My brother tried selling solar hot dogs.

I opened an ill-fated gymnastics school.

My sister tried to sell grape Koolaid at a neighbor’s garage sale, but I think she drank it all.

These days, my kids have dreams of selling pizza puffs and hot cocoa over our back fence to greenbelt walkers.

It’s the season of the child capitalist, and I wrote about my brush with several earnest neighborhood business owners over at Mile High Mamas. Come say hello and tell me what businesses you had!

Over at Facebook, I mentioned I gave my college-era Converse All-Stars low-top shoes to Ryley. I had a few requests for photos, and I am posting them here, rather than there, because when I attempted to make an album it asked for my permission to allow Facebook “unrestricted access” to my computer. No.

Presenting my former shoes, now worn by my eldest son:

I had to assure them they weren’t girl shoes. That would be disgusting. Strangely, he didn’t care they are almost 20 years old.

The first official airing-out of the shoes happened last night. We went on a bikeride/walk/run/splash/rock-chuck/flowering weed-gather around our neighborhood. Here are the four big boys, having post-adventure popsicles:

A lovely bouquet: