The M.O.M. Sale

For the past two years, I've coordinated the huge consignment sale that my mother of twins club puts holds twice each year. This is no easy task. Set-up for the sale begins Thursday afternoon at 5, but I get there at 4 to make sure everything is set up and meet the movers who bring all of the racks. We end at 9 that night and start again at 9 the next morning. Drop-off ends at 2:00 and shopping begins for members at 4:00. Friday night is our Friends and Family Preview Sale, which begins at 7:00 and ends at 9:00. We usually finish closing the registers and leave around 10:30. Saturday morning, we arrive at 6:30 and the sale opens to the public from 7am-12pm. Then we break down from 12-2:30, and people pick up their stuff. Karen and I usually leave around 4:00 p.m. So, 48 hours at the church (in the gym), and 10 hours of actual sale time.

My first sale was relatively normal. I set up some new volunteer sign-up procedures and started publicizing it more, and our profits went up from $13,000 the previous sale to $21,540 this time.

The next month, I found out I was pregnant. I was pretty sure I could run a sale while pregnant, but a little nervous since it was right around my 24-week mark, when things got scary with Kyran and Karyssa. That sale went well, though. Again, our profits went up ($26,000) and my volunteers made sure I didn't have to walk around much, since I had already started having contractions at that point.

For the next sale, I made plans with Karen, the co-chair, to do everything leading up to the sale, but not actually be there. I mean, who could run a huge consignment sale with a 2.5-month-old? I can, apparently. If that 2.5-month-old is Gemma. I missed just two hours early Saturday morning (which saw record-breaking sales), and otherwise had Gemma strapped to me or napping in a rock 'n play. Our Friday evening was also getting way up there, now having more than doubled our entire Friday and Saturday sales totals from the sale before I took over to just Friday night for this sale.Our sale total was $30,574

Surely, this sale would be harder. After all, a 9-month-old is much different than a 2-month-old who sleeps all of the time. However, Gemma rocked it again, with me all weekend and I didn't miss any time. I did have a couple of workers assigned to Gemma duty so that she could get some exercise and naps, but for the most part, my wonderful Baby K'Tan was a Godsend again! This sale saw records broken both days, for a grand sale total of $37,200!

When I first started working the sale, I did Executive Sale Committee (ESC - a fancy term meaning you work the entire sale). My first sale, there were 15 of us on ESC.  At one point, we were down to 6. For the past two sales, we've had 17 people on ESC and it really makes a huge difference. This sale, we had more than 60 volunteers filling 180 shifts. Amazing! (Of course, for all of my sales, Jason has worked three of those shifts. I love my sweet husband!)

I feel like quitting while we're ahead, but I enjoy doing it so much that I'm going to stick it out. Who knows, maybe we can break $40,000 next time!