Firsts

The past couple of weeks have been riddled with "firsts" for me . . .

I had my first garage sale last Thursday and Friday. Almost 12 years of marriage and clothes/toys/other items from 4 kiddos can create quite a pile-up, and it was getting difficult to navigate through our attic and parts of the basement! Since November, I've been slowly sorting through some of the stuff, and last week every spare minute was spent out in the garage or up in the attic, organizing and pricing. (I went through bins and bins of baby clothes; also, we dumped all of the stuffed animals we've accumulated onto the basement floor - which covered the entire carpeted area - and had the kiddos each pick their 15 favorites to keep, then got rid of the rest. I never imagined I'd see so many tears over "friends" they hadn't seen or thought about in years.) My mom also came with a truckload of stuff to sell. It was going to be the garage sale to end all garage sales.

And then it rained. And rained. And rained. Thursday it pretty much came down all day long - until about 3, an hour before the end of the sale. And I realized how nuts people can be about garage sales, because they came and crowded into our already-full garage all day long in the pouring rain, sometimes 20 at a time, packed in there like sardines. So shockingly, business was good.

Friday was a lot nicer, and Rachel & Zekers got to set up their cookies & lemonade stand. At the end of the day, I was happy with the amount of clothing and larger items we sold. We carted the rest to Goodwill, Biddlestone's and Hastings. This is AFTER giving away dozens of bags of clothes to several friends, AND at our moms group clothing exchange, and selling many more bags' worth at the garage sale. Talk about visible evidence of God's provision! I couldn't help thinking as I bagged everything up that He's given us WAY more than we deserve.

Turns out, we should have waited to get rid of the leftovers, since not one, but TWO people showed up at our door the next day asking about a set of mauve sheets I had for sale. Go figure.

Saturday morning I ran my first 5K. Perfect weather, beautiful scenery (the race was in Celina by the lake) and good friends all made the morning a success. Since we'd never run more than 2 miles prior to the race, I was incredibly nervous, wondering if I could even do it. But it turned out to be much easier than I anticipated. My time wasn't great (29:14), but maybe if I ever get cleared by the doctor to run again, I can get a little faster. At the time, though, I was just excited to actually run all 3.1 miles without any health issues!

If you want to view photos, here is the link. There is a picture of the 7 of us (Sheldon, Isaac, Janal, Amanda, Kati, Isabel and me) on the left sidebar if you scroll down a little, and under that, a link to view individual photos of runners in action.

Saturday evening I finished knitting my first scarf. I'd been wanting to learn how to knit for the past several years, and then several weeks ago, had lunch with a friend who showed me how in about 20 minutes. (Thanks, Kelly!!) I've found that it's a great way to relax at the end of a long day. My bedtime routine over the past several weeks has become: knit for about 15 minutes, then go to bed and read for another 15 or 20 (or 60!) until my eyes refuse to stay open any longer.

This week is VBS at our church - not a first! I have a group of six 3-yr-olds and a teen helper, who is a lifesaver, as some of them like to wander. If you read this, pray that their little hearts are reached this week, that gospel seeds are planted and that they love Jesus more at the end of the week than they did at the beginning.

(The picture to the right doesn't really have anything to do with this post; I just thought I'd throw in a little snapshot of some father-son bonding time.)