Let's make a deal.....

We're up to our eyebrows in boxes and things out of place and basic mess, actually. But sprinkled in - here and there - have been some sweet moments.

We're watching the Olympics by DVR, and while I'd vote to skip past all the semi-whatevers, Cub Sweetheart is wired to be more thorough than me. So we watch most of them too, and I sit and knit washcloths during most of those. I have my favorite events, can watch just about anything except the shot put. I just cannot get into shot put, especially if it's not a man competing. (No hate messages please, it's just me.)

For fun, every few nights CS looks over and asks, "what are you knitting?" And I say, "another washcloth" and he laughs. I tell him it feels nice to have knitting in my hands but I don't need extra mental challenges right now. Washcloths it is.

I stopped doing late night yoga last night to watch Phelps receive his last gold medal. It felt like watching history unroll before my eyes. I love that he's put his life back together and gotten into a good place again. Who wouldn't love that about anyone? And does anyone / everyone else feel like they should stand up and put their hand over their heart every time they hear our National Anthem? Especially these days? I don't but I do.

(BTW - running argument in our house: Does God Save the Queen sound like a very slow My Country Tis of Thee? CS says no. I say yes.)

Over the past week we've sold a lot of furniture here and there, to quite the assortment of people. Through a variety of websites and apps. OfferUp is adorable - if someone messages me (with notifications turned on) it makes a cash register sound. Very clever.

Apparently everyone needs to feel like they're getting a good deal. No matter what I ask for anything, they want to pay less. The woman who wanted to buy my $50 little black cabinet (used to hold a fish aquarium), offered me $35. I said I'd take $40. She and her husband pulled up, in a big, beautiful (expensive) truck, and we had a nice little chat about them buying tickets to fly to Chicago to go see a pro game this fall. I'm thinking they had the extra $15. We settled on $40.

I've listed items for $300 and been offered under $100. Cash. And they'll come right now. Versus what? A few have asked me to take a check. Uh, no. So it's been interesting.

We listed our large patio set. I could have sold 10 of them. Everyone wanted it, but planned to haul it home in a minivan or smaller. Finally I worked a deal with an adorable guy named Victor. He showed up with a truck bed already filled with construction stuff, took the set all apart, taking great care of the tiles on the top of the table so they would travel well. Strapped the whole thing upside down, to the top of his truck bed cover, and told me - grinning ear to ear - that he was so thrilled with it. He thought it was 'beautiful' and couldn't wait to go home and surprise his wife. He planned to have a BBQ this weekend to celebrate. I loved selling him that patio set!

Then there was the single mom who wanted to buy our kitchen table and chairs. Of all the items in our house I was the most sentimental about it. Not in spite of the dog gnaws around the base, but rather because of them. Elway, (golden retriever #2) (we're from Colorado) chewed the daylights out of the base of it, when he was a puppy. That was the last table our kids sat around for family dinner, and it's traveled with us to a handful of homes. I remember buying it and being so proud to own a table that was solid oak. She put $100 down on it, and then hired her 16 year old lawn guy to bring a trailer and haul it for her. When she showed up to take it, I asked her, "can I ask you a personal question? Are you a single mom?" She smiled and said, "yes." When I tried to give her back part of the money she paid me, she refused to take it. Repeatedly. Told me she was so thrilled to buy it, that it was perfect, and she would send me a picture of it in her home. And asked if she could hug me. I guess God knew I needed a little more to let go of that piece of our family history. I love knowing it's sitting in her kitchen.

Then there was the TV. The big, heavy kind that nobody wants. I tried to give it away. No takers. Finally I went online and posted that I'd pay someone $10 to take it. No takers. It's currently sitting out, by our curb, in the rain, waiting for the trash truck tomorrow. I cannot even stand to watch them pitch it in the back of the truck and smash it tomorrow. It still had a lot of good use in it, just not cool anymore. I can relate to that.

Oh, the armoire. Solid cherry and I don't even know what it weighed. CS said 1000 lbs. It was a monster. We asked $50 for it so someone would think it was good enough to take it out of our upstairs guest room. Sure enough a man came and looked at it. He SAW it. The next night he showed up with ONE other man, to haul it out. There were moments I couldn't even stand to watch. I was convinced it would fly over the upstairs railing and leave a crater in our tile floor below. It did slide down the stairs and hit one of the men in the gut, and it did get stuck halfway down on the first landing, and they had to deadlift it back up the stairs, where they may have mentioned a chainsaw. It took them an hour to get it out of the house. When they finally got it into the truck bed, filling every inch, we gave them back their money, thanked them for getting it out of our upstairs and not trashing our house in the process. I knew if I offered it for free I'd get two women, 5'2" who would show up with their kids, to take it away. Interesting study of people - ask something for it and they think it's worth something and want it. Teenage girls would do well to remember this I think.

Then there was Eddie. Eddie and I communicated through OfferUp. He showed up, the first time, in a small pickup that was wrapped to advertise a vehicle inspection service, to buy our upstairs office set. I ended up giving him all my houseplants. What he wanted them for I'm not sure, but he did. Then he asked, 'what else you have?" We took a tour through the entire house, with me pointing out items and prices. That night he messaged that he wanted to come back the next day and buy more. Sure enough yesterday he pulled up in a catering truck, with a lift. He ended up buying a refrigerator, patio set, a basket of exercise equipment including pilates videos, and went through my Goodwill pile, taking all sorts of stuff. He asked if he could buy my exercise ball. I said no. He asked if he could buy our Littles' bicycles. I said no.

I'm pretty sure Eddie used to watch, as I did, Sanford and Son. I have no idea what he does for a living, but if we all had as much gumption as Eddie did, our nation and economy would be in better shape.

We also had two mothers show up with their sons to haul a sofa out of our upstairs. The boys were in EIGHTH grade. The moms bragged about how strong they were from all the weightlifting they'd done over the summer, to get ready for football. As they started out of the room, to the upstairs landing, our son walked in. Thank God. We appreciated every one of his 220 lbs. At the end the mothers thanked him 'for every weight you ever lifted in your entire life.' I gave him three advil, a bottle of water and hugged his sweat-drenched body.

So tonight the last sofa goes out of here. Everything else in the house is going with us, or staying for the buyers. It's looking pretty empty, but we're okay with that. It took five days to sell everything we needed to get rid of, and it's scattered all over Ft. Worth and Keller, Texas, and I suspect Eddie will be scattering some of it a bit more, from the back of an assortment of trucks or who knows.

I need to get to the bank later today, because I've got a wad of Ben Franklins sitting on the kitchen counter. Who carries one hundred dollar bills? Eddie does, and a lot of other people, apparently. I have always said I don't have a salesman in me. I don't. What I do have is a 'get-er-done' spirit. I'm more than ready to give up the Monty Hall stint, and get back to packing.