Ok, so we got back from our Jan camping trip and sold Millie the Van. She’s been great for us and this past year we’ve gone away about 4 times and the kids have had a good time camping. We sold her within a week so we hope (fingers crossed) that this is a sign of good things to come and hopefully the house will sell quickly too.

Now onto clearing out the house so Wayne can get down and dirty and start finishing off the painting and the little awkward things that need to be completed before we can put the house on the market. This begins with a GARAGE SALE.

I have mixed feelings about Garages Sales to be honest. I’ve only ever been part of 2 before (both with Wayne) the first one was years ago, when we first started going out and he had  built his home and wanted to clear out some crap,  I hung out with him for the day (didn’t venture outside though – not my thing) and I think from memory he made about $12.. True story.. Skip a few years and we’re married, living in Canberra and needing to free up some space in our home so Wayne convinced me to have another one. I remember it was cold, and Lulu was a baby so i was able to stay clear of this one too.. mostly anyway. We did make quite a bit of money on this occasion though, so Wayne was happy.

Then yesterday the 3rd one happened. The preparation for this one went on all week, OMG it felt like it took over my LIFE. Having to sort through stuff, whilst looking after 2 sick kids etc, was driving me batty. I knew we had to clear out loads of ‘things’ and I also knew that some extra cash is not a bad thing, but it’s just not my GIG. I am, was and always will be embarrassed about these type of things. I’d rather give the stuff away, or sell it on Ebay or Gumtree where no one knows you. I pretty much refused to help him on the actual day. He was up before 6am, putting the signs out on all major intersections, I could hear him in the kitchen making his eggs and coffee and then setting up his ‘camping chair’ with the paper ready to read. I tell you , the man was in ‘man cave heaven’. The first punter arrived at 6.55am.. not even kidding.. shocking behaviour. The girls of course were eager to participate in this, and every 10 mins Lulu would come in saying ‘ daddy said to give you this’ and would present me with $5 notes, $10 notes, $20 notes and even a few $50’s.. was he MOCKING me ? YES … he was !!

I finally poked my head through the door around 9.30am and he said ‘Griffo, you’re coming out’ to which I replied NO.. eventually I did go out.. once I knew no one was there.. I moved a few things because they couldn’t really be seen, and Wayne mistook this as my willingness to hang out with him.. sadly for him he was mistaken. The other time I ventured out was when my friend rode over on her bike for a quick visit.. and the next time was to pass Frankie to Wayne so I could pop to the shops.. Pretty much that was my involvement.

Wayne really was treating this like a social event. he was talkative and making jokes with people, calling everyone ‘love’ and ‘mate’ and laughing. . He was the King of his Castle..(Big sigh – I just don’t know what to say’).

We did make some $$ though, more than the other 2 sales combined and thankfully to Wayne’s credit, he hasn’t really gone on about it. He did mention that I could now go ahead and put the rest of the stuff on gumtree to which I replied (rather rudely) NO, I’ll be giving it away.. I want my garage back, I want to be able to park my car in there again, and I want the CRAP out.

No more Garage sales for me.. 3 is my limit. Part of me believes that we should give things away to those less fortunate (a big part of me) but the other part is just simple. I just don’t want people poking around my things.

So the next step of our ‘cleansing our souls/lives’ will be happening very soon. I’m off to Sydney soon for a visit and Wayne will use this time to finish this house off and then the house will be on the market. So we are a little step closer to buying a new van/4wd and hitting the road. Still nervous and sometimes wondering if we’re making the right decision, but deep down I’m pretty sure we are.

Until next time. . .

(Whitney.. I have lots of memories of you, mostly when I was in highschool and all your love ballads applied to my own life – various stages – “I wanna dance with somebody” is the one that I loved the most back in the day.. watching Miss Elliot and Mr Morgan trying to teach us all a dance routine in PE was hilarious)..

x