Five Go-old Rings!

This is a post where I am mostly going to re-direct you to a bunch of older posts in order to appear "helpful," when really what I mostly am is "lazy."

Firstly, since it is getting close to Christmas, some of you may be starting to panic if there are still people that you haven't crossed off your list yet.  You know how it is, you want to get them something nice, but you are running out of time, and you're afraid you're going to end up buying them something cheezy out of desperation.  Perhaps I can help.  Go here to read all about my friend at Silversmyth who makes hand-made jewelry-beautiful, practical, AND personal.  (Just substitute "Mother's Day" for your holiday of choice as you read).   

Here is a showcase of some of the pieces you can find at Silversmyth.com

In case you're curious, you can see the Silversmyth herself at work here

Even if you don't buy anything, stop over and tell her I said, "Hi!"  She's quite sweet!

Maybe jewelry isn't your thing.  That's ok, because in the post I referenced you to earlier (here it is again, in case you forgot in all this holiday madness!), you can also read about the fabulous chocolates at Lesley's Life is Sweet.  Not only does she make chocolate to die for, but she donates part of her proceeds to charity, and I'm pretty sure that officially cancels out any guilt that might be associated with indulging in the chocolate.  

Okay, so maybe jewelry isn't your thing and nobody you know likes chocolate, and you'd just like to make some charitable donations this year to help out those less fortunate than you.  Guess what!  I have a post for that too!  Here is a roundup of some of my favorite charities and why I like them.  Maybe one of them will catch your eye, or maybe you have some of your own favorite charities.  Either way, donations (of time or money) are greatly appreciated, especially now with more and more people finding themselves in need and more and more people finding themselves with less to give.  

What is standard practice for gift giving in your family, and is it changing this year due to the current economic situation?  Are you finding it difficult, or is it a freeing change of pace?  Whatever your situation is this year, I hope you are finding ways to celebrate the important things like friends and family.   

Blogging for a Worthy Cause

Until I read about it today at fivecentnickel.com I had no idea that today was Blog Action Day.  The theme this year is poverty, and bloggers are encouraged to discuss this topic today to try to bring awareness.  Nickel has generously agreed to match food bank donations made by his readers, so please check out his post and see if you can contribute.  If not, that's ok, but maybe you will be inspired to do something else.  

I have been meaning to do a post about some of the organizations that are featured in my "I think you're nifty too!" sidebar, and this seems like the perfect opportunity. 

Habitat for Humanity "seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action."  They help build houses for people who wouldn't be able to afford a house through traditional means.  Most of the materials and labor are donated, and the houses are sold for no profit to the recipient families.  The families who receive houses must invest "sweat equity" by assisting in the actual building of the house and by helping to build houses for other families.  If they are physically unable to participate in the building process, they can volunteer in other ways.  Habitat's program is a great example of a hand-up not a hand-out mentality and it fosters a lot of community/neighborhood support by getting local people involved in the building of a house.  I've volunteered on a work site, and while there weren't many of us who knew how to build a house, there were enough people that did who could instruct the rest of us about where to pound nails, how to cut the necessary lengths of lumber, etc.  The progress we made in one day was pretty impressive, and it was a great feeling to know that you were helping to give a family a home.  

Heifer International is another great "hand-up not a hand-out" program.  Heifer works with families and communities to educate people about animal husbandry and farming techniques that are sustainable and, very importantly, relevant to their local areas.  Heifer recipients must also pass on the gift by sharing their wealth and knowledge with their community or other communities.  For just $20 you could provide a family with a flock of ducks, geese, or chicks or you could purchase a share of a llama.  A flock of birds can provide a family with protein for themselves as well as providing a new stream of income through the sale of eggs and fowl.  Sometimes this can be the difference between a child being able to receive an education or not.  The recipient family must also pass on a part of their flock to another family in need, and so forth and so on.  You can purchase anything from a beehive to a water buffalo.  This is a great chance to get a child interested in charitable giving!

Kiva.org facilitates microcredit loans to people in the developing world.  You can lend as little as $25 and know that it is going to help somebody who is trying to build a better life for themselves and their families.  Recently there was so much interest in Kiva.org that they actually ran out of loans to fund!  This is amazing, but they seem to be back on track with new entrepreneurs awaiting loans.  You can read a brief biography on all the loan applicants and decide to whom you want to lend money.  To date I have loaned out $950, $723 of which has been paid back.  Lenders don't earn interest on their loans, but then that's not really the point.  The point is that you're doing something good with your money.

Lesley's Life is Sweet is founder Lesley Byrne's way of fulfilling her mission to "help end extreme hunger, poverty and diseases in the world through the sales of [her] artisan chocolates and gourmet confections."  Her chocolates are amazing-you can read about how they made me cry here-and you can eat them completely guilt-free because by doing so you are helping to make the world a better place!  How's that for win-win?

Women for Women International is a great organization that goes into war-torn communities and helps rebuild those communities one woman at a time.  In times of war women are often the most victimized and also are the ones left to rebuild when all of their men have died in war.  These women need to know that they have rights as individuals, what those right are, how to stand up for those rights, and how to exercise those rights.  They also need to be able to provide food, clothing, shelter, and, hopefully, an education for their families.  Women for Women International's programs help women develop literacy and vocational skills, learn about their rights and become active members in their communities.  Individual women are sponsored through monthly donations, and their sponsors are encouraged to communicate with them via letters.

Of course any of these organizations will accept cash donations and, indeed, rely on them to continue doing what they do, but if you can donate your time, even better.  Please check out these organizations to see if any of them might be a good fit for you or let me know which organizations you've found that you would like to share.  

**Update-10/23/08-You all know how much fun I have finding the little coincidences between what I'm reading and my everyday life.  Well this time it has to do with what you're reading (in this case, my blog!) and my everyday life.  Don't worry, I haven't gone totally off my rocker; I realize that there's usually going to be some tie in between what I write and what's actually going on in my life, and I'm not going to start pointing it out to you all the time-(Hey, guess what!  I just wrote about going to the mall, and today, I was AT THE MALL!!  Ooooooh.).  

I have worked with Habitat for Humanity in the past, but I haven't been in touch with them recently, and while putting together this post, I was thinking, Hmmm, I really should get in touch with them again and see if they need any help right now.  Well, 3 days later, they called me!  They were trying to pull together some last-minute help for the following day's annual kitchen and bath tour and wanted to know if I could help.  I could and I did!  So, yay me!  Ok, it would have been a much bigger and better "yay, me!" if I had called them, but still.  You gotta start somewhere.    

Stop Wasting Time Reading Blogs and Buy Your Mother a Gift! (But not before you finish reading this.)

Okay, first of all, for those of you who haven't been paying attention, Mother's Day is this Sunday, May 11. Slackers. That means if you haven't already figured something out, you are running out of time (and are a big, giant slacker). I have a couple of ideas that might help keep your butt out of a sling. These are gifts that still say, "I put some thought into this," and may even excuse you for a belated gift, and they are affordable without being cheap. Nobody wants the cheap kid on Mother's Day.

1) Chocolates that will make her cry. I'm not talking about a box of chocolates that you ran out and bought at Long's Drugs or Walgreens on Saturday night when you stopped to pick up some Aspirin and Cheetos on the way home. I'm talking about organic chocolates made with dark sugar, cane rum and island bananas or how about Equadorian dark chocolate and filled with a mix of plum wine and plum puree? No? Mom needs a little more kick to her chocolates? How about a dark chocolate ganache with Tullamore Dew Whiskey? Oh, now YOU'RE interested. I see how you are. Go ahead and order a box for yourself while you're at it.

I ordered some of these as gifts for Christmas in 2006. I'd never tasted them before, but they sounded wonderful, and I ordered A LOT. I owned a Cold Stone and thought these would make nice gifts for my employees. The day they arrived, I had been in the store for about 9 or 10 hours, hadn't eaten anything all day, and was trying to decide whether to grab something to eat before my hour drive home or not. Instead, I opened up my box of chocolates to inspect everything. Along with my order, Lesley, the owner, had included a little sampler pack. You have no idea how happy this made me! I grabbed those suckers and headed out to my car. I don't remember which flavors she sent me, but I was having a hard time deciding which one to try. Whichever one it was, it was SO GOOD I STARTED CRYING. I know this may not seem very impressive, given my previous disclaimers about how everything makes me cry, but food has never been one of those things. Seriously, they were that good!

Now, it could be that I hadn't eaten anything all day, or it could have been the relief that I hadn't just spent hundreds of dollars on a sub-par product, or it could have been that after being in the store all day, these were the only bit of joy that were available to me, but these chocolates held up. I did include a box for myself in my order, and every time I'd eat one, I'd get a little teary-eyed. Oh, AND they lasted. I can usually devour a box of chocolates all by myself in one or two sittings, but I would eat one or two of these, be totally satisfied, and be able to put them away until the next day because even someone like me can't eat that much goodness all at once.

So go visit the Life Is Sweet web site and pick out a nice collection of chocolates for Mom. You can go to their Artisanal Chocolate Flavor List to see descriptions of all the different flavors. There are several different collections available, AND Lesley donates part of her proceeds to support various fabulous charities. Mom will understand if her gift is a little late when she finds out you took the time to order a box of artisan chocolates for her and that in doing so, you made a donation to a good cause on her behalf. It just might make her cry. And if the chocolates don't make her cry, take them away from her and send them to me because, clearly, your mother has no soul and does not deserve chocolates this good. (One disclaimer: If you are ordering close to a holiday, they may be out of certain flavors, so you might not get all of the flavors that are listed in a collection, but Lesley and her crew will do their best to give you a good sampling of what they've got. If you find a particular confection that you are really set on, you might want to call and ask about it's availability. This could actually work in your favor-"Mom, I'm sorry your gift is late, but the hand-crafted organic chocolate collection that I ordered for you is still being made. They were out of the saffron-infused cream and Moroccan mint when I called, and I wanted to make sure those were included in your order.") Can you feel the tears coming to her eyes?

2) Hand-made jewelry. You can go to any Kay Jewelers or Zales and find Mom some diamond-studded ring or pendant that 8,000 other last-minute shoppers will be buying for their mothers too. Not that these aren't lovely, I'm sure, but come on. Get Mom something that doesn't scream out, "Oh @$^*! I forgot to get you something for Mother's Day, so I picked this up at the mall! Sorry about the Cheeto dust on the box."

Have something hand-made or even custom-designed. Julie at Silversmyth creates hand-made jewelry at reasonable prices. She makes these cool little box pendants that would be perfect for Mom. Not only is it a unique piece of jewelry, but there's room inside for a little note or a tiny picture of her kids or grandkids (your mom's kids, not Julie's, although I'm sure her kid's picture would fit in there as well). She also makes earrings, bracelets, rings, and chains, all the stuff you'd expect a jeweler to do. You can order off her web site or call her to discuss an idea for something original. Again, you might not be able to get this by Mother's Day, but if you tell Mom her gift is going to be delayed because the artist is still working on her original design, she'll probably cut you some slack; and if she doesn't, confiscate the gift when it arrives and send it to me because, clearly, your mother has no soul and does not deserve a beautiful piece of custom, hand-made jewelry.

3) Hand-crafted chocolates AND custom jewelry. You might want to reserve this for if you've REALLY screwed up bad recently or if you just have a really great mom and you want to let her know. Awwwwww!

I like these gifts for a couple of reasons. For one thing, I'm actually not big on consumerism (all evidence above to the contrary), but I believe in spending money on quality things that you really like. If you're going to buy chocolates, buy good chocolates and help out a worthy cause while you're at it. If you are going to buy jewelry, buy something thoughtful and unique that the recipient will love for both its beauty and the meaning behind it. Most people I know don't need more stuff. Raise your hand if you know someone who NEEDS another trinket to put on her bookshelf or another "World's Best Mom" coffee mug. Chocolates are consumable and jewelry allows you options-you can wear it or not, and you don't have to figure out what to do with it.

And finally, remember that you don't have to just celebrate YOUR mom on Mother's Day. Stepmoms, friends who are new moms, the mother of your child (AHEM! Guys, pay attention!), grandmas, aunts, or anyone else who has been like a mom to you. I'm not saying that you have to go out and buy stuff for all these people, but at least acknowledge them with a call or a visit to say thanks for being in my life.