Many times garage sales are a waste of time because they're so much work to get ready and there's no way to know what will sell. This thought went through my head MANY times as I worked my butt off getting ready for my fundraising garage sale held last weekend. The night before, I had major anxiety worrying that no one would show up because I had decided not to put signs out until the morning.

Turns out I didn't need to worry at all. The people came and they kept coming! On the first day, there was not one moment there wasn't at least one person shopping until around 1:30. It was a ton of work, but almost $650 later, I'd say it was well worth it. I had signs plastered on every table saying that all sales would benefit the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. And people were very generous. During the first hour, I had a woman purchase $3 worth of items. She gave me a check for $20. My neighbors bought a desk we had for sale and gave me an extra $20. People often said "keep the change--for your fundraiser." I had the opportunity several times to share what Cystic Fibrosis was and why I was raising money.

The sale ended as uplifting as it had begun. As we were closing down and boxing things for Goodwill, a final customer came to browse. She picked up 5 $.10 items. She handed me her two quarters and then reached back into her wallet for a $5. "For your fundraiser. Good luck," she said, and went on her way.

I am truly grateful to my friends and family for helping me to pull this successful garage sale off. To those who donated items to sell, stopped by to shop, helped me set up and/or take down and loaned tables in the mad scramble we had the night before...Thank you!!!

 

http://www.cff.org/LWC/CandyJohnson

Wow! It's been a whirlwind few weeks. Between two mini vacations, getting my first grader ready for the first day of school (which is this week), planning for and executing a VERY successful fundraising garage sale and of course RUNNING, I'm exhausted. But I keep putting one foot in front of the other and know the craziness will end...some day...right??

We spent 5 days camping on Lake Michigan in Sheboygan with my family. Lots of fun. Had to get two runs in there. One 45 minute run and one 8 miler. I went into the 8 miles hoping to use an app on my phone to map my run. Not sure if the app just doesn't work or if the signal just wasn't consistent enough, but I knew I was in trouble when I'd been running for about 30 minutes and it said I was at 5+ miles. I do not run that fast. I run a pretty consistent 10 minute mile. So I decided I'd just run 90 minutes and call it good.

The next weekend, we had a trip to the Dells planned. Long run for that weekend was 16 miles. I was stressed about not only running 16 by myself, but actually getting it in at all. Decided to do it Saturday and get it over with so I could enjoy the rest of the trip eating and drinking with no worries. I searched for running paths in the Dells and came up with nothing. The best the Dells' tourism office could offer was the name of a state park that was nearby. I found a map of the park and realized it was just a couple miles from the hotel we were staying at. We got up there early enough the day before my planned run to do a drive of the route. All I can say is Holy Hills!! That night I mapped out my 16. I ran from the hotel to Mirror Lake State Park, looped the park twice, back to the hotel, then down the main street to the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory Museum and back to the hotel. Thankfully it was overcast and fairly cool. I'm not sure I would have made it in any kind of heat. The hills were brutal!! I wish I had taken some pictures so everyone could see just how crazy hilly it was! But I did it!! And I followed it up with a huge breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty!!

This past weekend was an easy 8. Up next is 18. Wow!

I have some exciting fundraising news to blog about also, but I was up at 4:30 this morning to get my 6 miles in. So it will have to wait for another night. I'm off to bed :)

 

http://www.cff.org/LWC/CandyJohnson