lady and then headed back to our unit. I got my picture taken with it:

David pretending to be Barry from Storage Wars

Then we got to work cleaning it out. We let the girls play in the van while David and I loaded up the back. We got about half of the unit loaded up and then closed it up and took it home. Emily fell asleep on the way home so we quickly unloaded what we had and went back for more. Emily woke up on our way back to the unit. The second time we got everything except a table and an old stereo which David said he would go back and get later. Then we went home and I cleaned up some of the nicer stuff and posted it on craigslist. Then I fed the girls lunch and put them down for naps. While they slept I went through most of the boxes and sorted stuff for trash and yardsale.

After talking it over, David and I decided that we might as well do a yardsale Saturday morning because we didn't have anything else to do and we wanted to get rid of everything asap. I posted an announcement on craigslist for that. The girls took great naps. Haley slept almost three hours and Emily slept almost four. When they woke up they played in the den and outside while David and I continued going through stuff. Our big surprise finds were a Nintendo DS Lite and a Coach purse. We looked up a bunch of stuff online to figure out if the Coach purse was real and we found that it is real but it was bought at a factory store. We couldn't find a charger anywhere with the DS so we weren't able to see if it worked but it was still a good find I think.

For dinner we fed the girls frozen pizza and then I went and picked up Chloe to baby-sit because we were going out with friends. We went with a young married couple from church named Michael and Kelsey Grubbs. They don't have any kids yet but they are probably pretty okay with that since they've just been married a year. We went to a place about thirty minutes away called Los Pinos. It was a really beautiful restaurant situated on a vineyard. I think Daniel took Aunt Rin there once. It was nice to hang out with another couple without the kids and I felt even better when Chloe texted me and said that the girls went to sleep without any trouble! We got home around 11 and Chloe said that the night went great for her. We had told Haley to 'obey Chloe' when we left and Chloe said that Haley kept repeating those instructions over and over. I took Chloe home and stopped by Wal-mart on my way home to pick up poster board for the yard sale. Then I came home and David and I went to bed.

TODAY David and I both got up bright and early to get started on the yard sale. David went back to the storage unit to pick up the last two items and I brought all of our stuff to the front yard and arranged it. Haley woke up just as we were finishing bringing everything to the front. David took her with him to break a twenty so we had change and put out the signs. The rest of the day was pretty low-key actually. We sat in our lawn chairs and waited for people to come. People always seemed to come in spurts. Whenever one person pulled in, two or three would follow. David ended up pulling Daniel's car up in our front yard so that it would look like someone was always at the sale. I guess we should give Daniel a cut of our profits.

It ended up going a little differently than I had thought. A lot of people came by and bought small items that I considered trash. Such as an old wooden cutting board (um, gross), a cell phone charger, silverware, an old super heavy tv (we actually had 2 of those, they both sold), an old stereo that only had one speaker (it looked like it was from the 90s), and a black ceramic panther (sooo random). There were a couple pyrex baking dishes and those went super fast, keep your eyes out for those, they are hot! It wasn't until the end of the day that the crib sold and an old couple came in the morning and then came back in the afternoon with a Nintendo charger to see if the DS Lite would work. It did! We sold it for $25 which was a good price for not being sure if it worked but a steal since it did work. I was happy to let them hunt down the charger and everything anyways.

The girls hung out with us for most of the time. There were a couple times where David or I took them inside to play or eat. Emily went down for a nap just before eleven and then David and I took turns manning the sale and taking showers. I'm sure business improved once we didn't smell worse than the stuff we were selling. Haley went down for a nap around 1:30 and Emily ended up sleeping 3 1/2 hours and woke up at 2:30. By then the sale was winding down but I still sat out there just in case. Around 3 we loaded up the van with the junk that didn't sell and David took that to Goodwill. There were quite a few bigger things left including a lamp, an end table, folding cabinets, and a stool. I listed them on a Facebook group called Longview Garage sale and the stool sold on there after about ten minutes. Apparently they're going to pick it up tomorrow. Without the big stuff sold we ended up profiting $30 with total sales adding up to $138. I kept a couple of the small things too including a hand-painted Satsoma bowl. I had it listed for $2 but come to find out that there are a bunch on Ebay for $50 and up! I don't like selling on Ebay though so we'll see. The Coach purse also didn't sell so I'll probably put it on that Longview facebook site too.

We were pretty pooped after the yard sale so we decided to pack a dinner and go to the splash pad. It was not super hot out but we figured it would still be nice to get out. Actually the high today was only 82 and it wasn't very sunny so it ended up being a perfect day for a yard sale. The splash pad was pretty full but it started sprinkling shortly after we left so a lot of people left. We sat under one of the pavilions and watched Haley play, she totally didn't notice that it was raining. She is getting a lot more brave with the water, there were a couple sprinkler things that she ran right through. After about an hour and a half it started to get windy and then we heard some thunder and decided to call it quits.

We stopped by Kroger and picked up some ice cream for ice cream sundaes when we got home. Haley could probably eat her weight in ice cream. She prefers a little bit of Hershey's syrup and a few sprinkles on hers. Emily had fallen asleep on the way home so she missed out on dessert. After the ice cream we let Haley play for a while because she had taken a three hour nap in the afternoon. Emily woke up in her infant seat after a bit and I fed her and then put her back to bed in her crib. Haley played nicely and was still going strong at 8:30 but we decided to put her down and she went right to sleep.

Haleyism:

We all sat out on our lawn chairs and watched people come and go, it was kind of fun. Anyways, at one point Haley was sitting there singing the Doxology really loud, she was being a good witness.

Emilyism:

Emily got a lot of compliments from people at the yard sale. They mostly commented on her blue eyes.

Yardsalerism:
Some people stopped by to look at the 'dolls' they saw sitting out. They said they were shocked when they got out of their car and realized they were real children, haha.