Local adventure

I spent the morning at a giant multi-family yard sale. Not buying, just selling. I haven't been in treasure-hunting mode in a long time, unless there's a catalog involved and I can hunt from my couch.

Yard sales are so interesting. I've been fairly successful the last few times I've thrown all my crap out on the lawn and enticed people to check it out. A few secrets to yard sale success:

1. Price just about everything. It keeps the small items moving because people don't have to bug you to ask how much, and you don't get blindsided with a crazy low-ball offer.

2. Keep the pricing simple. I made a display of clothes for sale and rather than considering the price of each item based on how much I had originally spent on it, I just made a sign stating everything was $1. People walked away with loads of stuff, and that was the point.

3. Don't price the bigger ticket items until you've felt out the mood of the day. If people are feelin' cheap, just be prepared to go with it.

4. Know when it's time to slash prices. The yard sale today was only going on until noon. So around 11 a.m. I started keeping an eye out for interest in the items that weren't getting any interest. I yelled out to the guy eyeing my vacuum cleaner "If you're at all thinking about it, make sure you talk to me." At some point, it's all going to go Goodwill, and there's something so satisfying about being a matchmaker for a man and his vacuum.*

I walked away from about 4 hours of sitting in my friend's front lawn with almost $130, so I felt pretty good by the end of it. Neil and I spent the afternoon at Burger Up (the sweet potato fries are officially my favorite thing), Frothy Monkey, Las Paletas, Green Market Deli, and our couch. It was a 12South kinda day, I suppose. We watched Up, which I hadn't seen yet, and it was sweet and funny. It made me think about how cool it can be to have an adventure in your own neighborhood or find excitement in a pretty uneventful yard sale.

Neil left for his gig with the symphony tonight (can I just say how proud and cool I feel to say my husband is playing in the Nashville Symphony? He looked pretty cute in his white jacket tux, too), and now I'm watching the first season of Thirtysomething on Netflix. Because, you know, I'm only six months from being 30. Something. It just feels like the right thing to do.

*This is how I wanted the scene to play out, but in reality the guy walked and I donated the old vacuum to Goodwill. Eh.