Garage Sale 3.0

We did SO well on Saturday!!! It was COLD but people came out in droves! My theory on this is that it was one of 6 other sales in our metro area that day so we had a concentrated audience. But it was COLD!!!! It started out at 27 degrees and ended around 50, which was nice. Except when you are outside in the cold you don't notice your sunburn setting in LOL. We both got pretty good burns!

Setup and ready to sell!

Two goof balls ready to go inside!

9:00 am it started warming up!

We raised over $550!!!! We're having a sale on April 19th-20th it's when the neighborhood next to us is having their community sale so we're praying for a great turnout!

Thanks to all who donated, came, and just plain thought about us! It's encouraging to know you all care so much!

20 Tips To A Successful Fund Raising Garage Sale

We are on our third garage sale for this adoption and I'd like to think I have learned something from the whole experience enough to share some wealth with all of you. So here goes!

These are in no order, some are of more importance than others and I'll say so.

1. Clean your garage and setup the tables before you get anything for the sale. This is important so you can price and sort without having to perform acrobatics around the strollers and the car. 
2. Ask for donations! This is HUGE! If you want a garage sale that will bring in a good amount of money you will need more than just your family's junk. I always took time to sort and price things as they came in so it was done and out of the way. If you have your tables setup you can even put the items where they go for the sale!
3. Choose your weekend wisely. March in Ohio can be 80 degrees and sunny or you could have 17" of freshly fallen snow. We always pick a weekend about a month before a big chunk of our money is due in to the agency. That way if there is still more to collect we can plan accordingly.
4. ASK FOR HELP! I put this in caps because it is SO important!! If you have kids already ask a couple teenagers or grandma to come and watch them during the sale. You won't have the time to be dealing with barterers and a whiny 3 year old. I have a home daycare and thought I could get away with not having to take the day off... Bad idea. Workable but not easy. Also, get people to help you with the sale: setup, tear down, and in three shifts during the sale. This will alleviate burn out in you and give people an opportunity to help you bring your child home (or for whatever cause you are fund raising for).
5. PRICE EVERYTHING! Again, caps mean important. This will help your help be able to help (ha, that's a sentence...). You gotta price even the smallest stuff, like the "everything's a dime" bin individually. You may know that the little pink bear was in that box but your help do not, they also don't know that the pampered chef measuring cups weren't in that box. See where I am going here? Anyway it is always a good idea to price it all. I also add up our potential sales just to get an idea how much money we'll be getting from the sale.
6. Rest up. Get a good sleep the night before and don't do anything too crazy after the sale is over for the day. 
7. Have some food for the people you've asked to help. Even if it's just sandwich stuff and chips. They will appreciate you. Basically be hospitable. 
8. Be ready to answer some intimate questions about you and your adoption. It's good practice for you. Make sure you have some answers to the questions like "what kind of adoption are you doing?" and if you are doing an international be prepared for the "I wish you could adopt the kids we have here" statements. I was taken aback by those our first garage sale. I was not expecting a complete stranger to pass judgement on our decision. It was an eye opener.
9. Check Ebay before you price anything that may be worth money. 
10. ZIPLOCS ARE YOUR FRIEND. Don't be afraid to put all the small parts to something together in a zip bag. I buy a box of the big 2.5 Gallon ones too for stuff with bigger pieces.
11. ADVERTISE! Don't be afraid to put your sale on Craigslist. A majority of our traffic came from craigslist. You can also post pictures of your sale on there so people can see you've got a good sale. We always do a newspaper ad too. Our local paper does one in the paper and one online.
12. Hang up as many of the clothing as you can. It will look nicer and is easier to go through. 
13. Take a sanity day after the sale, we do nothing the Sunday after the sale.
14. LOCK YOUR DOORS. You may be right next to the door of your garage and think no one would dare just walk into your house but they will. I caught one guy walking in and he claimed he thought he heard someone say there was more inside the house. Yeah. Creepy.
15. If you have kids toys you don't want random out of control kids playing with that are not for sale keep them out of sight. We had a van full of kids show up and spend an hour playing in our personal park. They broke a tricycle and popped a ball. I asked the parents to get them to stop playing with toys not for sale and they never did. 
16. Don't stress out. Any sale is better than no sale. If you get stressed out you will talk yourself into failing.
17. Have new batteries for all the battery operated sale stuff and have a plug and light bulbs for lamps and other electronic stuff. People will ask, be prepared.
18. For change we do $40. One $10, two $5, one roll of quarters, and two rolls of dimes. I don't worry about nickels or pennies. You will get some early in your sale and probably never use them to make change anyway.
19. Have good signage. All your signs should match and have big easy to read lettering. 
20. SMILE! Remember you are raising money and what you are doing it for. Let your love for your child be shown through your interaction with the people who are helping you bring them home. 

Phew. That was a LONG post. Hope this helps someone! One last tip, try and sell the clothing and toys and books that don't sell in the sale at a consignment shop. You would be surprised at how much you'll get for them!

I leave you with my furbaby perched atop me like a bird.

Why Are You Fund Raising?

I get asked this question way more than I imagined I would. So I am going to answer it here for all of you who are wondering but aren't bold enough to ask it (thank you by the way).

First, to understand why we are fund raising you have to understand why we are adopting. We could easily go through fertility treatments and create a test tube mini version of us. The cost in total would be around $30,000 since we both need procedures done. So what do we do? Do we take out a loan and go through with that? We did a TON of research and we found out that there are over 143 MILLION orphans in the world waiting for a home and a family. So why would we spend thousands of dollars to create a test tube child when we could give a home to an orphan who desperately needs one? So that is why we are adopting. Rather than go through procedures and tests to create a child we want to give a child a home who is already on this Earth and needs a loving family.

Ok now I can explain why we fund raise.

The finances of it all: Basically the deal is no one has 20-30k just sitting around waiting to be spent. Especially not in this economic climate. We have been blessed enough to have family who has prepared  financially to leave us money, the majority of this money will be set aside for our children's college funds/our retirement etc. We also have pulled 1/3 of our adoption fees from this money. We've cut back spending and starting saving smarter. All in all it still doesn't add up to $30,000! There are grants to get and interest free adoption loans so those are all options. But we still won't have the $30,000.

The community of it: It's been said it takes a village to raise a child. I have been using the phrase it takes a community to bring home an orphan. This is too true. Nothing brings people together like trying to bring home a child. It really builds an awareness of adoption and what it REALLY is to all involved. Through all this it brings more people to the decision that they too can adopt.

The Christianity of it: We are Christians and we believe God has lead us to this adoption because he has our children all planned out. He works up stream and he knows who are children are (and where they are). Part of our responsibility as Christians is to care for orphans and widows in their distress. Most Christians are oblivious to the orphan issue in the world because it is not in their backyard. By seeing us work towards bringing our child home they too may be called to adopt and how amazing would that be!

James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."

The short answer I usually give is: "If everyone in the world thought someone else can afford to adopt but I can't" then we would have millions of orphans... Oh wait, we do. Not everyone is called to adopt, those not called to adopt can support those of us who are!"

So there ya have it! Be praying for our garage sale Saturday!

This video explains a lot of the Christianity side of the matter! It brings me to tears everytime.

That numb feeling... (WARNING: I wrote a book)

You ever get that feeling? When you have put every breath, every ounce of energy, every drop of blood and sweat into something and then in one second it feels like that one thing is suddenly out of grasp? We had that feeling Saturday. We were deep cleaning the house, not because it needed it (although, really it did), but because our home visit was scheduled for Sunday. We have been waiting for that day for months now and the anticipation was finally coming to be. At 11:32 AM my phone started ringing, at first I was miffed because it interrupted my favorite song and then I saw the number. It was our social worker in Cincinnati.

I've been on a double handful of mission projects. In one in particular we experienced a pretty terrifying (at the time anyway, I know God held us safely now) experience and in my home study questionnaire (the 80 thousand page form) I used it as an example of how I have grown over the years as I am always finding something to learn from that experience. Well, apparently that is a trauma. Our social worker needed me to fill out a personal statement about it, at least she thought that was all Portland wanted but she couldn't be sure. The word "counseling" was thrown around and I panicked. Then there was a unfamiliar feeling, the feeling of nothing. Nothing is something I NEVER want to feel again.

Who knows why i was so devastated that I suddenly felt nothing. I was certain that was it, we can't afford counseling AND an adoption. What about our due date for our paperwork? The home study needed to be done this week or we would miss our deadline! So many thoughts and fears that my body just shut off. As I lay there in the bed I had just cleaned and put new sheets on all I could think of is this must be what our child will feel like sometimes. Completely empty, out of control, scared, and angry at nothing.

In reality the small task of writing a personal statement about this "trauma" (I prefer the term learning experience) is nothing. It's a quick paragraph or two. They should have caught this in intake, yes, however at least they caught their mistake and let me know! At least our agency is doing everything by the book. That much is comforting.

This morning I realized what was comforting me. God has our child in his hands. OUR child, His timing is perfect and perhaps this hiccup is so that we will be on the waiting list to line up with when our boy is deemed ready for adoption. Also, God likes to teach me patience...

Sorry for the GIANT book ^ but I needed to get this all down before it went away! Thank you all for supporting us! We are so excited to be in this journey and really thankful we get to do it with you all!

Update

We're at $1,500 raised for our march payment! We're having a garage sale march 8th and 9th from 9 to 6. Our goal is $2,000 for the weekend.

Our home visits will be the end of this week beginning of next week! We're finally moving along again!

So thankful for each of you!

You Are Who You Are For A Reason

We've been in a small group for about 6 weeks now and it's been a really cool experience. All the couples are older than us and it's been an incredible learning experience for us both. The series we've been doing focuses a lot on who God is to you as a father. One of the gentlemen in the group shared this poem last week and all I could think about when he was reading it was how PERFECT our sons life will be and how God designed us for him and him for us. How the troubles he'll face before he comes to us will shape who he is. I know that his wasn't really written for that purpose but it is definitely how it spoke to me! 

You are who you are for a reason

by Russell Kelfer -

You are who you are for a reason.

You're part of an intricate plan.

You're a precious and perfect unique design,

Called God's special woman or man.

You look like you look for a reason.

Our God made no mistake.

He knit you together within the womb,

You're just what he wanted to make.

The parents you had were the ones he chose,

And no matter how you may feel,

They were custom designed with God's plan in mind,

And they bear the Master's seal.

No, that trauma you faced was not easy.

And God wept that it hurt you so;

But it was allowed to shape your heart 

So that into his likeness you'd grow.

You are who you are for a reason,

You've been formed by the Master's rod.

You are who you are, beloved,

Because there is a God!

On another note check out Diaper Wars where every month diaper makers enter into a competition with their diapers! I participated in last months "Fluffy Love" and will be entering a St Patty's day diaper as well as the March theme "Geeky"! It's so much fun and at the end they auction your diapers, so more money to bring our little one home!

Almost ready to wait!

In the next three weeks we will have all our paperwork for the dossier either done or almost done. That means it's almost time to wait! I know what you all are saying, haven't you already been waiting? Nope. We aren't on the waiting list until we have our Dossier submitted completely and the $5,500 fee paid.

But, if you know me, you know I am planning out my wait time already!!!! I have a LONG list of adoptive parenting books to read. I have a bedroom to paint for our little boy. I have LOTS of cloth diapers to sew up for us to use on our little man and to raise money for our next fee. Oh, and we are going to be knocking some "things we need to do before having kids" fun off the list (within reason of course, we are still paying for most of a $30,000 adoption LOL).

I'm actually kind of looking forward to the wait. Because everyday will bring us closer to holding our son for the first time. <Remind me I said that 6 months from now when I get depressed!!!!

I feel like I thank all of you everytime I end a blog post but SERIOUSLY. Thanks. You all have been supportive in EVERYWAY possible!

We are at $1,200 of our $5,500 goal now btw! We've got a LONG way to go before March when it's due but we are getting it done! You can find out how to help HERE!