DONKEY AND CARROT

         Saturday, I spent the entire day going through just one box of John’s gold card collection. I sorted them and produced an Excel spreadsheet with the type of card, series number and worth…if known. I even went so far as to list two of them on E-bay, but I was really just shooting in the dark when it came to listing a price. 

          This is just one small box of cards…there’s lots more, and I’m feeling so very overwhelmed by the work I’ll need to do to sell them as well as a variety of other items I know have value.

          Yes, I have someone coming to take a look at this entire mess and let me know if her company can put together some kind of estate sale. However, some of the specialty items like gold cards won’t be the type of item that would do well in an estate sale. These items I’ll need to get appraised and most likely find a way to sell myself. 

          I know someone who will be looking at the family home once the parents pass away. It is filled from basement to the rafters with stuff. Some of that stuff has to be worth some money, but my friend has said she’d just as soon dribble a little gasoline around, throw a match through the door and walk away. I sort of feel like that myself. 

          Now, I wish I’d browbeat John into doing something about his mess. Not that browbeating would have led him to sell one single item, but he could have shared where to go to get appraisals and where to look when it comes to selling these esoteric items. It would also have forced him into putting everything into some order. As it is, I have multiple file cabinets and tool cabinets where nothing is sorted. There are boots, screwdrivers, electric saws, and other stuff I can’t even come close to identifying all jumbled together. That also doesn’t take into consideration the four safes, two of them gun safes. The gun safes don’t necessarily contain guns and the other safes have stamps, more cards and who knows what else.

          When fall came along last year, I figured I’d have the majority of the stuff in the house sorted and boxed and labeled in some fashion. I even thought I’d be selling a lot of stuff on E-bay, but yesterday was the first listing after the initial two I did in September 2019…nothing sold then either.

          Of course, sitting at this computer and writing these blog posts allows me to ignore the need to sort and classify and organize. I really resented spending an entire day going through those cards and creating a spreadsheet. I really resent John leaving me with such a mess. We were retired together for seven years and could have organized everything beautifully if he’d been willing to give me the time, or I’d been willing to be super annoyed and demanding.

          I have a new plan for the coming days/weeks. Once I’ve made my daily healthy trek around the neighborhoods with my neighbor, I’m going to spend the next hour (maybe more) in John’s bedroom going through stuff, organizing and making lists. I’ll need those whether I hire someone to do an estate sale or I do it myself. To encourage me toward this effort, I’m not going to allow myself to sit at this keyboard and do what I enjoy so much more…writing whatever comes into my little mind. That will be the carrot before this donkey…I’ll have to see if it works.