'Spring Cleaning,' or 'The Process in Which the Houghs Determined Which Items Around Their House Would Look Nicer in Someone Else's Household'

We've been spending a lot of our free time digging through crap lately.

And not the crap that fills either of our kids' pants, either (though we've been doing our fair share of that, too).

No, readers, I'm talking about the crap that is destined to wind up in our upcoming garage sale slated for March 12th. It's a huge ordeal, but we've got a ton of crap that needs to be offloaded as soon as possible in order to make room for more crap that we don't need.

A huge - if not the biggest - part of this whole garage sale preparations thing has been sorting, pricing, and categorizing baby clothes. We have a hell of a lot of baby clothes, much more than I think either of us thought possible. Our kids didn't even wear half of them. We received so many name-brand, high-end clothes from the parents who brought their kids into Kristina's class while she was at Primrose - some of them brand new - that our kids maybe more an outfit once or twice before they grew out of it and it went into storage. So the condition of these piles upon piles of baby clothes, in general, is 'like new.'


We're hoping that brings in the masses on March 12th.


There's a never ending supply of clothes in our house - things the Cannonball hasn't grown into yet, or else has grown out of and Abby can't wear yet - and we're hoping that we sell all of it so that we can make room for the eventual additional piles of kid clothes that we'll have to buy in the future.

'Cause that's how having kids works, folks: the turnover rate for clothes, toys, and gear is ridiculous. They outgrow things quickly, so you're constantly having to get rid of piles of crap, only to turn around and have to purchase more piles of crap for them. The cycle never ends (until their 18, I suppose, when you can throw them out of your house).


Anyway, besides kid clothes, toys, and gear, we're dumping a ton of other random crap.

I'm trying to sell a few swords (we'll see how that goes), a bunch of random kitchen and household items, piles of old knick-knacks and collectibles, old luggage and handbags, maternity clothes, office supplies, electronics, and a ton of other nonsense that has been sitting in the garage just waiting to escape our house.

Prepping for this garage sale has been a constant chore, but hopefully the pay-off will be well worth the effort we've been putting into it. Cross they fingers.

- Brian