I Will Monday - Find the True Story

 The garden gave me an object lesson reminder.  

Look at these gorgeous peppers!  Wow are they nice!  To look at them from this side, you see their size and beauty.  But, if you turn them around, you see the real story.

You know, that is how lots of things in life are.  It's how you take the picture that tells the truth.  I am pretty open with my issues, not just here on my blog, but in life really.  I have always let myself be vulnerable in telling the truth on myself.  In doing this I can be free to let go of the "pretty" side of my story and work on the "ugly" side without any facade or fakeness.  

I posted something on my business facebook page:  Town Hall Trinkets, LLC:  

I was laughing this morning thinking about this ….. doing an estate sale like this one was like pregnancy. First you’re excited, finding good stuff, staging making it look good, but then you hit pricing and oh boy will this ever end. Restless nights, will I get everything done, will people come, will they laugh at our prices (cuz this has happened), let’s retire talk, we’re too old for this even. Then you open the gate to the sale, have huge crowd, holding area full, some complaints but overwhelmingly more compliments. As we drove home last night Lisa said “we did it” and then you think, well that wasn’t so bad, let’s do that again. . Truthfully, we started just last week and the past 2 weeks felt like 9 months.

Come see us today 8-7 ….

While at the sale that day, a customer came and shared something with me about this post. I didn't know they felt this way about themselves, so I had to speak truth. I then shared that, yes, marking items is hard! We want to make money for the client, so we can make money for "bustin' our butts" yet keep enough "wiggle room" for the buyer to feel like they got a good deal or could resell it. I know, in 1995 a picker could pick things for $1, however, this is 2022 and the world ain't the same. On ALL levels! Anyway, I said "we see dealer friends pick up the tags and roll their eyes" but, we still SELL it. Truthfully, some of the items we have let pass through our hands this past year, we could have bought and sold ourselves.

I had to tell this person, that "yes, this business is tough" and something I was told decades ago, "there ain't no friends at the auction" (estate sales too). Flipping shows, American Pickers, Storage Wars, shows like that make all "this" look easy and many are picking it up as a hobby and that is great!

Just keep in mind, just like this pepper, not everything you see is "all that" flip it over and see the real story. Even the pictures of this sale showed staged items, it didn't show the dusty, hot, dirty, droppings, sweat equity that came with it.

Those 2 peppers from my garden, I cut off the black part and still ate it. That is what we can learn from this. Cut out the bad and move on to making something good from the rest.

Blessings from Ringle, Wisconsin.