Giving a Little Girl New Boots

snow summit
snow summit,
originally uploaded by ::coco Rina::.

 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! Find this same picture on Philly Moms Blog with an inspirational story that happened to me this week when I gave a mom shoes for her little girl for winter. It was a wonderful experience for me and I hope you are inspired as well! Thank you for reading and God Bless!

Welcoming a friend to the blogosphere!

I want to welcome my dear old friend Jenna to the blogosphere! She just started Perpetual Providence. Always a well-spoken writer, she is a deep soul and I am sure you will appreciate her thoughtful words! Please stop by to say hi!

Ten Thousand Villages: Handicrafts from around the World

Four ceramic ornaments, with intricate pressed patterns, painted red and gold, nestle in a small divided paper box in front of me. Red shredded paper cushions the delicate treasures in an ivory recycled-paper box. The back holds a small tag with the price of $10, the words "Made in Bangladesh," and a SKU number added for inventory purposes.

Over the past year, I have agreed to review more products online to introduce my readers to what the world has to offer. When a representative from Ten Thousand Villages responded to my request for new items, I had to smile.

In 1987, I was about to graduate college and couldn't decide what to do next. Taking a break from worrying about my future, I went to a youth retreat in the mountains of North Carolina where I heard a speaker named Tony Campolo encourage young kids to serve the Lord in a variety of ways. He ended his talk with a plug for the college where he taught. At the time, graduate students from Eastern College (now University) could get a Masters in Economic Development with a focus on either urban or global studies. I was attracted to the idea of using my business training to help other people learn to start their own businesses to promote their skills and crafts.

With $500 to my name, I headed North to St. Davids, PA. During the course of the program, many graduate students in the global economic development program were from the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), the missions branch of the Mennonite Church. Many were missionaries overseas and came to America to develop business skills to take back to teach the women and men in third world countries to use their skills and talents to bring in necessary income. Many of the fair trade items (or crafts made without child slavery and other oppressive factors) were being sent to America to the retail outlet of MCC called Self-Help Crafts, which later became its own entity as it grew.

When I finished my graduate degree, I was inspired by the work of my fellow students but rather than going overseas, I saw an opportunity to work in one of the local Self-Help Craft stores. For three years (starting the day I got home from my honeymoon), I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the new items come in, new countries added and new variations of many materials come through the store. I had the opportunity to share the stories of the ceramic and jute art of the Bangladeshi women, the stories of the pressed metal art from Haiti, of the sleek neem wood sculptures from Kenya, of the richly woven rugs from Pakistan and so much more. I would take boxes of the items to various church bazaars and festivals around the Christmas season to spread education and delight in the products that I had come to love.

The year before I quit to raise my children as a stay-at-home-mom, the store changed its name to Ten Thousand Villages to reflect the vast number of places represented and how they all came together in what our stores had to offer. I was there to witness the evolution of the graphic design, choice of name and move towards standardized products so that catalogs, inventory control and websites could be maintained. I am so glad to see the organization doing so well. It does my heart good!

The website shares the following:

Logo

"At Ten Thousand Villages, we work with over 120
artisan groups in more than 30 countries in Africa,
Asia and Latin America to bring you fair trade
jewelry, home decor, gifts and more. As one of the
world's oldest and largest fair trade organizations,
we build long-term relationships with artisans that
are based on mutual understanding and respect.
Fair trade enables artisans to earn a fair wage and
provides the opportunity for a better quality of life."

And about the women who made these specific ornaments:

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"CORR stands for Christian Organization for Relief and Rehabilitation. Corr–The Jute Works is a women’s nonprofit handicraft marketing trust and exporter of quality handicrafts. Based in Dhaka, Bangladesh, The Jute Works represents more than 4,000 rural women artisans in 154 workshops."

Please do go check out the website and order some wonderful, meaningful Christmas gifts OR find a store near you and support the local store efforts as well! I always loved making up the Christmas display with all the nativities scenes representing so many different countries and all the cool Christmas ornaments that are great teachers and friend gifts. Remember to ask for the little cards, if available, that tell the story of the artisan groups. If the store doesn't have them, I just saw an impressive listing of artisan stories on the website. Go check it out!

Weekly Round-up!

Lindsey finished her first ever school play tonight! She was sooo excited she said that it was the most fun thing she had ever done. It certainly does my heart proud to see her so happy. On the way home, we talked about the VLOG (or video log) of her performance.

"So, the whole world can see me performing?"
"Yes, does that make you nervous?"
"Yes"
"Well, don't worry, Lindsey, I don't have TOO many readers."
"I know. You don't have anything but laundry to blog about anyway."
"Gee, thanks."

BUT, on a non-laundry note,  I would love to show you everything I got from the awesome New York trip last week when I was able to escape the laundry piles for a few hours — but NOT HERE! Come on over to Genesis Moments Reviews for a special thank you to Team Mom and all the wonderful vendors that gave us some really cool stuff afterward.

And in between laundry stacks, I had time to write THIS POST on Diversity at Philly Mom Blogs.

There is so much going on around bloggy land! Giveaways, gift guide and greener pastures galore. There is so much to see and read. I would love to give you some of my favorites but maybe tomorrow. My eyes are shutting tonight. Time to give the blogosphere a rest.

Today, I having been hearing rumblings about BlogHer in Chicago next summer. Oh, what to do?! What to do?! If you are a blogger and reading this, are you going?

My first VLOG! Lindsey's Big Moment!

The days of elsewhere

Hey, it's been months but I finally wrote a frugal post for Blissfully Domestic on "Frugal Living: Maintaining Your Kitchen Tools." Tomorrow will be a post on "Diversity Training" over at Philly Moms Blog where the topic of the day is "Diversity." But, I think I missed my bi-weekly post at Chic-Critique today. Oh well. Sorry! Too much to keep up with right now. Looks like Jo-Lynne posted on skincare.

I also totally missed a woman for breakfast and I can only wonder what else I am missing.

What I did get accomplished today was cleaning my downstairs, exercising, finishing one Story of My Life story and interviewing for another. I am loving these interviews and getting to know all kinds of cool people. I have about 5 new ones to go up that are in the final stages of editing, getting pictures, etc. Yeah!

Oh, Lindsey had so much fun in her first school play last night! She was fair president who awards Wilbur his award in Charlotte's Web. Sooo cute. The casting director did a great job with the kids. Wilbur, Fern, and Charlotte were all very good at their long parts for so young of actors. I was impressed. Lindsey is in the soldier looking jacket – not the bug eyes. That's Charlotte's babies. Below the first picture is Charlotte. The costumes were great!

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Wordless Wednesday: House of Ladies

100_0480 100_0484 Carmel Loves Her Tummy Rubs! The girls and I play while Daddy is away! (But we still miss him so I am glad he is coming home Thurs.!)

For More Wordless Wednesday, go to 5 Minutes for Mom and the official WW HQ!

Getting Out There from In Here

It is fun to write around the blogosphere for various sources. It does make it hard to thoughtfully compose for my blog which I haven't done much of lately and it has seriously hurt my site. BUT, does it matter? REALLY. That is the question.

If I am connecting with the blogosphere in a new way and getting the social networking out of my system, does it matter that my personal blog declines? I would love your input on whether you write for different sources or just for your own blog and why? What has been your experience – good or bad?

One area that has just exploded for me is personal stories for Story of My Life. This last weekend I sent an notice out through HARO (or Help A Reporter Out by Paul Shankman) that I was looking for interesting stories and people who had taken that story to "the next level." I got over 100 responses from many different interesting and amazing people. It is incredible what people have gone through and are ready to share with the world. I was blown away. I am still working through reply repsonses. Is it so bad to prefer to write their stories than work on my own here? I don't think so. I have had plenty of opportunity to tell my "stuff" here.

I am hoping that by writing their stories, I am giving them a gift. Perhaps some people struggle with the pesky old English language or maybe they are really good at writing but their own stuff is too personal for them to put on paper. From doctors to movie directors, I was surprised people hadn't written their own stories. Maybe they have. I'm not complaining. I am excited to get to know them! I will certainly start posting here when new stories go up because that is truly the outlet of my most creative thinking right now.

Here are a few other things I am doing. Stop by to say "HI!"

Reviewsings: Bosch Mixxo
My Review Site: Epson Printer

I also have a frugal posting pending at Blissfully Domestic on the I-Go and Sarah Pinto's wonderful planners and I'll let you know when that come through! I think a post is about to go up on Blog Nosh Magazine and I owe Chic Critique a beauty product review on Thursday. "Round and round and round I go, where I stop nobody knows" – which is why I am telling you here now.

Ohh, but you must check out something that is not mine but my friend's brain child: Jo-Lynne's Holiday Gift Guide with tons of giveaways! She has worked SO hard on this. Click on the picture below to get there.

Here's to seeing you around the blogosphere. Partay on!

Planning a Day of Prayer

Over at Philly Moms Today!

Stop by to say HI! I am posting over at the budding Philly Moms Blog all about my experience breaking the world's biggest pinata!

Well, actually, I didn't break pinata. I just stood in a crowd of 300 background extras while the tech crew broke the pinata but it was fun nonetheless!

 And, more reviews coming! I have a wonderful Mixxo sitting here just waiting for me to write about it and I will be posting that sometime today. At Blissfully Domestic, I'll let you know when my frugal post goes up all about maintaining your kitchen tools and about gadgets that help organize and simplify!

Follow me on Twitter if you want quick and easy reminders. I put links up on the different posts when they go up. Do you ever use Twitter? If so, what do you like best?