The clothes area was very popular. 

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Clean Sweep

This sign tells what Clean Sweep is all about. I hope you agree that it's totally awesome. We netted an all time high revenue: over $13,000. Not bad for a two day yard sale. 

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Clean Sweep

The first day we had people who had waited outside for hours to get first pick of the merch. When the we opened the doors we were inundated with excited customers. There was a long checkout line.

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Clean Sweep

We had a few books in a variety of genres. 

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Reasons We Break (YA fiction)

     "When I started telling friends about this book, some were a bit confused about the premise: wait, there are Indo-Canadian gangs? Aren't gangs only in big cities? Why would teenagers be involved?" 

     I had to admit confusion when I flipped through Jesmeen Kaur Deo's Reasons We Break at the Orono Public Library. I almost didn't check it out because it was over four hundred pages. Fortunately curiosity won out. It's one of the best YA romances ever. It makes cultures and ways of life most of us are unfamiliar with come vividly to life. It engages readers with often taboo subjects. And it creates two protagonists, both fabulous and flawed, that it's very hard not to root for and really care if they end up together...

     ...or even make it out alive, which is far from guaranteed.

     Simran is the ideal daughter in her family and community. She gets top grades and participates in an impressive array of competitions, groups, and volunteer activities. She follows all the rules. She's in college, heading for a respectable career. She's her parents' last hope, their older daughter, Kiran, having deeply disappointed them. 

     Former gang member Rajan is home after ten years in juvi. His family is fragmented: his mother dead, his father distant, and his younger brother in danger of following in his footsteps. He's doing his best to stay clean and follow all the rules necessary to prevent recidivism. But it's so damn hard...

     ...especially with his old gang, Lions Share, doing its best to lure him in again. 

     Simran and Rajan aren't strangers. She tutored him in math in high school. Now she's his community service supervisor. 

     Lions Share operatives kidnap Simran. When she tries hard to get them to leave Rajan alone--He's working so hard to get a fresh start--

     "Nick looks at her like she's being deliberately slow. 'Rajan owes us big money. If it's not me today, it'll be someone else tomorrow and the day after it'll be a bullet in his head.'"

     Simran can't stand to see someone else she cares about suffer. Her mother has just been diagnosed with cancer. She makes a proposition: she'll be their bookkeeper and earn his freedom. 

     Only she does too good a job. She not only straightens out their finances, but decodes ledgers captured from a rival gang. Now she's too vulnerable to the Lions for them to let her go and targeted for death by their rivals. 

     Reasons We Break combines intense fast paced action with real insight into the characters and their relationships. I highly recommend it for its target demographic and way beyond.

On a purrrsonal note, we just wrapped up Clean Sweep clean up. According to Lisa, we netted over $13,000--not too shabby for a two day yard sale. Yesterday Lisa treated the crew to lunch at the Family Dog because we did a really good job. 

Thirty-six years ago today I became a first time mother. 

A great big birthday shout out goes out to Amber, my wonderful older daughter.

Jules Hathaway 

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Clean Sweep

And quite a few chairs. 

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Clean Sweep

We had a lot of furniture including these bureaus. 

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