Garage Sales and Catching Criminals!

I wish I were so clever... as to make a tale using the song/story "Twas the Night before Christmas" and turn it into "Twas the night before the garage sale...and all through the house" but I'm not so I won't strain my brain :)

Before I can tell you about the actual garage sale, let me tell you about the what happened BEFORE...

We spent days getting ready, obviously, and my plans to "plan ahead" just didn't happen so we were really scrambling the week of the garage sale. On Thursday night, Bethany and I were up very, very, very late...as a matter of fact, life got really interesting at about 2:35 AM.

Bethany stopped me and "shh...did you hear that?" and I said "No" and she told me she thought she heard someone/something. Since I didn't we resumed our activities of getting ready for the sale...

a few minutes later, Dan popped his head out the garage door and just stared at us, we at him and there was a strange awkwardness that occurred. He told us that someone had banged on the door and rung the doorbell and that he could see a wet footprint on the stoop. That was the end of "garage sale prep" for Bethany and I - and in the house we went.

We proceeded to turn off all of the inside lights since it was lit up like a Christmas tree as we were still actively working at this late/early hour - and to turn on all of the outside lights. Dan went outside the doors to check on things and nothing seemed to be amiss so we called the police and asked them to just drive through the neighborhood. When we called we discovered that there had been other calls that night regarding this same type of behavior. That at least put us at ease that it was probably kids out pulling pranks but still we had some bikes all chained together in the backyard and other miscellaneous items.

We were giving some thought to trying to go to bed when Dan ventured over to the front door again (Bethany and I were in the kitchen) and we hear him say "someone's on the front porch" and he pulls open the door and runs after him. While he was doing that, Bethany and I ran TO the door and outside but Dan was gone into the woods across the street and there were headlights coming up the street. I presumed it was the police and was happy to discover that I was right. I informed him that my husband just ran after someone into the woods and he parked his car and jumped out.

But by the time he had done that, my husband came around the edge of the woods with not one but FOUR youths and walked into the lights of the police car. The other three that had not rung the doorbell started saying things like "I'm so sorry" and I piped up, "you should have thought of that before you rang the doorbell"... the youths were 13,13,15, and the one who rang the doorbell was 17. They all lived within a few blocks of our house. The cop asked him if they had any spending money and one of them replied, "I have $2 in my pocket", the cop said "it will cost you more like $200!".

He proceeded to put all 4 into the back of the squad car and then they were split into groups of two once the backup squad arrived. We watched from the front window as they were just sitting out there and wondered what was going to happen next. We were QUITE wound up! I kept saying "I can't believe you did that" to Dan. After about 30 minutes, we watched as 4 separate cars made their way up our road and parents got out to hear the police report and to retrieve their sons. We wanted to be flies in the cars on their way home!

Needless to say, Dan never was able to get back to sleep and Bethany and I were just trying to get to sleep so each of the three of us only managed 2 1/2 hours of sleep each that night - but we caught the "criminals" and hopefully they will think twice before engaging in this or other types of disorderly conduct again!!!!! Go Dad!

Now - on to the garage sale...........................

This is what became of the Living Room during the process...it must have looked like this for a week or more and was driving me crazy.

Here is a pic of the garage very much "in process" - we originally had no plans of using the third stall BEHIND the hats strung up - however, as you can see below...we did. We cleared everything out - either to our neighbors shed or to our back yard and used all three stalls.

Yes, even Dad got in on the action this time around. He usually misses out on all of the action on Friday's - but this time he helped us get ready, handled cash and talked with customers.

Next to Dad the three youngest took turns working the treat table - we made brownies and rice krispie bars and sold soda and hot dogs. They took in about $35.

I failed to get a good shot of Lori (Dan's sister), she spent days here setting up, pricing, cleaning and helping during the sale. We really appreciated her help.

Here is my right-hand girl - she really pushed us to declutter. She helped sort, carry, organize, clean, price, made treats, handled money, and cleaned up!!!! We made $350 from the sale and helped a few others make some money too. I could not have done it without her - thanks Bethany!