On Saturday, my friend Monica had this brilliant idea to get a bunch of moms together and have a huge yard sale to get rid of unwanted kid stuff. Brilliant, because not only did we get to clean stuff out of our attics, but also because she managed to get others to participate who all have kids older than hers in varying ages so what it really turned into was the Great Kid Paraphernalia Swap 2007. Just as an example, I sold about $120 worth of stuff, but only came home with about $65 cash, due to my pilfering of other's people's newborn stuff that I thought I could use and get cheap now. Call me a yard sale whore if you like. I prefer to think of it as an investment in my unborn child's future.

Since it was a Monica Event, there was no going halfway. No sticking your crap out on the curb willy nilly for people to pick through. This was organized and elaborate. The yard sale even had it's own blog. There was something for everyone:
I sound like I'm trying to get you all to drive out there today, don't I? I probably would have been more help publishing this post on Friday.

The Dormouse manned a lemonade stand in her first-ever entrepreneurial endeavor:
She made about $5.00, but mostly just from the kid across the street who dubbed it the "best lemonade I ever tasted" and bought six cups, then later came back to report that his mother had told him he probably liked the lemonade because there was a lot of sugar in it. (Umm... duh.) The rest of that was from other moms and dads who came by and enjoyed hearing her yell "Ice Cold Lemonade" and "Thank you, come again!" at the top of her lungs. My child will never be accused of being shy.

The KingOfHearts decided to participate too, dragging the trebuchet he made for one of his college courses out of the attic and pressing it into service for neighborhood entertainment by launching water balloons into the street.
For the whole, made-up story on the trebuchet, you can read here and here. It was a big hit, but not surprisingly, no one wanted to buy it. So it's still available if anyone's interested (not that I'm trying to get rid of his hard earned project or anything... no really, I like storing that thing in my house and using it once every five years).

Every time I go to Monica's garage, I manage to slip on her ultra smooth concrete surface and this was no exception. I am clearly only used to a driveway that contains pocks, potholes, stray pieces of mulch, seed droppings and leaves and have not mastered the fine art of ambulating while upright on a reasonably sound surface. My foot slid about six inches in one small incident involving melted ice on the concrete, but I am still paying for it today and every time I move it's pain, Pain, PAIN. If you see a spike in Tylenol stock as the Dow closes today, I would guess that I'm mostly responsible. It should return to normal in about three weeks, so don't go crazy with the day trading.