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If you have the dream of building a home in Baja someday, over time you'll find "deals" on items that would be a great fit for your "someday" Baja home. You'll buy these things, and if you have the room, stash them away until you have a place in Baja to use them.

Over the years (20 or so ), we'd occasionally come across a cool item at a garage or estate sale, or as family downsized we'd score some piece of furniture that seemed like it would be a good fit for a future Baja home. We've managed to put together a pretty good collection of furniture and other "stuff" in our garage attic (we have a 16' tall garage so there's lots of room ).

Now here's the problem: When we were creating our little cache, we were in our early 30's, so lifting a dresser up a ladder was really no big deal. Dining table? No problem! Chairs....Great. Now I'm a little older and a bit more worn out, and as we're preparing to make the move south, I'm staring up into the loft wondering - just what was I thinking? That dresser seems to weigh 100 extra pounds, how did I ever get it up there?

It's all coming down, but not nearly as gracefully as it went up

Sadly though, as we bring items down from the loft, what we thought was cool 20 years ago, isn't close to anything we would want in our home now, nor worth the cost and effort to transport all the way to B.C.S.

I think the unfortunate reality is that we've been saving 20 years for a giant garage sale

On the bright side....if you have a garage sale/moving sale for the current 30-something generation of far-thinking, starry-eyed Baja affectionados, look at the potential for an unexpected cash infusion into your Baja kitty fund!

What you can't sell, you can donate to Goodwill, Salvation Army, local womens' shelters. Get receipts & you can use them for great deductions on your taxes! I did itemized lists of all the things I donated from both my home & my mothers' home & they turned into pretty healthy tax write-offs. Assuming of course, deductions on donations haven't changed too much in the past 10 years! We were downsizing & getting rid of a lot duplicates from two homes, including many many valuable old family antiques that neither of us felt a strong attachment to (never fear....there was still an abundance of antique stuff I couldn't bear to part with!) If you have things that could truly be considered either vintage or antique, call a couple antique dealers & notify them of when you plan to hold a garage sale & they'll want to come by first & to get first crack at buying things they know will have decent resale value. If you know anyone who sells on E-Bay, make them a deal for a % of the profits to list them on e-Bay for you....but they have to do all the work taking pics & creating the listings. Just give them the pertinent facts & history on the true antiques....knowing the true history of things adds value to true collectors. If you have antiques, it might be worth your time to buy a Schroeder's Antiques price guide for under $15 to help you place a fair value on things depending on condition. You'll be truly amazed at what people are willing to pay good money for! I discovered I'd been using what I considered to be an ugly old bowl for a dog water dish that a roommate had left behind years ago....I coulda bought the dog a solid gold water bowl for the price I got for that ugly old bowl after I ran across it's pic in the antique price guide! And of course, I left its' years as a dogs' water bowl out if its' history!

Yeah, I know some of this stuff can be time-consuming, but I was amazed at how much money things we had no further use for brought in, so it can be well worth what time & effort you put into it.

I think donating may be the best way to go, except maybe for some of the larger items we can sell locally on Craig's list. I've been watching the attendance at the local garage sales and it's definitely not what it used to be. One of my neighbors is having a moving sale and has some pretty good stuff. He's been sitting all weekend in front of his house. His pile hasn't been reduced much. I guess the economy's even affecting garage sale attendance.

Just finished three long days of sorting, boxing, labeling, dump runs and hauling items we know will go to Mex into the storage unit. It's amazing how much junk we accumulate over the years. Now I've got to go back to that work thing until we have more time to finish.

Oh...and those antiques? Unless you can classify vintage Wal-Mart as antiques, I don't think we have to worry about that one

As I get older it gets easier to sort things into the go/no go groups. Find myself throwing out/giving away a lot more stuff than I probably would have years ago.

I am not sure if I am just becoming more practical or senile...