Working together is important. When you can work together and laugh together at the same time, life is sweet.

Shared purpose brings Peace.

For two months now a dedicated team has been working to put together this huge extravaganza of a yard sale that takes place for five days. (thank heavens for a sabbath in between! whew!)

Friday morning at 6:45 am I rolled in LONG after others had been working to get things set up.

The doors were supposed to open at 8. They opened at 7 and people came pouring in.

Now, if you know me at all, you know I’m an extreme extrovert with an incredibly chaotic mind. This much chaos is over load for me. But people are so excited. Oooooh! look at this! Imagine! All day long, people thrilled over the bargains.

And all day long, community members are helpful and enjoying themselves. You have the chance to get to know people you’ve never known as you check out customers, or dish up hamburger barbecue. (Oh, we laughed: a woman started to tell us about her business helping people make life style changes with resultant weight loss, by cutting out gluten and sugar. Meanwhile we were all stuffing hotdogs in our faces, and following them up with homemade black walnut brittle chasers… she didn’t get any clients today at the yard sale — unless after the sale is over we all feel badly about all the cookies we ate! Just another way friendships are built!)

But it was flat out fun today, because the people are grand. Poor Marie tries to organize us and manages despite our camraderie and general ineptitude at sales. Meanwhile people keep buying stuff and we move toward balancing the budget. And it’s not all about the money, although that’s its purpose, it’s also about people’s buying things they can’t otherwise afford: dishes and pots and pans disappear pretty quickly. Clothes find their way home to people who need them (and, ahem, some of us who don’t!)

Building solvency. Building community. Eating good food! Yum! Fun! Peace.

Peace is where you find it. It’s where you make it. Say, can I get you a bag for your stuff?