Garage Sale

So today we did it. We had a garage sale. On some levels I hate this sort of thing and on others, I.LOVE.IT.

We went thru the house last weekend with a very brutal eye. I dug thru cupboards and closets, purging those items that I knew I could easily do without. The result?? 6 tables full of items that we no longer need (oh and several other items that were not ‘tabled’ but which were laid out for people to grab). Kirsten was gracious enough to use her week off to organize items into categories. On Friday night I was able to whisk thru and price. Whew! I was done by 9 pm Friday and ready to go Saturday morning first thing.

Things I HATE about garage sales. First, the people that show up BEFORE you say you open and hang out while you are getting your bearings. We had 2 of those this morning. (Neighbors NEVER count in this...I always LOVE neighbors that show up to support, coffee cup in hand, a roll of dollar bills shoved in their pockets). No, I am referring to the professional garage sale shopper that shows up AT LEAST 15 minutes before you start and perches themselves on your utility marker and says ‘you ARE having a sale today right?’. Yes we are you hag, just give me a minute to haul my tables out and get my own darn cup of coffee before I haggle with you over whether or not I will sell you my children’s favorite games for 10 cents! For a sale that consisted of items marked in 25 cent increments, we did well. By the end of the sale hours, 3/4 of the ‘crap’ was gone and I had a respectable amount of bills in my make-shift cash box. We easily boxed the remains, pulled the tags off, and dropped the items off at the thrift store.

The day was eventful. I am never one that likes to use the phrase ‘it was a God thing’ because it sounds so superficial, but we experienced a true ‘God’ moment. About 3/4 of the way thru our sale, a mother and her two sons showed up. It was at a quiet moment (did I mention the weather was glorious today–blue sky and sun?? I have a tan face with eyeglass imprint to prove it!) where Dean, Annika and I were alone with our customers of the moment. The mom was looking thru the table of girls’ clothes, when she held up one of my girls’ tank tops to her two sons an said ‘this is the size your sister is now’. I found it a rather odd statement, but didn’t think TOO much of it. Then the woman turned to me and said ‘their sister is in a residential treatment center boarding school’. I.COULDN’T BELIEVE.IT.

‘Really?, where?’. I asked

‘Utah’.

‘Oh, where in Utah?’ I said

‘Salt Lake, Eva Carlston’.

I think my heart skipped a beat. This past week, was the first time in my life I had even heard of Eva Carlston Treatment Center outside of Salt Lake. HOW I heard of Eva Carlston is a modern day miracle. Thru the specialized literary genre which is blogging, I had new comments posted on my blog entry about Uinta (the residential treatment center where Annika was at in 2009). The most recent comments had informed me that Annika’s counselor at Uinta, Sue Hoffman, was now at Eva Carlston RTC. Now, I was sitting in my driveway, manning my garage sale, when this woman informed me that her 12 year old daughter was at Eva Carlston.

Whah??? I could not believe my ears. I responded to this woman....

‘Oh Eva Carlston, where Kristi Ragsdale and Sue Hoffman are?’.

The woman stopped cold and looked at me....

Long story short, we struck up a conversation about residential treatment centers, living thru the nightmare which is placing your child in such a place, and how it affects all family members involved. We hope to meet this week for coffee and share more.

So tonight I am blessed that our house is a little emptier, my wallet is a little more padded AND we were brought together with another family that is experiencing the same nightmare that we went thru 2 years ago. Ok, I realize that sounds weird. My point is that we have just met a family, in our community, that can relate on ALL levels to what we went thru and perhaps we can give them a listening ear AND an infusion of hope as they go thru the enormous struggle that we went thru 2 years ago. I just heard from my fellow ‘parent in circumstance’... she ‘friended’ me on Facebook. We hope to get together this week and talk more.

So as I have said before,

God is good, ALL the time.