Selling my Favorite Thing

Last August, I was 23 weeks pregnant, we returned home to Seattle from 3 weeks of camping in Albania and we (for many various reasons) found ourselves planning an immediate move to Southern California. The plan was for us to be in California for 6 months (then to training in Colorado, and then back to Seattle for a month before we leave for Albania) and we did not want to take all of our “stuff” with us. We knew that we would be selling it anyways before we left for Albania so it did not seem cost effective to move it down to Southern California for only a short time and then back to Seattle again only to sell it all before we left. AND we had found a place to live in California that was actually furnished, so that sealed the deal. 

We had a garage sale. We made piles of everything we could not take to Albania or we would not want for the next 6 months. 

• We are not taking appliances (the voltage or whatever its are called are different and so appliances don't last very long). 
• We are not taking furniture (we will buy it at an Ikea two hours away in Greece) 
• We are not taking dishes (except for my blue and green glasses I got when we got married) I am currently try to contrive how to bring pots and pans. 
• We are not taking “knick knacks.” It is shocking how many I accumulated in just one year. Such as the old antique barn window I had hunted down for my mantle. 

Basically, we are taking clothes (most of which are mine and Shiloh’s), books (most of which are Cory’s) and any colored glass I own (I have a thing for colored glass). And towels and sheets. We've been told they don’t have good ones in Albania. And Shiloh’s stroller, and pac and play, and bouncy seat, and…yes most of the big stuff is hers. Go figure. 

So we had a garage sale. Early one lovely gray, rainy, cold morning in Seattle. 

When I registered for my wedding, I only registered for what I knew I would need for one year. We knew we were going to Albania. So I had 4 place settings, a basic set of silverware, basic bathroom stuff, ect. 

***To those of you who gave us these items, we could not have done without them. We lived in Seattle a year. We had many dinners with those dishes and silverware. And I did not register for anything we did not need or use. So thank you with all my heart. 

We had a goal of course. To make money from this garage sale. Which is dumb. You don’t make a lot of money at a garage sale. 

But some of it was new stuff, I thought. It had barely been used! Only 1 year. That, again, is not why you go to a garage sale: to find barely used things and pay a slightly discounted price for them. 

So as the morning dragged on, we began to slowly lower the prices. 

Furniture that I bought from Goodwill because I “wouldn’t care to get rid of it,” had become dear to me. I think there is something about the first place you live after you get married. It’s just special. You learn to keep a home there. 

A $13 coffee table that was clearly very old, had somehow become special. The $10 window on my mantle took me a long time to find! The $1 picture frames that I spray painted (how do you even spray paint in a state where it rains 364 days of the year?) looked so nice with my black and white pictures in them!

What I am saying is that even though I went into setting up my home KNOWING that I would be selling it soon, it was still hard to get rid of! A lot of it wasn’t even new stuff! It was Goodwill, garage sales and hand me downs. And on a scale of 1-hoarder, I'm definitely on the lower end.  If you had told me when I first got married that it would be hard to sell that stuff I wouldn’t have believed you. 

Anyways, I was doing pretty good at the garage sale. A few tears before we started, and then I was determined to make money. I made Cory ask me how much something was worth before he sold anything. 

As the hours passed more and more things cost $1. 

We couldn’t take it with us, we had to get rid of it. So we might as well make $1 off of it.

Then he sold my toilet bowl scrubber (without consulting me). I asked him how much he sold it for….$1. 

I lost it. (23 weeks pregnant)

First of all, WHO buys a toilet bowl scrubber at a garage sale? 

Second of all, WHY did I care about the toilet bowl scrubber???

It was actually a nice toilet bowl scrubber. (You know those plastic

ones that drip soapy toilet water all over the floor when you take them out and you don't know where to put them?? Ya, definitely not one of those) 

It had a little metal case and a lid. (No drips...)

It was a dark bronze color and had looked so clean and nice in my bathroom. (AND it matched the trashcan...)

I had scrubbed the toilet with it so many times in order to have a clean, fresh home! 

It should definitely cost more than a dollar!! (why this exact item is what did me in, I will never know)

My “home” was being slowly sold away $1 at a time. 

And it wasn't like we were making room for bigger and better things…we were just dispensing. 

It was as if that put me over the edge and made me realize what was really happening. My “home” was being dismembered. The place I had taken care of, made dinner in, and invited people over to, was gone.  Or was it? 

And in the midst of reacting I was actually shocked at myself. Shocked at how attached I had become first to my Goodwill furniture, but most definitely to my toilet bowl scrubber. 

My definition of “home” had become misconstrued. It had become a VERY important pile of “stuff.” 

Cory’s face…. sweet man could not figure out what he had done wrong. He was trying so hard not to laugh. 

Although it took me longer than it may have normally (pregnant), I did start to laugh at myself.

The Lord used something very ridiculous to remind me what is truly home and what is truly valuable. 

And my dramatic reaction made me begin to think about what “home” is. On this earth, home is where my husband and daughter are. Home is where I am currently living. Home is where the Lord has placed me.

And ultimately HOME is heaven. It helps to think big picture like that because then everything else makes more sense. 

I won’t even need a toilet bowl scrubber there. 

Matthew 6:19-“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”