how to spend a weekend

Weekends are highly valued in this family. Ben has to earn his Saturdays. So they are as precious as gold to us. Anyways, this weekend was not a golden weekend (except for the movie I went to with Cheyney at 8pm - I can't remember the last time I went to the movies! Thanks Cheyney :)  . . . we did a yard sale. The first yard sale I have ever done. And to tell you the truth I was pretty stoked about it. I had read this book earlier this summer called "The Joy of Less" (loved the book). Then I proceeded to go from room to room, drawer to drawer, cabinet to cabinet, clearing out a surprisingly huge number of items.

Instead of sending it all off to Goodwill (like I've always done in the past), I boxed it all up, and put it in the basement for our yard sale. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, each weekend passing by, doing something other than a yard sale. (because frankly their are so many fun things to do on a weekend besides sitting in your front yard, waiting for a car to pull up and having someone step out to scan your stuff).

When the sudden summer weather turned to brisk fall (seriously overnight!) I realized it's now or never. So I forced Ben to carry out all of our boxes (at 4:30 am) and we began setting up our stuff.

To tell you the truth, I was not prepared for the professional garage salers who showed up at 7 am (yard sale advertised to begin at 8am) and haggled each of my items down to the last penny. But happily by 8:30am we had already made $100. Awesome! I was stoked as I started adding up the amount we would make by the end of the day, if this is the amount we averaged. Yard saleing was about to become my at home business. You don't even need a degree for this one!

But suddenly no one else came. 9:30 rolled around maybe one or two people. Then 10:30 then 11:30. Only a couple people. By 1pm we started packing things up (we were suppose to end at 4pm). We sat down to count our earnings - thinking this should lift our spirits. And what did we come to? . . .  $135! What a bummer!

I don't know - maybe I should advertised more (I did craigslist and signs), maybe it's the time of year. Either way, I just don't know if yard sales are my thing. I love the idea, but after a day like that one. I think I'm throwing in the towel. For now, we'll go back to doing fun things like this instead:

Hiking Manitou Incline at the beginning of August (we did it last march too, but this time was even better):

Hiking straight up the mountain - covering 2100 ft. in 1 mile

This is the angle I saw Ben and Rivers for 99.9% of the hike

 Canberra was my buddy

Rivs guzzling water at the top of the incline. He also had a diaper change by Dad (hence the funky onsie)

Ben said "I already won my dad of the day award" so I gave him some slack. :)

Some more beautiful view - sometimes I feel like I'm in Hawaii gazing out over the vast ocean (then I remember it's just Kansas :)  

Nap time - the best part of a good hike!