Trimmimg the Fat

Well, with the old house sold and the new house bought there is only one thing to do. Sell all that stuff you don't want to move! We got organized and had the first of three garage sales. Saturday was a hum dinger and we sold a lot of our bits and bobs that we just no longer need. A lot of cook books and travel books, some novels and Christmas decorations. Then as the day progressed we started adding more stuff.

Shelagh, aka Miss Moneybags...

We told people to come back tomorrow for more new stuff. Our nine year old patio furniture set fetched $250.00! And the lady who bought it came back on Sunday to pick it up, then she saw some of the new stuff we added and bought a bunch more! We met a lot of interesting people, a couple who have lived many years on Vancouver Island chatted for quite a while about the beauty of the place. We have much exploring to do. And a guy who has travelled all over North America as a musician playing gigs from Mexico to Yellowknife. He gave us a CD that has his own creations on it and left with a scented oil burner, complete with about a dozen scents, for which he paid four US dollars! As he walked off I realized that we should have traded the CD for the oil burner but he did not seem the type. But our largest clientele were our own neighbours. They shopped our garage down like experts. The next Saturday without rain in the forecast will be our third, and final, garage sale. Whatever is left after that will go to the local hospice society outlet.

It was nice to have a visit from our friends Hans, and Stuart & Cindy. Hans walked off with my old iMac and some tiki torches. And Stuart offered us his utility trailer with a car equipped with a trailer hitch. That will come in handy for the run to the dump with old stuff that just can't be put to another use. We will miss our friends here, but we're not going far. Plus the new house has four bedrooms and three bathrooms! Some good visits will happen.

I posted our dining room suite for sale on Craigslist and got some interest the next day, a lady in poor health and hospitalized wanted to buy it for her grandson. A Christmas present. After some back and forth and some exchange of information it became clear that I was being phished! I won't go into details about how I was being conned, but rest assured, I completely lost it! But this is when Shelagh becomes the calm and collected one and she spent many hours on the phone dealing with officials and getting our accounts protected against sheisters like this. I guess we'll keep our diningroom suite unless someone shows up with cash in hand, even then, there's a lot of counterfeit out there, especially American money... Be like Fox Mulder, the guy from the X Files, and trust no one... That is not my nature though, so I will have to leave matters like this to Shelagh, who has spent many years working with the RCMP and knows when to become suspicious.

I'm looking forward now to getting our last garage sale done and then the packing will begin. Fun days ahead...