DOL and It is Time

No, I did not misspell doll. I meant to say DOL.

My daughter has a winter hat with those initials on it and it has stuck with me. It stands for “Dream Out Loud”.

So, that is what I am doing today, finally.

I am no longer just saying I am going to do it “someday”, I am doing it, on a specific day.

Bear with me if you will, but I need to take you back to 2003. I started then pulling articles from magazines about “seasonal barn sales”. You know the kind I am talking about, they are everywhere now. I have been wanting to do one forever, but I have never had the courage to put myself out there. Anytime I got close to moving forward, I felt pretty much naked and I backed off.

A while back, our church got a new sign out front. I know, it seems like I am all over the place, again, stay with me. Anyway, there is a spot on that sign to put a weekly message which our pastor always has some fun with. One week, about 8 months ago, he had the simplest message. He said it was the message that got the most response to. It simply said…

“It is time”

Everyone got a different message from it. I got the push that I needed. It is actually about the time I started blogging for real. It is actually one of the main goals of my blog. To keep me focused on this goal, to keep me productively moving in that direction, to have my own barn sale.

Any my blog has succeeded it keeping me focused. Yes, there are other goals, many of them probably quite similar to all of yours. But this is the one I don’t want to look back on and realize I never did it, I never took the risk.

If you have wondered why I actually have never fully photographed my home, while although I now have a beautiful blog design, it is somewhat unfinished. It is because I have been hunting for vintage treasures. I have been scouring wholesale catalogs, ordering bags, hang tags, business cards, the list goes on and on. This is what I have needed to do to keep my focus on the sale. I hope you will bear with me over the next few weeks as I may be a little crazy and busy...

and feeling completely naked.

So here is the invite

The biggest obstacle for this, other than myself, has been where to do it. Anytime we thought we found a place to rent, the obstacle was we didn’t have any inventory. So, I decided the first step was to take away that obstacle. So, that is why I go to so many auctions. I really am not a hoarder. I kept hoping that the Barn Gods” would intervene and we would find the perfect place. So, I went forward and began ordering and buying. And we have really worked over the last few weeks to find the perfect place. Turns out, everything has worked out that we will do it right here in our own “barn”.

What is wrong with that? Not a lot, we have friends who do similar sales at the Holidays in their home and it is very successful and inspiring. The biggest challenge is my girls. I am a marketer at heart and I would promote the heck out of this thing if it wasn’t in my home. So, I am going to rely on “word of mouth” within my community. Actually, we have found a potential space for the next time if this is successful, but for this sale in will be in our home.

The way things worked out it just seems to me that this is what is meant to be this time, so I am going with it.

If you are local to the Orange County, NY area, and you are interested in coming, please email me and I will give you the information.

I will be sharing more details about this journey as I move forward. I never said anything before now because I didn’t want to say it and then not do it. So guess what? There is no turning back now! I feel naked, naked, naked and nauseous, I am not gonna lie!

So, how about you, what have you been dreaming about..

Is it time to start Dreaming Out Loud?

P.S. Yes, I do know now that the DOL is from the Selena Gomez line from Kmart, I know a little lame, but you have to take inspiration where you find it!