54 Years of STUFF

I spent the last couple of days in Omaha helping at Dave's Grandma Kate with her moving sale. Grandma Kate is a wonderful woman who has lived in her home for 54 years. She is 83 years old, she lost her husband Bill 12 years ago, and has continued to live in their home on her own since then. That house has shared a lot of memories with her and everyone in the family... and she has the stuff to prove it. Grandma Kate, who is also known as the "dish queen" has EVERYTHING.... and it's original box!  There were multiple things we came across that were wedding gifts, or gifts from 50 years ago that were stored in the original box, with the original tissue paper... the woman didn't throw away anything! She was able to tell a story about each and every thing in that house. It was so fun to learn about her life and to hear her stories. I had a mix of emotions this weekend, and it was an interesting experience...

1. Shock.... of all the stuff this woman kept! She has everything.

2. Amazement... to see the care that she took with each individual thing

3. Enjoyment... I love to organize and I love retail (must be the Meant to Be in me)

3. Sadness.... thinking of all the years Kate spent in her home, the memories she shared with loved ones, and now leaving it all.

4. Annoyance... of people who want to bargain down from $.25 - really people, its a quarter.

5. Curiosity... why did that 20 something buy a zip lock full of cocktail straws for $.25? Why are we selling a zip lock full of cocktail straws? Don't people buy straws new?

It was a great experience, I spent 2 days with wonderful women and got to visit with family. All the while, we were able to help Grandma Kate downsize and prepare for apartment life. At the same time, the experience has got me thinking so many different things, and I will leave you with my thoughts...

- Garage sales can make you some nice coin

- If you want to meet some interesting people, have a garage sale

- If you have a garage sale, make sure the outside has lots of stuff to draw people in

- Don't accumulate 54 years of stuff

- Don't let your parents accumulate 54 years of stuff

- If you minimize along the way, you will not be emotionally attached to a MILLION things when its time to detach

- Don't keep things thinking your kids will want them, by that time, they will be old enough to have enough of their own stuff that they won't want yours

- NEVER leave anything out of a garage sale... you have no idea the things that people will buy. For example, a set of 7 bar glasses with the works "the pussycat" printed on them, a zip lock full of cocktail straws, or a fake pink coral statue)

Last but not least... I love garage sales! 

Mini-Vacation

It is Sunday night and our mini-vacation to Lake Ozark has ended. While it was not exactly what we expected, it was a ton of family fun!

To start Dave and I took Thursday off so that we could leave early and get to town to go grocery shopping before the rest of the family got there. I spent a lot of time meal planning and created an all inclusive shopping list. I love to grocery shop, so I was really looking forward to it.


The drive from Des Moines to Osage Beach, MO. is about 6 hours.... unless you are married to Mario Andretti, like I am. When you marry someone, you soon realize that there are things that you just cannot do with your spouse. Seeing as you are planning to spend your whole life with that person, you try to avoid the things that just don't work, but sometimes it is unavoidable. Some of the things that Dave and I cannot do together:

1. Play on the same team in any team sport
2. Play on different teams in any team sport
3. Drive together in the same vehicle

I do realize that we HAVE to drive together, but if we can we avoid it we do. The first step we took was to stop car pooling to work, which usually ended with a slammed car door and someone having a bad day. Seeing as it seemed really unreasonable to drive separate cars to Missouri to avoid an argument, I was prepared for one. Add to that a potty-training toddler and you have a recipe for disaster :) No, it really wasn't too bad. Charlie was GREAT, and he didn't have any accidents. We stopped about a million times, and every time we did I would carry in his Lightning McQueen potty to use as a stool. I never realized how most public bathrooms are really not built well for young children. Every time Charlie and I head to a public restroom I turn into my mother, "don't touch anything" comes out of my mouth about 100 times!

So we got to our condo, which is owned by my some-day-to-be brother in law's family. When we arrived we punched in the code and surprise there were people there! It would have been a great surprise, had we known the people :) Turns out the property management company screwed up. So, while Nick and his wonderful father tried to figure out where we were going to stay, I started calling resorts. We ended up staying at Tan-Tar-A resort for the night. My mother approved because her and my father had been there before (probably sometime in the early nineties) and she remembers it being nice. Turns out it was EXACTLY what she remembered, nothing had changed :) LOL! But we enjoyed the night - Charlie and I swam at the indoor water park (which is not included in the $160/night price tag of the room- surprise!), we ordered pizza, and hung out as a family!

The next day (Friday) we checked out and having no where to go, spent the day at the pools on Tan-Tar-A. We had a blast, relaxing in the water, drinking, and visiting! Around 4:00 we headed to the property management company to get our keys (they found us a different condo free of charge due to the mix up).... and it wasn't ready yet, they were running behind :) surprise!

We made it to the condo all in one piece and once again took a step back in time, with flowered couches and all! The woman who owned the condo also had some sort of foot fetis and the entire condo was decorated with feet and shoes.... it was weird. Needless to say, I finally got to go on my grocery shopping trip. Like always we bought WAY too much food!

Saturday was fun on the boat, Nick is such a wonderful host and they have all sorts of fun stuff for the boat. Tubes, water ski's, floaties... everything you need to have fun on a lake. Charlie loved the boat, he even relaxed enough to nap...

The rest of the trip was pretty smooth sailing, we spent Saturday night in and had dinner to celebrate Dave's birthday! Which brings us to tonight... home, tired, and ready for the week to start!