Adair Lara - The Bigger the Sign the Worse the Garage Sale

Anyone who has tried to pass off a $29 Crock-Pot from Marshalls as a purchase from the gourmet appliance section of Macys knows that those discount stickers require a blowtorchand a little telltale orange is still left behind. My friend Donna is the one who keeps the number of her computer repairman inyou got ither computer. People do care more about getting a bargain than they do about price. I know Id rather buy a toaster for $2 at a garage sale than be given it for free. This volume is a sequel to Normal Is Just a Setting on the Dryer, which began when my husband, Bill, and I were talking about Maria Shrivers book, Ten Things I Wish Id Known Before I Went Out into the Real World. I asked friends and readers of my column in the San Francisco Chronicle what they had learned from being in the actual real world, as opposed to the Kennedy-cousin, married-to-Arnold-Schwarzenegger real world.

One woman said, The garment must fit at the moment of purchase. I havent gone into a department-store dressing room since without remembering that. As for the title, The Bigger the Sign, the Worse the Garage Sale , people who take the trouble to make an elaborate sign for their garage sale are taking the whole thing too seriously, and that will be revealed in the prices. Three bucks for a Masters of the Universe figure with an arm torn off? I think not. As someone wisely noted: Not all experience reveals, but all revelation comes through experience. Sometimes denial is good. Sometimes denial is good.

We call it pacing yourself. Orange food rarely disappoints. You learn from your mistakes by making them, not by avoiding them. One key to a happy life is to never, under any circumstances,
Google yourself.

He wasnt perfect. The valentines that come straight from the heart are the ones that kids ten and under make for their moms, with those candy hearts glued on and tiny wet spots where ones fell off. Dont sit on your towel and watch your kid go down the water slide. Go down with him.

No one who cannot train a dog to heel, sit, and stay should be allowed to raise children. You can be right all the time or you can have friends.

The leak in the roof is never where the drip is.

The thing you didnt notice is the thing that gets you in the end. Stick to your guns only if you know how to use them. If they make you dig a trench, dig the most gorgeous trench anybodys ever dug.

No one will remember what you did or what you said.

No one will remember what you did or what you said.

But they will all remember how you made them feel.

When you are filling out that tax form or that self-appraisal for work, remember: people operate on the information you give them.

Just because you can doesnt mean you should. Ruts are underrated. Ruts are what allow you to get good at something. Your neighbor is making a racket and wont stop? Inflate your eight-foot Santa and snowman and put them back on your front lawn. Even if its June.