|
Craigslist... "Estate Sale" signs... Referrals...
so it all went!
How does one sell an entire household of stuff, 3332
square feet of stuff AND an entire business that is an entire double garage worth in three and one half weeks? Believe
me when I say, "only by the grace of God, alot of ads, and supernatural energy from heaven to make it happen".
People would ask me "who died?", my answer: "I know it's an estate sale, but no one died, we're
starting a new life!"
(little did I know that
'who died' would be me... that the Lord had a special progression of funerals set up for my inner-self...)
|
|
|
|
| In my design showroom where people could shop. |
|
|
|
| I love flowers! I sold these by the stem. |
|
It is difficult to put into words the effort and thought
it took, but the Lord prepared me early in the game for each action I was to take.
Going back to
late in July, I had become very aware that we were going to move, I did not know where but the Lord did and He was letting
me know that I needed to start moving in that direction and begin taking the steps to clear out alot of my business supplies
and designs because we were not going to be taking everything with us on this next move. Wow! am I glad I listened,
thank you Holy Spirit for being so clear on that! When it came right down to it, some of our furniture was going to
be sold also.
So all of August I was busy making as many flower arrangements as I could and organizing things
to sell. As I put ads out on Craigslist and received responses, it became very obvious that the premade arrangements
were going to sell much faster than the single stems and containers as they were, so I was going the right direction.
At the beginning of September I knew that if we were going to fly to Hawaii we would need airline tickets, so
I went onto the search engines and came to the conclusion that Hawaiian Airlines was the way to fly, it was cost effective
and I like their name! On their website you can view a calendar week at a time and see the 'best value' days. Since we were
on a limited budget, I choose two best value days and prayed for the money needed to come in. Jim had said that the money
had to come from my business, not his bill paying money, so the word was out, "Lord, if you want us to go, bring in those
ladies that love my designs and want to buy them!". And thus, He did! one lady at a time, and sometimes with a friend.
|
|
|
| One of my favorite designs is tropical. |
|
|
|
| My 'wall of flowers' as I called it. |
|
|
|
| The Flower Arrangements were selling, yeah! |
|
We returned from Hawaii on the 16th of September and on the 20th I started
putting things into motion. I decided that getting a pallet of things and our car to Kona right away was the first thing at
hand, so I scheduled this to happen on the 29th, which was a Monday.
In order to save a significant amount of
money I had to deliver a 1000 square foot pallet of boxes and drive our Jaguar to the Bay Area for shipping. I
did not start packing those boxes until the words "we are to go" came out of Jim's mouth, but as soon as they did,
I set in motion the packing of 12 boxes, our new life in a nutshell.
As I went through the house
looking for the "things I cannot live without", it gave me deep revelation about what was really important to me.
My sewing machine and serger, yes, I cannot live without those. My crafting tools had to wait because I still had work
to do and flower arrangements to make, so those would have to go on the airplane with us. Compact tables, yes.
Favorite flowers, yes. Favorite lamps, I love lamps! Favorite rattan baskets, yes! What is going on here?
Is decor my favorite things? I wonder... haha. I think box four was a TV, actually Katie's. We owe you a
TV sweet girl! It was the only one that has a DVD player built in. And talking about Katie, she shipped two
drum sets along with some of her favorite things as well.
Everything that we shipped on that pallet had to
fit into boxes that would make a "jenga" cube. I even custom made cardboard boxes to exactly fit the measurements
that were given to me by the Relocation Shippers. Every box had its spot on the pallet and I was very relieved when all
was taped up and ready to go! A special 'Mahalo' to Brian, who helped me in the heat of September to create and
put together all those shipping boxes! You rock, Brian!
Each
day brought new activity that brought us closer to the day we had set to fly off into the sunrise. You
may be wondering by now why I keep saying 'I', well, it is because the Lord provided a temporary three week job for Jim to
do for three weeks out of the three and one half weeks we had to make the move. During that time I began to wonder about
the decision to go ahead and have him gone six hours a day and if the extra money was worth it, but God had provided the job
from his ex-boss so we thought it was the right thing to do. See, even though they let him go, he left with high regards from
his fellow executives, so when they needed some emergency help, he was the first one on their list to call.
Well,
the 29th came quickly and I was beginning to feel my muscles and ones I had not used in awhile, so sleep was at a premium.
So it was with great regard for the path ahead and the Holy Spirits voice that I woke up at 'dark:30' with the
words "Wake up, get up, you can take the tropical leaves you have been thinking about. Pack them up and take them today".
Wow, alright! I got up and went to it. I found two boxes that would work perfectly, one would be the base of the box and the
other the top. I packed up the leaves and more tropical stems as well. I went into the garage and found some ornaments I loved
and stuffed them into the box. I packed it until it could hold no more. Yes! After I was done I went into the garage,
the Holy Spirit spoke again, take those two small boxes also. They were two matching Holiday trees in containers, I really
love decorating for Christmas, so I grabbed those and put them in the car.
The plan was to take all the boxes
in the Windstar van, but all the boxes would not fit. That was not a problem however, since we were also driving the Jaguar
to its shipping destination after the boxes were dropped off...so all was good. I drove the loaded Windstar and Katie
drove the Jag, we were a caravan, yeah!
The pallet
packing place was in a very hard to find location. I had done my mapquest, however we still got really lost. Lost to
the point of having to call the place three times! I usually am better at getting places, oh my. When we finally got
there I was in great need of a 'calm down' however there was none. In fact, just the opposite! After unloading all the boxes, I found out that I had been given the wrong pallet
measurements of 48" square by 6 feet tall. The actual pallet was 40" square by 6 feet tall... I was in
no mood to be taken for more money...so I made sure that we still got the same dollar quote. Because I had
measured so carefully I was within my limitation of 1000 cubic feet, whew, it worked out! Thank you
Lord!!! Now just work out the new incorrect measurements of my 'jenga' pallet. I had to leave that up to the Lord and
walk away.
The next new info was that we were going
to be driving the car to a different location, and I did not have a map for that! It was way beyond lunch, we were hungry and
we had just enough time to make it to Oakland, without a minute to spare. By now it was early rush hour 'get home' traffic,
so everyone seemed concerned that we would make it in time. Another trust moment. Well, we did make it, just 15
minutes before closing. It was almost a smooth path getting there, we just had to make one phone call and found out we were
across the street. Thank you for cell phones! The car shipping place was a strange experience. First I had
to wait at least 15 minutes to get served, even though there were no other customers. Second the lady checking me in was really
gruff, and third the man who checked out our car was an alcoholic. It's the tell tell signs: alcy-breath, swollen nose
and demeanor. And he was going to drive our car to the shipping yard...another trust moment...I had to walk away.
My Moving... Experience Page 8
back to Page 6
|
