Teenage Garage Sale with Heidi Araybe + Giveaway

I'd like to welcome Heidi Ayarbe to bookmarked today! She's here courtesy of the Teen {Book} Scene blog tour for her new release Compulsion. Thank you, Heidi, for being here today! The following is a list of items that would have been found at Heidi's garage sale when she was a teen:

FOR SALE: A PEACH-COLORED PAST (Everything must go … really. The peach HAS to go – this eyesore isn’t for just ANY teen but for one who tends to see the world in the nicest, most positive light – hence the PEACH!) Peach comforter, peach pillows, peach shams, all with matching peach sheets (basket not included).

I AM ALSO SELLING THE WORLD! Posters of Paris, London, China, Japan – travel the world in the safety of your room. If you are anything like I was (and still am), you are not chic. You will never get rid of those cowlicks, but the great thing is, as infinitely un-cool you think you are, the world awaits, and one day you’ll get to see these places, take the pictures with your own camera, wander around ancient cities, cathedrals, soak up the most famous art in the greatest museums … cowlicks and all! I think these posters brought me luck – because I woke up every morning looking at the world, dreaming of other places.

They say you can’t sell and buy Christmas, but you haven’t seen my collection of snow globes, ornaments, figurines … rare and unusual items that only a Christmas fanatic – who dreamed of opening her own year-round Christmas store – would have. So, yes, Christmas is for sale.  Everything from holly-decorated toilet paper to napkins to ever-lasting mistletoe.

I’m also selling my memories – about twenty albums of photos, newspaper clippings, Christmas and birthday cards – all kept in this kind of wacky time-capsule of memory. It has everything from the picture Stephanie Ong drew of Billy Borda – the greatest unrequited love of my teenage years – to the Valentine’s cards I got over the years. There’s even an album with six pages of people I can’t begin to remember. Six pages of memories that, though on film, were not recorded in my memory. Can you imagine a better item than that? And, if you buy these, please tell me, who that girl Moona is! (Yeah. You’d think I’d remember somebody named Moona.)                                                    

It’s hard to part with it, but I’m selling my collection of aluminum cans. Yes, I was that girl who took aluminum cans out of the school garbage for recycling. So, you buy this, you save the world, and perhaps, my friends’ absolute embarrassment about the fact their friend used to dig through garbage cans. In retrospect, it might’ve been clever to do a recycling campaign, demanding the school provide us with recycling bins. Alas, that was twenty years ago. Everything is always clearer from a distance. (Except for that Moona girl. Who is she?)

And to finish off the sale, I’ve got to include tickets and memorabilia from the various – yes VARIOUS, NOT ONE – Oak Ridge Boys concerts I’ve attended over the years. I’ll even throw in their Greatest Hits Album with classics like Elvira, Dream On and more. So, Giddy Up Oom Poppa Omm Poppa Mow Mow . I’ve also got tickets from Reba McEntyre, George Strait, Garth Brooks, and Clint Black – all for you to enjoy my years of country. But nobody  beats the Oak Ridge Boys.

As embarrassingly geeky as I come off, I’m totally okay with this. Luckily, you didn’t ask about my primary school years, as you’d have had to buy a porcelain dog collection, a bicycle chain, a newspaper route vest and softball trophies up the wazoo. Now for the giveaway! Fill out the form below for your chance to win a signed bookplate along with a book Heidi read as a teen. Entrants must be 13 years of age or older and a resident of the United States. Deadline to enter is Saturday, May 7, 11:59PM CST.