Clothes, Clothes Everywhere

It's that time of the year at our house . . . time for the huge semi-annual consignment sale at which we both buy and sell clothing. Over the years, it's been a huge blessing for our family and at one point we would get our entire season's worth of clothes for 5 children on the first night of the sale. Those days are now a distant memory with 3 teenagers who are either too picky, too tall, or too impatient to participate in this sale any longer.

The prep for the sale is laborious, which probably explains why I put off prepping for it until at least midnight the night before the clothes are due at the sale.

There are bags and bags and bins and bins of clothes to be gone through . . . clothes put away for the current season that now must be tried on and determined whether or not they'll be wearable for this season or sellable at the sale.

Once the clothes are gone through, it's on to piling up what's sellable:

And running it all through the washer and dryer.

The Management of the Sale is picky, picky, picky, and if things aren't current, pressed, clean, high quality, and only lightly worn, they just aren't going to take them.

So, we must sort by gender and size:

(a pile of 24 pairs of boys' shorts to be tagged)

Iron:

(whose dirty iron is that, and why don't they get to cleaning it??!!)

Label:

And pause just a wistful moment to remember last summer:

If I'm lucky, I'm ready at exactly 30 minutes before my appointment and I arrive without incurring a traffic violation on the way.

Prep for this season's sale in summary: 52 pieces of clothing, 30 safety pins, 48 hangers, 3 loads of laundry, 1 roll of masking tape, 8 hours of labor.

Someone please tell me it's worth it!