Crazy August - First Hike, a Garage Sale and more to come...

What a crazy month it`s been - and we're only half way through!

The month started off with a mini-vacation to Tremblant with my in laws. I took the opportunity to take off on my first hike in my "Kilimanjaro" boots.

The hike was brief - as the boots are "intense" and need to be broken in slowly. It was also steep enough to make me question this crazy project.  As my breath became more laboured my thoughts wandered. What the heck am I doing? How can I possibly think I can do something like this? ... and of course the occasional thought of how I would respond to a random bear attack seeing as I was hiking alone (you can say it... crazy!)

We were barely back from Tremblant and I was almost literally knee deap organizing all the garage sale donations. We held our first ever "garage sale" the 2nd weekend of August - and though I had my doubts (and fears) about whether or not it would work out - it was a HUGE success. Like $950 of success!

I have a few things that I have to say about the whole garage sale experience.

1. Thank you so much to everyone who donated their old stuff. As your donations piled up I was getting worried that no one would show up and I'd be left trying to figure out how to ship it all to the local salvation army... but without you, I would never ever have made it to almost one-thousand dollars!
2. I was super worried about the fact that we live on a street that is tucked away - with little to no traffic. I don't know what we did right - but here are some tips if you want to get lots of people (and $) at your next yard sale. We passed around flyers, I announced the sale all over the Internet (facebook, craigslist, kijiji), and we posted the bigger remaining items to sell afterwards (making us an additional $200).
3. A yard sale is a great way to meet more neighbors. One neighbor came over just to "encourage me" and give me $20 though she didn't need anything. Another one paid something like $10 for a glass of lemonade. Some just introduced themselves and we got chatting. 
4. All the "real work" for a garage sale is before and after. the actual sale is quite fun. If the weather is on your side. We basically spent the day outdoors, chatting with people - and I'm telling you - it's incredible how good you feel when someone leaves your place happy with a purchase or deal that they've gotten (like over $300 of maternity clothes for $20!) :-) 

My particular garage sale culminated with delicious seafood pasta - courtesy of our good friend Leino. Thank you again Leino - it was delish! Absolutely delish!

Unfortunately the evening went much better than the next few days... the scarlet fever that Layla came down with just before our Tremblant vacation was still lurking somewhere and I am down with strep throat.

Forced rest? Maybe.

One the antibiotics kicked in... it was time to head back to Tremblant - but this time for work. It's fun work - but LONG days and I'm not particularly rested... But worse than that - my poor husband was left at home to hold down the fort - and he came down with strep throat too. Yuck.

We're all on the mend now... and using the next couple of days off to prep for the next things to come... (to be continued)