11 AM Tuesday, October 5, 2004

I'm taking the morning "off" today as is Phil ~~ he's gone fishing with Lester. Our local volcano, Mt. St. Helen is spewing steam and ash thousands of feet in the air again, monopolizing the TV news. I remember well, the catastrophic eruption of 1980 and thankfully, this will not be a repeat of that "event" according to the experts being interviewed one after the other this morning! However, the weather is perfect and the skies are clear so we're getting a perfect, bird's eye view of the lady showing off her stuff. Our final garage sale; our last hurrah so to speak, went about as well as any sale could possibly go. Our dear friends, Les and Gloria's voluntary participation began weeks before the sale and continued nonstop for all three days through the end of the sale. Les "toted that bar and lifted that bale", encouraging Phil and making jokes to break the tension as we came down to the wire. Gloria filled in the gaps, cheering us on with mega moral support and garage sale expertise. As a complete surprise and so gratefully accepted, our friends, Sandy and Ray arrived 30 minutes before we opened on Friday morning and when they saw the state I was in (to put it mildly, I was somewhat discombobulated from the stress of the days leading up to the sale) they volunteered to stay for a few hours which turned into all day for two days. The entire sale proceeded flawlessly as the four of them, plus Phil worked like the team of pros that they are helping customers, running the cash register, wrapping and bagging with smiles and "Thank You" after each sale! My precious granddaughter, Megan, after putting in several hours on the previous Wednesday evening working very hard, arrived at 6 AM and using some of her valuable leave from work, my daughter, Bobbie came before we opened and the two of them worked until midday as "security" and "customer service" inside the house. Megan had to leave and go to work but her mom, my daughter, Violet came and pulled the afternoon security/service shift with her sister. Saturday and Sunday, our long-time friend, Helga, worked the security shift inside the house and also took special care to make sure all the items were marked and displayed to their best advantage. Moi? I spent all day Friday and Saturday and half a day Sunday in the downstairs bedroom/office marking merchandise that didn't get marked prior to the sale and running it out to the tables. Consequently, I missed most of the "fun" but my job was important as well and that quiet time gave me an opportunity to calm down and get my mind off all the hypothetical disasters I was conjuring up in my nightmares. We had 35 folding tables plus all the counter tops in the kitchen filled to overflowing plus two clothes racks in the entry. The most expensive item we had for sale was Phil's 8 MM Mauser hunting rifle but the majority of sales were small, inexpensive items and the garage sale customers responded with enthusiasm to the low prices and large assortment. Then Monday, Les came back down, disassembled his tent while Phil took a truck load to the landfill, helped Phil break down the tables then went home and prepared a baked salmon dinner for us! Do we have the world's BEST friends or what? Phil and I had arrived about 10 AM and while I went to my podietry appointment, Phil went through the house and garage like a whirling dervish and had most of the leftovers packed into boxes within just a couple hours. Tomorrow, we will donate our leftovers to my favorite charity, "Kitten Rescue" for their next fundraising garage sale, sort through a few personal boxes of belongings stashed in the upstairs bedroom and the office, clean up and most likely make some appointments to interview a few realtors so we can put the house on the market. I haven't completely come down off my adrenalin rush yet and I still feel exhausted but I'm so relieved that for the most part ~~ the hardest part of becoming fulltiming RVers is over!