Rummage Sale Day 3

Today was the best day of the three. I got to sleep in until 6am, which compared to yesterday felt like a luxury. I biked over again (which some people think is dangerous or crazy, but they don't understand that I am a very good and safe bicyclist), and then jumped right into the mess. I felt like I had finally gotten the hang of things, and knew for the most part what I was doing.

I spent the morning organizing the artwork and cleaning up the garden stuff section. Things became unorganized so quickly. For example, I found a vacuum, fabric, paintings, and three boxes of unpacked stuff where there should have just been ceramic pots and garden tools. It made a lot of what was supposed to be organizing into putting the stuff back to its place. It reminded me of the law of chaos.

In the late morning, my new friend (who had volunteered the past both days as well) arrived and then together we tackled the books. We went through boxes and boxes of books, making sure that the spines were readable, and condensing as much as possible.

After the books, we moved to the clothing. We looked for warm clothes to donate to the homeless shelter. It was fun finding crazy things people wear, and thinking about how to make awesome Halloween costumes. As a knitter, it was also fun to look at all of the knitted stuff to see how it was made. We eventually expanded our search to clothing for women and children (for another non-profit), and velvet (for an animal rescue non-profit). It felt good to know that this sale was helping so many other non-profits.

After 3pm (when sales stopped), we started cleaning up with a vengeance. It usually takes them about 45 minutes to clean up, but since there was so much more stuff and fewer volunteers, this time it took about 4 hours.

Just about everything left over went to Salvation Army. Everything else we kept to sell next time or threw out. It was wonderful when the Salvation Army truck showed up. The truck was huge, and we filled up the entire thing, from floor to ceiling. There was even left over stuff, so we had to throw some of it out.

Lynne had rented a huge dumpster (and when I say huge, I mean this thing was bigger than a small apartment) and today we filled it up completely. There were also more cardboard boxes than an entire dorm building would need on move out day, and the ones we didn't put stuff in we broke down to be recycled. The whole thing was quite a feat.

Now I'm just tired. I think tomorrow I'm going to post a "reflection" of sorts, and talk more about the bigger picture and my thoughts all of this.