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Hi everyone and thanks for visiting our blog. My wife and I created this blog to chronicle our experience while raising a son with Asperger's syndrome. Since our son was diagnosed with an ASD at age 5, we've had a lot of questions. Lucky for us we have a great support network in place. And our blog gives us an opportunity to share what we've learned with our readers. We hope you find our blog informative and interesting. Thanks again for visiting.


"It seems that for success in science and art, a dash of autism is essential." Dr Hans Asperger 1906-1980



Sunday 19 August 2012

A SUMMER YARD SALE


Here's Jacob posing for the camera. 

In a previous post, I talked about how we might me moving into a new home.  We haven't found a new home yet, but we decided that we should try to get rid of as much unwanted stuff as possible.  We originally decided to donate our stuff to charity, but when we looked at the quality of the items we were trying to get rid of, we decided to first have a yard sale.

On Thursday night, Shannie made up a flyer which we photo copied at the corner store, and strategically posted around our neighbourhood.  And on Thursday, I placed an ad on Kijiji to further promote our event.  Then on Saturday we got up bright and early and set everything up in front of our house.  We had everything sorted so bringing the items outside was easy.  And it only took a few trips.

As the day approached, we checked the number of views our ad had received on Kijiji.  And we were both pleased to see that 65 people had viewed our ad.  So we were confident that we were going to do well.  We started at 8AM and Shannie made her first sale by 8:15, so we were very optimistic about the final outcome. 

Of course, we told Jacob about our yard sale and he was very excited.  Jacob loves to talk to new people and a yard sale is a great place to meet new people too.  So we were all sitting outside, and thankfully, Jacob didn't mind us selling his old toys and clothes.  Sometimes kids with Asperger's can grow attached to certain things and separation between them can be touchy.  But Jacob didn't mind at all.

Jacob seemed to lighten the mood when a potential buyer came over.  He'd introduce himself and everyone who met him said that he had great manners and was very polite.  That's our boy.  But at about 9:30 things seemed to quiet down.  So much that Jacob decided he wanted to go inside the house and use the computer.  And then he went inside and never came back out.  We were hoping to be much busier, but we figured that because it was one of the last weekends of the summer, that many people would be going away on family trips.

So by lunch time, Shannie had only made $45, which was a bit disappointing.  So we hung around until about 1:30PM and then we decided to pack it up.  Then at about 2, a guy came by and bought $100 worth of old video games for his son.  Which brought our total to $145 for the day.

All and all it wasn't a bad day.  It was sunny, yet unseasonably cool for August, but we didn't mind one bit.  We got rid of some unwanted stuff and we all had a good time, including Jacob.  Now all we have to do is take the rest of the stuff to a charity drop off point in our neighbourhood.  And we have to try to remember all the posts that we put a sign on, so we can remove the older posters.  Wish us luck.



2 comments:

  1. I went through that a while back. Got rid of alot of stuff, mostly gave to charity. I thought about having a yard sale but the Murph didn't want to fool with it so I didn't. We will have even more stuff to get rid of when we move again which we most likely will after Christmas. Hard to believe how much junk you can collect over the years. I had 19 years worth of junk in my house when I moved last year.

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    1. You should've had a yard sale Kristy. I'm sure you would've done well. It makes me nervous to think about moving with Jacob. He doesn't handle change well, but it would be good for us all I think. Are you guys downsizing when you move?

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