Australia Day!

We celebrated Australia day with Auntie Kathie in Sarina and Grasstree Beach.

We droped in on a friend's BBQ and ended up staying for homemade steak pies and sausage rolls, followed by cricket and swim on the beach. It can't get much better than that!

Looking a touch serious in our national regalia.

I think we were discussing sausage sandwiches.

Garage Sales 101

I've been to garage sales over the years and bought a few things however this was the first time I have actually hosted a garage sale. We had some challenges along the way but in the end the sale was a success. Here are the key things I learned about hosting a garage sale:

- People arrive before the specified start time. Two people actually came one day early asking if they could look through our house and see what we had to sell. We advertised an 8am start, however people began to arrive at 6:45am.

- For some people, garage sales are a regular social event. As one gentleman put it "my wife goes to bowls on Tuesdays, and I go to garage sales on Saturdays and talk the ears off people. I don't usually buy anything, I just like to have a stickybeak and chin-wag and catch up with all the other people who I know from garage sales. My wife won't come with me because she gets embarrassed when I overstay my welcome and people have to kick me out!" Fortunately I like a bit of a chin-wag and my ears are stuck on well so I didn't mind.

- Garage sales are a great way to pick up ridiculous bargains. While we were happy to have sold lots of stuff, many items went at a small fraction of the original cost of buying them... not that I expected any different I suppose, it's just that when things were actually walking out the door I couldn't help but do the calculations in my head... 60% off! 80% off!, 90% off!... Next time we are looking to buy 'stuff' I think we'll hit the garage sales too.

- Have prices on everything. People don't like to ask for prices so if you have prices on things, you will almost certainly sell more (thanks Michelle for the advice!). Also, price the 'best' items above the price you really want for them. It doesn't seem to matter how incredibly cheap the price is, people still want to bargain.

- Books do not have a good resale value. :(

- A great way to meet your neighbours is to host a garage sale. I met more of our neighbours over the past two days than I've met in the previous three years!

It feels great to be letting go of so many of the things we have accumulated. We still have quite a lot of things left so maybe we'll have one more sale before we go and with everything we've learned, we'll be experts next time!

It is so important to remember...

The Power of the Chiropractic Adjustment

‘There is nothing that I can do about what is wrong with you, what I can do however is address what is right in you. You cannot fight darkness you must turn on the light. You cannot fight disease, you must turn on life.’ Dr Arno Burnier quoting his first chiropractor, Jean Belaval

Garage Sale!

Moving is becoming a reality, with a garage sale in the works this coming weekend.
What an incredible way to find out just how much 'stuff' we have collected!
The details of our next six months are coming into focus. We'll be leaving Mackay at the end of February and heading down to Bundaberg to spend some time with my parents (and gift them with lots of 'stuff'). Hooray for family :o) We will be taking on our first WWOOFing adventure too and creating what will hopefully be a vegetable garden tour de force!
After that we're off to the Gold Coast to look after a dear friend's Chiropractic practice and enjoy quality time with some of my favourite people.

Packing Up Our Lives

The countdown is on.
8 Weeks to go.
So much to sell, put into storage and pack for our travels.
And we still need to find our camper trailer.
We're planning on getting one second hand. Preferably a customline, trackabout or a camel.