Well, I have now experienced the phenomenon of cleaning out your parents house. We went to Hattiesburg yesterday for another trip, with another UHaul. This time, we cleaned out every last thing from my parents house. My sisters and I had done some cleaning out of my mom’s things about a year or so after she passed away (it will be 11 years this June, goodness gracious). And now since we’ve moved my dad into the assisted living place near our house, we have been working at whittling down the remainder of the contents of their house. We took everything to his new “apartment” as we call it, that we thought he wanted or needed. My sisters and their kids have gotten everything that they want out, we’ve sold some furniture and big items to some extended family, and now we’re down to the last set of items. I swore years ago I would never have another garage sale, but you know what they say about never saying never… LOL!
So, yesterday was another long day, about 14 hours in all, and this week will be a lot of prep work. Everything that I spent all day yesterday packing, has to be unpacked and setup and priced for the garage sale. Thankfully, we had most of the big pieces out, so there was very little furniture to haul. It’s just down to kitchen stuff, linens, old clothes, etc. I wonder what kind of prices to put on things these days. I don’t have garage or yard sales and don’t go to them, so I don’t have any idea what people sell these kinds of things for today.
Get this – we found 2 or 3 film cameras, and he was like, sell those. I softly told him, Daddy, today people have digital cameras and cell phones for taking photos! LOL!
Anyway, we have the house empty, so we can now move forward with trying to clean it up, getting it painted, cleaning or replacing carpets, listing with a realtor, etc. It’s such a big job. And in so many ways, it’s so hard. Even though this wasn’t the house I grew up in, my parents lived there for many years, my dad about 21 in all, 10 of those with my mom. All of their earthly belongings have been divvied up and sent to various family and friends, and the rest of it is sitting in my garage, waiting to be paraded out to strangers, to sell for little or nothing. There’s something so inherently sad in that, the end of things, the summation of a life.
Yes, I’m obviously a bit melancholy with this post, please forgive me. I still miss my Beau so much. Yesterday was one month since we lost him, and I still miss him so.
On to bigger and better things, but first, a lot of work to do with this garage sale!