Madison

Last week, a group of women from my Mom's church hosted an estate sale at her house in Madison. My sister and I had taken out as much as we wanted and my stuff is now being stored at our cabin in Three Lakes. As you can imagine, sorting through 40 years of stuff and deciding what was worth keeping was totally overwhelming. It's not like we necessarily wanted all of it for ourselves, but it was also really hard to let it all go knowing it was part of our parents' house for so many years. Everything seemed to have meaning and significance and a memory attached. Anyway, we were told that the sale went very well, and almost everything sold. The few remaining household items were donated to charity immediately following the sale. My sister drove over from Milwaukee yesterday to do some cleaning (the house has also seen a steady flow of realtors and prospective buyers) and found an eerily empty house. I've never been to an estate sale, but I have a feeling they attract some crazy people. The sale started at 8:30 Wednesday morning, and we heard from a friend that 10 people were already lined up by 6:00 AM! But it gets better... we heard from a neighbor that one guy actually slept in his van in front of the house so that he could be the first in line. I wonder if he was pleased with whatever kind of treasures he discovered in our house.