Garage sale shopping made much easier with the help of Google

10 years ago the Internet was a brand new thing in our house. With only one computer for our entire family of five (I'm not quite sure just how we survived, but apparently we made it!), our online adventures were just an email check once or twice a week and that's it!

Compare that to now, where we have more computers than we do members of our family. And you may be thinking, "You can only use one at a time. You only have one pair of hands to type on one keyboard at one time." Sorry to say, but that just has no validity to it. If you could take a peek at me now, you'd see me surrounded by three computers, all on and all in use. But most of you who know me, realize that's no great surprise.

And the Internet is not just a once or twice a week email check with a dial-up long distance phone call that we had to limit to only a few minutes. The Internet now is apart of my daily life (no big surprise there, huh?).

But seriously, once upon a time when I needed to know how to spell a word, I opened a dictionary. When I needed a phone number, I opened up the actual hard copy phone book. When I needed to know how to get to X street, I spread out a paper map, trying to figure out which way was up (or to make it much easier, just ask Dad). When I didn't have all the information I needed for a school report, the set of encyclopedias in the bookcase had the answer.

But now, there's only one word for the answer to all of the above: Google. Yep, I can type just about anything in that text box, hit the enter key and in less than 2 seconds have a list of answers at my fingertips.

The Internet and Google have changed so much of what we do. Which brings me to the real reason for this post: Did you know you can now plan your garage sale shopping with Google?

When I read that, it just brought back so many memories of garage sale shopping with Mom. I can just imagine the "planning" that would now go into Mom's garage sale hunting with the use of Google.

Mom loved, just loved "garage sale hopping" as she called it. As spring drew near every year (her favorite time of year), she would eagerly anticipate getting up early on a Saturday morning with the garage sale list cut out of Friday's newspaper and a map of Dodge City (ummm...that was a paper map, not a printed Google one...:)). With three tag-along girls, Mom would plan out her morning of hitting the best sales in one area and then moving onto the next.

It's been I-don't-know-how-long since I've actually been to a garage sale. But I can remember those times my sisters and I went with Mom. She would find all kinds of things, some of them we still have to this day - computer desk, clothes, shoes, bookcases, and so much more.

We would start early in the morning, go from sale to sale and be back home by noon or early afternoon. The best part would be when we got home. We carried in all our "treasures" and laid them out in the family room for Dad to see what we found.

Those of you who knew my Mom, know that she always was looking for a bargain and just about didn't buy anything unless it was on sale. So she would begin to outline for Dad what she bought, why she bought it, what she planned to use it for and the best part of all - how much she paid for it and how much she saved by finding it at a garage sale!

Mom was very thrifty and that is something we often talked and teased her about. We always said, "Mom didn't buy anything unless it was on sale." So when she came home with a few extra groceries that we normally don't get, we knew she only bought it because it was on sale. After every shopping trip she would look over her receipts to make sure she was charged the correct amount for all her sale items.

I'll never forget one of the first times Dad and I went grocery shopping at Wal-Mart, only a few weeks after Mom was gone. As we climbed back into the van after piling the groceries in the back, Dad hands me the receipt and asks me if I want to check it out, making sure we were charged the correct amount.

I responded with, "I think everything is ok because I bought hardly anything that was on sale and that's where the majority of errors are made." When Jena heard that, her comment was, "THAT'S where you made your first mistake.....you didn't buy anything on sale."

With Mom having been gone only a few weeks, the pain of losing her was still fresh, but that brought some smiles to our faces. Because that was so very true. And everytime I remember that conversation, I just can't keep from smiling.

So very true, so very Mom, so very good memories - garage sale hopping, bargain shopping and all!