To Market, To Market . . .

Last Friday was a red-letter day in our household.
We got rid of a lot of junk! And we sold it at the children's market in our local park, which is held every July school holidays.
The number of stallholders was overwhelming  - over 200 apparently.

The stalls were set up in a massive spiral. It cost $2 to have your own table, and it ran for 3 hours. When I saw all the stalls there already when we arrived an hour early I was a little worried that we might not sell anything.
This photo only shows half of the park.

But we had great success. Nearly everything went by the end of the morning. The children and I had spent the entire previous week sorting out their old school/play room. There was a lot of junk that they just didn't play with anymore and I was heartily tired of trying to get them to tidy up after themselves after they had pulled it all out and made things with it - things that defied the actual reason they were made for. Don't get me wrong, I love that they are creative, but I hate it when the 500 coloured counters we used to use in homeschool maths get tipped out on the floor and sticky-taped to the legs of the table - why do they do that?

And I absolutely hated the tin of dozens of magnetic alphabet and numbers. It was amazing where they ended up and what they were used for - I have seen them on the dog's collar and in the guest bathroom basin. I put a big fat .50c sticker on that one and resisted the urge to tell the buyer that I was sooooo relieved to see them go. And somebody even paid $1.50 for a blackboard that was broken in the corner and had been used for all sorts of things (like huts, car ramps and sitting your baby sister on and pulling her along, like a sled) except as a blackboard that . . . you know, you write on with chalk? How ordinary is that! I tried not to feel sentimental as I saw it disappearing into the crowds. I did feel a little sentimental about the wooden Noah's Ark, but the dear old lady was buying it as a gift for her Sunday School, so I couldn't run after her and ask for it back, now could I?

We sorted out the games, the puzzles, the dvd's, the books. We sold each dvd for $1 - and books for .50c, so most of them went quickly. We actually didn't mind how much money we made, we were just so glad to get it out of the house. But we did make $83 which is not bad for junk.

As a reward for the children and their hard work, we are making over the school room into an entertainment/recreation room for them. We kept the bookcase and one desk - we threw out the other two desks. When Hugh and I lifted them up to take them outside, both of them fell apart - they have been well used! And we kept the coffee table, and put in a 3 seater couch in there. I plan to get a couple of hardy, durable bean bags and I want to get a rug. Our kind neighbour was going to loan us one of her beanbags, but when I asked her if she would mind if felt pen accidentally got on them, she changed her mind pretty quick. The kids are begging us for some sort of entertainment console like Wii or XBox. We have resisted up to this point - but they keep wanting to run over to the neighbour's to play 'Buzz' on Playstation, so I can see we are weakening. Plus, they have pretty active imaginations now which I don't think is going to get squashed anytime soon. Somedays I wish it would, though.

Anyway, the market was a success. It was really cute the way they gave out labels for the kids to wear displaying their 'stallholder' status. We had fun.

Robin took the day off work tocome and have fun with us and help. I'm so glad he did - I don't think I could have kept track of 3 kids running in all directions through the crowds, the toilet visits and the two year old who wouldn't stay in her buggy and was only happy when we fed her with the free cupcakes some harrassed father was giving away because they fell on the ground and were covered in boot-trodden grass.

Here is the 'before' photo of our table.

And here is the 'after'. We ended up getting rid of the bunnies, the blackboard and the blowup globe as well. But not the game Buckaroo, which I was secretly glad about. I love that game!