Hooray for Consignment

I just finished a biannual ritual--our Sacramento Just Between Friends Sale. This is a huge event in the convention center where you sell all your kids old stuff and buy other people's kids' old stuff. I'm usually not a bargain-seeking person. I just always feel a little manipulated when I'm running from store to store chasing bargains, I know some people save a ton of money this way, though. But for the JBF sale, I put my life on hold for it twice a year. I will be so sad when my kids get too old and I can't buy most of their clothes this way. You have to print out all the tags and prepare your clothes. But for me its mostly about the shopping. I volunteer so I can have the privelige of shopping an hour or two before everyone else. For the spring sale, I passed out 1500 fliers. Never again. I felt so sheepish jogging around people's neighborhoods at daybreak tucking fliers under their doormats and just skipping the house of anyone who happened to be out, putting out their garbage or leaving for work. So this time I did just a few fliers and worked a shift putting clothes away. It kind of baffles me, I'm not nearly as die-hard as some of the other moms. But it was actually fun to do some work and make friends with my coworker moms and check out all the stuff I wanted to buy the next day. The next day I got my early shopping priveledges and came home with a laundry basket full of toys for Christmas (I got the whole Polly Hotel and a bunch of Pollys for $6!) and two laundry baskets worth of clothes and shoes and coats piled ontop.

I started feeling old this time though. For the first time, as I was searching for clothes for Kate, I couldn't pick out the cute little things I liked, things with embroidered flowers on denim and such, I had to start looking for things Kate would like. It was hard to realize my first baby was growing up. I also noticed, when I brought all the junk home and gave Danny his $15 bike, that we were really starting to collect junk. This also made me feel old. We moved so much in the last 8 years that we didn't collect too much, but now I'm starting to see us accumulate that house and garage-full of stuff that comes with middle-agedom. It's a little strange.