I think I have had about 5 yard sales. I like to be overly organized and I am constantly organizing while people are shopping. I hate it when people look through my clothes and then leave them in the wrong place or not folded. I have gone to yard sales and they just have things thrown out onto a table or even on a tablecloth or sheet on the ground. I tend not to stay very long at those. One time I was selling my girls Barbie things and other young child hood things. My sister was also selling things. We both had high chairs out there. Mine was spick and span clean, tray slid easily, seat belt still good. Hers was really dirty, no seat belt, etc. Mone sold for over asking price since several people were wanting it and hers never sold. same with Barbie stuff. I had my outfits all in separate zip lock bags along with any shoes or purse that went with them. Everyone sold. I think at that yard sale I made $200 and my sister made enough that it covered the doughnuts we bought. I also like to sell soft drinks and water, $1 a piece. There is nothing like a nice ice cold water or soft drink on a hot day. I also like to have a free box. they were always old stuffed animals or McDonalds toys or stuff like that that one would normally put a price of $.10 on it. It's worth it to have a happy Mom that can tell her kid to get something out of the free box. She would always buy something extra.

I miss my yard sale days but I think they are over. Plus my daughter would always help me after my sister could no longer do it. This was when she was married and I had two strong kids to handle getting the tables out of the garage, etc. Now she is divorced and it's just the two of us. I would never ask my husband to help me now. People would run away. He looks to hagard and weak now.

Kelly - I hope the garage sale went/goes well. Garage sales are a lot of work. I haven't had one in a really long time. Of course, I haven't had a garage in a while.

Doydie - I like things neat, clean, and organized. If you are going to sell it, it needs to be clean. I really like your idea of the "free box". I'll have to remember that for the next garage sale I participate in (which would probably be at my daughter's house).

It was DD26's birthday yesterday so we got together and had dinner. I very rarely go out to eat but she wanted to go to a place called Cheddars. It was nice to go out with my girls, SIL, and grandson. DD26 seemed to really enjoy it as well.

I hope you all have a great day/evening!

I learned my yard sale skills from my parents. From Dad, always get a lot of change, both bills and coins. Take two ladders and hang a PVC pipe or something like that to hang up clothes, Keep things organized, never leave your money in a box, keep it on your person unless there is someone else at the table. Keep all jewelry on table, unless of course it is those cheap colored leis that are in the free box. Prepare to open up early and even if you say no early birds in your ads, not all people have come to your yard sale from the ads some come from your well put signs. And always take you signs down as soon as your yard sale is over.

The kids made $378 dollars profit!! It's raining here so we won't be having it again today.

They're coming over this afternoon to go through and take out anything they want to keep ( I will not say anything...I will not say anything. ) and I'm calling The Quinn House (http://www.thequinnhouse.com/index.p...d=63&Itemid=59) to come and get everything else.

We met some friendly folks during our sale. One elderly man was so thrilled to find a transistor radio! We had some batteries and gave them to him and he was just so happy with that little radio. His wife came up after he was looking somewhere else and told us that he was nearly deaf but if he thought he could hear his favorite song playing then she was thrilled!! We ended up just giving the radio to him.......it just touched us all!

Well today, the DH and I held a trial against our Molly named Puppy. She was regrettably found guilt in the murder of our betta "Toothless, the spineless wonder", as well as found guilt of in the attempted murder of the guppies Franscene and Bubbles. She was likewise found guilt on 10 accounts of child abuse, endangerment and neglect. With a heavy heart, as she showed no remorse for her actions, she was given the death penalty.

So much for Mollies being a community fish as the pet store assured us they were. She became quite the bully after her mate died (and may or may not have had a hand in that as well, but there was insufficient evidence to convict) Regardless she was by far the most aggressive molly I've ever owned so I'm not sure if there was something psychologically wrong with her or not. I always seem to end up with the "special" animals.

However some research did show that Mollies are notorious fin-nippers which may be why she was so aggressive towards our betta and guppies as they're the fancy tailed guppies... the temptation was just too great for her I suppose, but in either event she ended up harassing several fish and one to its death, we had to remove her before she killed the rest of them.

And already the tank seems so much more relaxed, the remaining fish looking about as happy as fish can look with their lacking facial expression. Calm has been restored we can say that much. At least for now, I still have 10 molly babies that haven't grown up enough yet to start harassing the other fish and now I'm left to wonder if they won't because they've grown up with them, or if they're going to follow in their mother's footsteps.

Hopefully my father will get his own fish tank up and running soon so I won't have to execute anymore fish. At which time it'll be off to the store to look at some more guppies, and just guppies (well maybe another betta might get thrown into the mix if I can find one like Toothless again). Then again, we may not have to buy anymore guppies as Franscene is pregnant once more and should be going into labor any day now, if she's not already in labor. Hard to tell, she keeps swimming away anytime I think I can see if she's got a baby coming out or not, and there's too many hiding places to really notice the first couple of births with her.

I have no experience with fish with the exception of a goldfish when I was a little girl. I know this question seems odd but was Puppy really "exterminated"? Couldn't she have been put in an aquarium by herself? Solitary confinement per se?

Sadly Puppy really was exterminated, humanely, much like fish caught fresh from the lake or sea, she got a quick whack to the head to end it and a mighty flush to the ocean . As far as placing her in solitary confinement, unfortunately she has harassed the 2 remaining adult fish in the tank to the point of near death. And there simply wasn't time enough to set up another tank to let her live out her days alone. Not to mention it wouldn't have been exactly humane to give her solitary. Mollies are a schooling fish and to be placed singly in a tank would have likely been worse for her than a quick and sudden death.

Aside from her harassing them physically, she was also putting herself and all the fish in the tank at great risk of death as stressed fish release a kind of fishy toxin so to speak. When tank fish are stressed out the amount of nitrate in the tank can drastically increase... In a lake or pond system there is enough water to negate such problems when you have people practicing catch and release fishing, but in a tank there's no way to filter the water enough to remove them and ultimately the aquarium dies if the stressor isn't removed.

I know it seems just awful to waste a life like that, but to avoid coming off as somewhat ummm let's say Communistic... sometimes you just have to take a life for the greater good. Even if she had been placed in solitary confinement she would have simply been stressed out from being solitary and died a slow painful death rather than her quick execution.

But it does make me wish my DH had listened to me and just gone for goldfish . They only have a memory of 3 seconds so they really can't and don't get stressed by other fish. Really if a goldfish dies, whether alone or with other goldfish, it's because of one of 3 factors, not enough air, water is too warm or they have a disease, well and I suppose you could starve them to death but if you're that neglectful you probably aren't cleaning the tank either so they're gobbling up the algae that their massive amount of waste grows.

Doydie, my Dad was an "expert" yard salesman, too!! Really, though, he could sell ice to an Eskimo if he needed to.

He thoroughly enjoyed setting up shop and then having folks come look through our stuff. Back then we knew nearly everyone who showed up to the sale. By the end of the day someone would bring over a watermelon or an ice cream churn and there was a small crowd sitting around in those old lawn chairs that never seem to get thrown away. It was always fun. I wonder if my folks had fond memories of it like I do or did they just remember all the work!!

Everybody is fine but over the weekend a cat named Tommy died. I always told people "He is NOT my cat" but when we moved here 15 1/2 years ago he as sitting on our side porch and seemed to live there. Our male cat was terrified of him and would only go out after he was sure Tommy wasn't around. He seemed sweet and looking for love but if touched scratched. Tommy and I had a very uneven relationship and I would yell to my cleaning crew "He is NOT my cat, don't let him in". During the snow storm where 3 feet fell, we had called a truce, I let him in, he quickly ran to the basement, ate dry cat food and stayed dry and warmer. He left after 24 hours with our urging. In the end Tommy was deaf as a post.

Tommy was NOT our cat, but our world got an empty spot when he died.

Aww, Kicker, I'm so sorry about Tommy. He sounds like a true feral Tomcat.

We have one of those here now.....Mr. Moony. He's ornery as a wet hen but continues to come back because he knows I'll never let him go hungry.

He may not have been your cat but you were his human.

He must have had quite a life if he lived 15 1/2 years! Thanks for giving him a home even though he was technically not yours!! **he was yours **