Clearing out the cupboards

My parents have recently returned from overseas, with a new desire to lead an uncluttered and simple life.  If you know my parents, this is a big deal.  Prior to moving to remote south pacific countries, their home was filled with well loved, in some circumstances, well used, junk.

Upon their return, and seeing the mountainous piles of useless material that returned from storage, they decided to cull.  In some ways I think it was a therapeutic experience for them – letting go of things that you no longer need, but have some strange emotional bond to, can be cathartic.

The next issue, however, was what to do with all the things they had broken their emotional ties with.  In the end they decided on having a garage sale.  It makes some sense, after you have spent your hard earned money on these things, it is nice to get something back.

We hoped that some lucky shopper would come across our garage sale, and would see – amongst our discarded goods – something that they needed, wanted, had to have, and could possibly love.

I was amazed at the parade of people who came through, many more than willing to part with their money for books, clothes, furniture and bric-a-brac.

It quickly became apparent that to some of our visitors the garage sale journey was a weekend routine, a pair of uni students hopped out of their car, quickly looked around and then off they went, musing over the numerous other garage sales listings in the Saturday Canberra Times.

I do hope they found something in their travels...