The Garage Sale: Another sneak peek into my novel.

Hello! I’ve had several requests for another sneak peek into my novel. I thought it might be fun to share the beginning of the story that started my desire to write.

Excerpt from The Garage Sale:

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Isn’t that how the saying goes? In my household, it seems that the men in my life believe the saying is true. Well, at least by the hundreds, no thousands, of miscellaneous items they have picked up at local thrift shops and garage sales. “Look at the great deal we got on this mom.” “Don’t we need another couch, honey?” “But it only cost a $1.00.” My idea of a peaceful house is one rid of clutter. Not so in the case of my three men. My patient nature has allowed our house to become a mass of random items with no cohesion or order. Over time, I’ve allowed it not to bother me so much.

I was surprised when my oldest son, Charlie, begged me to hold a garage sale. It was the first week of summer vacation, the first I’ve ever spent at home with my children, and he saw dollar signs when he heard that our neighbors across the street had earned several hundred dollars at their recent sale. Reluctantly, I agreed to help Charlie organize the sale. We scoured the calendar for a Thursday and Friday that had not already been filled by our busy summer schedule. “Guess what, Mom,” said Charlie. “Next week would be perfect.” “Ugh,” I thought. “Oh, the work. The work. Oh well, perhaps a project is exactly what I need right now; still adjusting to unemployment.”

To my surprise, the process of preparing for the garage sale was therapeutic for me. What I didn’t realize was the life-changing insight I was about to face. I had the chance, and permission, to rummage through our accumulated belongings and determine once and for all that which is trash and that which is treasure. The back room was scoured, the closets were organized and the basement rooms which had become the holy dumping ground of wanted and unwanted items was slowly unraveled. We had more than enough stuff for the sale.

Thanks to modern technology and the luxury of wireless internet access, I was able to set up my job hunting shop inside the garage during the sale. Still very much in the mode of diligently seeking work, I wasn’t interested in losing two precious days. After tallying the meticulous records we kept, the boys earned $245 which seemed like a pittance in comparison to the amount of work that we conducted to prepare for the sale. (That’s one hour of consulting work I thought in typical Corporate Diva fashion.) To my boys, they were as business savvy as Donald Trump. Best of all, we were rid of hundreds of clothing items, books, old toys and games.

What didn’t sell went to charity. As I logged the clothing that I would give to charity for my tax deduction, I wondered how I could have accumulated thirteen chocolate brown jackets, eighteen pairs of black dress slacks and seven business suits. “I just cleaned out my closet last season,” I thought. “Was I really that vain that I needed new clothing for nearly every business trip?” The sale was a success, but that is not what this story is about. It is about the clean-up from the sale.

Still in the mood to de-clutter and finish what I started with the organization project, I ran across an old set of papers under the bathroom sink. The papers were stapled and carefully folded. (Unlike the crumpled napkins and old receipts that were strewn about.) My first instinct was to simply toss them out with the rest of the garbage I found, but I took a minute to review the contents. It appeared at first glance that the faded paper and faint writing were journal entries written by my husband, Ben. Strange I thought. As I perused the dates, the journal entries were from 1985, just a few months before Ben and I met and began dating. Why would he have kept these papers so long and why are they under the bathroom sink? They must be important, I thought, so I began to read.

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That’s all for now. The clean-up from the sale is the best part of the story. You’ll just have to wait for my novel to be published. I'm still pulling it all together and filling in the gaps. I’m in the editing phase now. Cross your fingers…