I have my house back! After the uproar of flipping the bedrooms and my office/craft room around the last couple weeks, I have finally settled my living space and taken my house back.

My youngest daughter’s best friend has moved in with us for their senior year and I gave them the office/craft room for their living space and moved my office into my oldest daughter’s room, which was the biggest of the two bedrooms. My oldest ended up in my youngest’s former room.

There have been many points in these last few weeks that I have wallowed in despair. So I made a goal that by the time my sister came for her summer visit last Thursday, the house would be livable.

Still, I had a difficult time snapping out of my desolation, until I realized that it didn’t really matter what the kids’ rooms looked like, only the main living spaces. There’s this wonderful invention they call a door.

So with renewed energy, I dug in Wednesday morning and picked up the last of the debris from the living room, dining room and kitchen. When my daughters and her friend arrived later in the morning, the house was ready for a good vacuuming, dusting and mopping. The girls handled it while I settled other matters.

Unfortunately, we still had other hot spots. Both the front and back patios were filled with bags of items and furniture that didn’t make the cut. We planned to sluff off the rest in a yard sale last Friday.

I got too cocky with my dreams of all the money I’d make; I had a lot of good stuff, after all. I’ve had several yard sales in the 23 years I’ve lived in this house and all but the last one was a bust. It seemed I never got the right day – was there a manual I missed or something?

But my last one, about four years ago, was on the first sunny day in April in an otherwise very rainy spring. People were hungry for something exciting to do after being cooped up all winter and spring. A yard sale was just the ticket.

I don’t know why I thought I had conquered the yard sale karma this time when it was not the first sunny day of spring nor had people been lacking for yard sales lately. It was a fiasco. The kids all made about $40 each as I let them keep the take from whatever was sold that was theirs, as long as they stuck it out with us. I personally made a grand total of $27.

Ten dollars of that was even in question as it was from a plastic storage chest that was formerly in my oldest daughter’s room. It had been mine in a previous life and I reminded her she had gotten it as a tradeoff for letting her sister have her desk.

By the end of the day, we were all exhausted. I was frustrated and ready to just take it to Goodwill. My family talked me into openingSaturday morning for a spell. So I woke up at 6:30, made my coffee, my husband made me breakfast, I prayed for redemption and headed out to set up again. It was rainy. Sometimes the answer to our prayers is not necessarily the one we want.

So I rallied the troops and we packed it up and off to Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul (gotta share the love). The reality is, we can make more writing off the stuff on our taxes than holding a yard sale. I have $27 in my pocket to prove it.

Gretchen Leigh is a stay-at-home mom who lives in Covington. You can read more of her writing and her daily blog on her website or on Facebook at “Living with Gleigh.”