Hey Neighbor

I was walking the dogs over the weekend and one of our neighbors (whom I have never met) had a big folder attached to their mailbox with 'Please Take One' written on it.  I was curious, so took one of the papers out and found an invitation to join Nextdoor.  I had never heard of Nextdoor before, but it's a social network site much like Facebook, but only open to select households within a certain area or neighborhood.  The host who sets up the site gets to decide on how many streets/households to include and then invites all of those people to join (either by email, or folder with fliers on their mailbox).  They verify your registration by sending you a postcard at your residence with a code to enter in to gain access.

I. love. this. site.  Not only is it awesome to stalk my neighbors and find out their names, the age of their kids and types of dogs they have, but also because you can share recommendations and advice about things in the area, post items to give away or sell, and best of all FIND BABYSITTERS.  There are two teenage girls who just moved here with their family from the UK living literally a half a block away. They posted their numbers and experience and I swear I was jumping up and down with excitement. 

My quest for babysitters has been extensive, and time consuming, and all this time I have had two super qualified, British Mary Poppins' right in my backyard.  Woo-Hoo!

It's also neat to post things like when you want to have a garage sale so you can coordinate a weekend with the whole street and gain more traffic, or even to post an invite for a last minute BBQ to get to know some of your neighbors a little better. 

So check it out: https://nextdoor.com.  It's free and awesome.