When a homeschool mom friend of mine, Polly Castor, was informed by me that we were moving half way across the country she decided it was finally time to host a homeschool used curriculum sale, something she'd wanted to do for a couple of years but kept putting off. She was kind to arrange the date around my availability. The event was run through the Classical Kids homeschool group which is an inclusive support group with families homeschooling with a classical method influence.
With the date of the sale in mind I put culling through books as my first priority for decluttering for the preparation for the move. We still didn't have a move date yet so the entire decluttering of my house was not in high year at that time.
It has been so nutty since we started this move process that I neglected to write the date of this sale on my calendar. I knew it in my head and had been promoting it far and wide. However while on the phone with my husband we were looking for dates for my first trip to Houston to check out the area for where we'd like to buy a home after we sell the Connecticut house and also to find a temporary rental property. I checked the calendar and saw wide open spaces and the flight was booked. Hours later out of the blue it popped into my head that I'd be down in Houston for the curriculum sale I'd been working so hard to prepare for! I had an idea: I arranged for my friend's husband to sell my items for a commission.
In the end the number of books I would offer for sale was limited to what could fit inside of a minivan and what would not be a hardship for one person to haul into the building and to set up. Thus, I had slotted 25 copy paper sized boxes to resell. (Not offered for sale was 20 boxes I'd planned to try to resell to an antique used bookseller and 45 boxes that I'd already donated to local libraries to resell at fundraiser book sales.). These books mentioned here do not include even yet more books that I have not had time to go through yet! Our family library was at over 8,000 books!
While in Houston it was a whirlwind of touring homes for sale and rental properties and pondering commute times, gauging neighborhoods for safety and trying to figure out where we'd be comfortable to live. I wanted to rent in the same vicinity as we'd buy so the kids would make friends and not have to leave them as well as to test out the commute time for my husband. (We did secure a rental property during that trip, so it was a productive endeavor.)
I was very excited and busy during that trip but I also was disappointed that the sale was going on without me. I was curious to know what buyers would think of my items for sale, especially since I priced most everything ridiculously low, with nearly everything priced at 50 cents or one dollar, which sometimes represented 95% off of retail price. The only things higher were valuable curriculum which was going for about half price and only because it was either unused and new or used in like new condition.
The evening after the sale I had a chance to speak to Polly and her husband. The sale went well with 13 boxes of my stuff having sold. Polly has blogged about the sale and she says she included even more photos than she would normally have just to share them with me via the Internet. One thing I liked to hear was the report that there was a nice vibe there with a good community spirit.
I heard a story about a mom who spontaneously started reading aloud from a picture book and little children gathered around on their own and were glued to her. Polly reported to me that it was so cute. When I saw the photo she captured and shared on her blog tears came to my eyes because that mom had purchased the book from me. I recognize that Magic School Bus book and it's got my price sticker on it. I can't tell you how happy it made me to know that multiple children enjoyed the book that we'd also enjoyed but were finished with. Something like that makes me feel even better about letting go of sentimental possessions. I love knowing that truly someone did make good use of the thing that was cluttering up my house which we were finished with.
Seen in these photos are some of my closest local homeschool mom friends. Today to see these photos makes me sad about leaving Connecticut because these women have been part of my homeschooling life here. Some have been my support network, having homeschooled their kids who are older than mine. Some are women whose kids are my kid's best friends, and those kids are also in some of these images. These moms and I have gone through things together, sharing our concerns and going through the same developmental stages with our kids or finding our way through some of their learning disabilities together. Some have been my co-teachers at homeschool co-op. Others seen in the photos are some moms who I met when I started a homeschool support group; their kids were just preschool aged back then and they are still happy homeschooling families now.
Also pictured is my younger son (black shirt with baseball hat) with a friend from homeschool co-op and my older son (in camo shirt). Multiple shots of long tables full of books with shoppers shows my stuff, and one shot shows a man behind a table holding a castle book, that's my stuff! The last shot with the greenbacks also is mine!
Special thanks to James Early for staffing my booth and selling my stuff!
I am so happy about having sold these things to homeschoolers. I just wish I was there for it...
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(In an upcoming blog post I will share what happened when I tried to resell used antique books to a book dealer and how that relates to selling items at used curriculum homeschool sales.)
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