HOB NOBBERS: ESTATE SALE ADVENTURES

Some old fashioned things like FRESH AIR and SUNSHINE are hard to beat. Laura Engalls Wilder

These are crazy times for sure but focusing on simple things can help get you through. Get outside, breathe in the fresh air and enjoy sunshine, flowers in bloom, and birds! I hope you are all staying healthy and safe!

So we're still doing "our thing" by looking for the greatest treasures we can find! It has been a challenge though as with everything being closed, we had to wait until later in the Spring. I DID find a few things online but we needed so much more! April was a busy month for our little online shop as our sales were up higher than the same time period last year. I figured these were "Covid 19" sales as people were getting bored being in lock down and not being able to shop in brick and mortar stores. So THAT was fun!

Then one Estate Sale opened up with the guidelines being, wearing masks and maintaining social distancing guidelines. OK, no problem! My daughter, Elissa, and I were ready to go! In Estate sales you are given a number and are let inside according to your number. Also while usually 25 people are let in at a time in Estate Sales, in this sale only 5 people were allowed in at a time. There was no time limit so the first 5 could have stayed in there as long as they wanted. When one person came out they let one person in. With numbers 25 and 26, we had to wait quite a while to get in. And yet it was still worth it! We were able to find some great treasures!

Then we found a fantastic Estate Sale that we were waiting for that looked like it would have tons of great stuff! If the sale says, "Packed", you usually know you will find a HUGE amount of treasures! And this was one of those!!

I traveled to Elissa's house the night before so we could get an early start the next morning. We were hoping to get numbers 1 and 2! That night Elissa was checking out the address which they don't post until the night before. Much to our surprise, the details said, "appointment only" due to COVID 19! WHAT?! When did they decide that? We quickly checked and found that ALL appointments were taken!! Elissa decided she was going to call the company owner and ask if we could wait outside and if someone left before the next appointment, if we could slip in and spend a few minutes shopping. Each appointment was allowed one hour to shop! Fortunately the owner was very kind and said yes we could try that. Elissa explained to her we had been following her ad but had not seen the "appointment only" information. She said they had decided it in the last two weeks and listed it under "details"! UGH! But we were determined to get in, if only for a few minutes, which would mean extremely FAST shopping!

That night my 8 year old granddaughter, Gili, who knew we were looking forward to this sale, prayed that we would be able to get in! We all need to have the faith of a child!

We decided to arrive at the sale one hour before the sale opened even if there WERE appointments! We wanted to be ready! We packed up our coffee and tea and headed out! The lady Elissa had called was going car to car and looking for her appointments. When she got to us we told her that we didn't have an appointment but that Elissa had talked to her the night before about maybe being able to get in if someone came out early. She told us there were chairs by the door we could sit in and if someone left before their time was up, we could go in! So that's what we did! Though we still figured that the people who signed up would want to spend as much time as they could so it still wasn't a sure thing. We would have spent the entire hour if WE had made an appointment and assumed most would have also! But we weren't going to give up! At least now we had "chairs by the door"!

When the time came to open the doors, she called her appointments by name and all went in except two women that hadn't shown up! She said I'll give these two ladies a few minutes to show up and if they don't, you can come in for the first hour! YES! Another step closer! But again, we thought, " Who would sign up for this sale ( and these two ladies were the first names on the list!) and then not show up?... BUT THEY DIDN"T!! The lady came out and said, "You're in!" Oh my goodness!! What just happened?! Gili's prayer was answered! WE GOT IN!! WOOP WOOP!!

We worked that sale as if we were in a timed game show! Grabbing quickly what we knew for sure we wanted, we stashed them away in a cupboard they told us to use. We filled up that cupboard and kept going! Everyone had their own tastes that day and no one seemed to be looking for the same thing! It's nice not to have competition! Between the two of us we gathered up 40 items! We're still listing them but you can see some of the new items in our shop, Gwen And Alma's, here!