I have to admit I’ve been pretty discouraged with how the Estate Sale is going. It hasn’t even started yet (it’s five am and I’m banging out a post before the sale starts at 8am) and I feel like I’m looking my family’s carbon imprint right in the face. Box after box I unpacked yesterday only to discover stained clothes, broken electronics, dusty coffee makers minus their carafes and a whole lot of junk that probably nobody will buy. Normal people would take this stuff to the dump. We try to sell it.

We are selling a lot of my grandparents things too that are quite valuable but we’re also trying to get rid of junk that probably been collected from five or six different households over the last fifty years. My mom has been having garage sales for as long as I can remember. People know she likes to have sales so they contribute. While that is great and all, unfortunately instead of getting rid of everything after a sale is done, she’s held onto it. And every year it’s dustier and more depressing. The good stuff sells and we’re left with the (what I would call) trash. My Mom says she gets rid of stuff but I have my doubts. I think she tries.

The weather plays a big part too. There is never enough room for everything so things are crammed into sheds that leak, garages that are dustier than the wild west and in the latest case, tarps in the driveway that flap open and get rummaged through by the neighborhood kids.

As households combine, break apart and then combine again, (my brother and his family moving in and out of my mom’s house) things that normally would be thrown away or be put in storage are stacked neatly and put under “temporary” tarps until lives get sorted out. Of course lives never sort out the way we want them to so the stuff spills over telling it’s own sad story.

For some reason in our family there are no crazy fights where boxes are thrown into the back of a truck and someone takes everything to the dump in a mad huff. Sometimes I wish that would happen. At worst we bicker and then resort to sorting through each other’s things when they are not around. Silly silly stuff that we attach emotional value to.

I’ve written about my struggle with my family and their tendency to collect stuff before. This is really nothing new and not (supposed to be) the subject of this post. Because while it is difficult to be in the middle of it all, there is still part of me that brightens when I see something here in the midst of the rubble that dates back to 1965 or even beyond. Sometimes it’s cool to stumble across a box of your old drawings from second grade tossed in with bills and receipts and birthday cards that have been chewed up by mice. Most likely the pack rat gene is embedded in me too.

Of course the difference between this sale and all the other garage sales that I’ve been part of all my life is that this sale is an Estate Sale of my Grandpa’s things. That’s how it all started really. My Grandpa moved into a fancy old folk’s home and my mom moved into his small trailer. Now we are trying to sell all of his things and her things so she can have some room to move about. Collecting is great but having a living room to walk about is even better.

Some of these things are valuable. My mom’s latest hobby is researching depression glass and Royal Dalton plates and who knows what else… She likes to dream big. I’m not sure. I don’t know if the crashing economy is going to make people want to buy used things more or send them packing because we don’t take credit cards. I’m not getting my hopes up. We probably won’t be able to get as much for the plates and things as an antique dealer could or even someone who has an account on ebay or etsy but we’ll try. Or we’ll die trying or something…

So between the sentimentality, the family obsession with collecting and the dirt, dust and grime, I think we’re up to our ears in the Estate Sale. Which is scheduled to begin about two hours. Excuse me, I gotta go put up some signs.

Hopefully I’ll live to post about it.

It’s been a long time since we last went raspberry-picking so this morning, when I was supposed to hit the road and head back home, I called “DETOUR!”

Well, not a detour really. More of an extension of my trip to the sticks. I really do need to get home but raspberry-picking is so special and you can only do it during a few months of the year. As it was we were really too late. Last time we went during August and there were many many many more berries. This time they were pretty picked over. There were a lot of dried berries which kind of made me sad. If only we had come earlier, we could have eaten those berries.

I tried a dried berry. I was hoping it would taste like those dried berries you get in cereal boxes. It did not. It tasted like worm meal. Not that I would know what worm meal tastes like. It just tasted yucky. I spit it out like the dignified lady that I am not. I guess they pump those cereal berries full of sugar or something.

Bug sure is a lot bigger since the last time we were at Riley’s Farm. She liked raspberries then, she likes them now. She’s my raspberry girl. We checked a book out at the library a while back called Jamberry. It’s a silly book with a very catchy poem and great illustrations.

While we were picking raspberries, Bug was walking up and down the rows rattling off the poem, “Click berry, Clack berry, pick me a blackberry.” I forget the raspberry part but it has the same rhythm. Bug knows it by heart of course. She’s very good at memorizing. She constantly puts me to shame.

I love it when we love the same things. It happens a lot but she’s her own little person. You can’t force her to do things she doesn’t want to do. I mean, you can but it’s not enjoyable. So today was highly enjoyable. We ate as much as we picked and we were happy little campers scampering up and down the rows and rows of brambles and bugs. The sun was burning hard on our shoulders. The sky was blue. It was a beautiful day.

Not counting the pumpkins, it wasn’t very fall-like. I wanted to pick some apples too (and I should have) but the thought of making pie when it’s 80 degrees in my kitchen is so unappealing. Can’t it just get cold here already? I want to drink hot cocoa and wear scarves. I know soon I’ll be complaining about being cold. We stupid Californians never appreciate how good we have it, I know.

I guess I’ll take my sunny fall weather. It’s not that bad.

The funny thing is, every time I go to the Farmer’s Market in my neighborhood I’m always looking for apples. I find myself disgusted when there are just peaches again. Peaches! I want to bake a pie! But not peach pie. I want it to be fall! And then I kick myself because everywhere I go on the internet, I read how people are savoring the last days of summer or even fall.

I guess I’ll just have to eat my raspberries with my freezer door open.

I didn’t pack my swimsuit or Baby Bug’s swimsuit when I headed out to the sticks this weekend. I don’t know what I was thinking. It was foggy at the beach when I left and I was in the mood for fall I guess. I even packed long-pants pajamas because my mom often runs her air conditioner so cold that I get a little chilled at night.

My mom called me on my cell phone while I was driving out to the sticks to tell me that the swamp cooler at my Grandpa’s (her new house) was broken but I never got the call. I showed up ready to work and was welcomed with 104-degree heat—in the house. Good times! So we’ve been sweating away and pretty much going crazy.

After meeting (church) today I decided it was time for desperate measures. I headed over to the nearest drug store and bought a kiddie pool, a swimsuit for Baby Bug and some squirt bottles for each kid. I didn’t buy myself a swimsuit because the selection was poor. I’m not really into mongo-padded bras and giant palm-frond patterns yet. Thankfully, we can always use extra swimsuits for Baby Bug and everything was 75% off. Three cheers for summer blow-out sales!

Summer may be over in the rest of the world but it is not over here. It is soooo hot! I finally had enough and put on one of my mom’s super-big tank tops and plopped down with the kids in the kiddie pool. It was awesome. There really is nothing like immersing yourself in a bunch of water on a hot dry day in the desert.

I think we’ll make the most of it and pray that the swamp cooler gets fixed soon!