Awkward Yard Sale

Yesterday after church, Rob and I decided we would drive by our house, since it wasn't too far out of the way and we had our friend Barry visiting and wanted to show him at least the outside of our VERY soon-to-be new place. It was a gorgeous day, after all. As we approached the house, we saw a huge rental dumpster outside, and a yard sale in the driveway. Rob decided we should stop... AWKWARD is the only way I can describe how I felt.

So for a few minutes, we nonchalantly browsed around as typical yard salers would. And then we noticed that the upright freezer was for sale... too good of an offer that we couldn't pass up on. So Rob approached the sellers (daughters of the woman who owned the house and passed away) and told them we'd like to purchase the freezer and a few other things. They said, "Do you have a truck?", to which Rob shared that we were the buyers, to which their response was "Well, why didn't you say something?!" (in a nice way). My shy self was looking at an assembly of baskets far from where Rob was striking the deal, but the awkwardness in the air soon cleared and we all introduced ourselves to each other. So for $50 (in addition to all the money we're already shelling out to them to buy their house) we got an upright freezer and 1940s upright refrigerator (think Mad Men) that we will keep in the garage and use to stock up on bulk deals and frozen soup and beverages for parties, a four-drawer filing cabinet, a large sturdy basket, garden hose, lawn seed spreader, metal trash can, set of fireplace tools, and ember glass table lamp (which I think will look great with a new shade!). And the REALLY great thing was that we were able to just keep it all there.

As Rob was toting some of our bargains out to the shed, two of the women were asking me where we lived now, etc. and I shared that we had just gotten married in April and this would be our first house. One of them said, "Well, I think Mother would be very pleased", and another said "We hope that you will have a very happy life here." I know they are still grieving the loss of their mom, and I'm sure it was nice for them to be able to feel more assured that a nice young couple who will take care of the place are the ones moving in. So what started as a pretty awkward situation turned into something very positive, and not only for us.