DonorsChoose.org -- technology meets charity on a personal level

You may notice there's a new widget on my blog. I now have a Giving Page on DonorsChoose.org of my very own. I'm not doing this as part of a challenge (although they kind of forced me to join one, weird), I just want to try to pitch in and send some attention to teachers that I think deserve some help for their cool projects.

If you aren't familiar with how DonorsChoose.org works let me explain. Teachers post proposals with the help of the DonorsChoose.org people and you go search through them and find ones that you want to donate to. You are donating whatever amount you want to a specific teacher's project. You can sort and filter based on all sorts of things. I chose to focus on Special Needs classrooms that are serving preschool age kids. Once I had put a few of those on my page I got excited and added some more where the total needed is less than $100. That means that your $25 or $50 or $100 (or $5 if you're in a boat like mine) could complete the funding of this proposal and get the materials needed into those kids' hands. So please, take a minute and see if there is something that inspires you. Use my page as a starting off point or just go to DonorsChoose.org and search on your own.

I had heard of this website linking donors directly with teachers last year during their Bloggers Challenge. It fell out of my head until I saw an ad on YouData tonight. Go, YouData!

Buddy Walk!!!

It's this weekend in our part of the world. Come join us!

Sponsor me!

Join our team (Biscuit Patrol)!

Learn more about the local group your dollars will be supporting!

Find a Buddy Walk in your area!


Get off your duff and walk a mile with us!

Busy, busy, hard, hard.

That about sums up my life right now. I have 9 tabs open in Chrome (Google's new browser that I'm trying out) of things I need to do or write about. I also have a text file with the urls of 6 more. I think that I'll just go with a bullet list for now.

• I'm going to vote for Obama. Even though Gov. Sarah Palin also has a son with Down syndrome, I am not changing my support just for that. There's a lot more to a person than how many copies of his 21st chromosome her son has. Obama gives me hope, and I enjoy voting *for* someone instead of strategically trying to make my vote count. Blah.
• I'm not going to see Tropic Thunder, but then I probably wasn't going to anyway. But now I won't Netflix it.
• The Biscuit started preschool and he doesn't like it. Part of me really wants to say, "Fine we are homeschooling!" but I know we need to give it more than 2 days.
• The Buddy Walk is coming up! Go to www.buddywalk.org and put in your ZIP code to find one near you. Then go to it. We are in your community, don't pretend we aren't. This isn't a fund-raiser like Race for the Cure and others like that because we aren't trying to find a cure for Down syndrome. This is an awareness-raiser and funds stay local to help families in your community. Please, please, please go. Another more detailed post coming on this.
• Little Miss Cupcake had her first "poo art" as in playing with the contents of a blow-out diaper. I won't be making peas 2 nights in a row again for awhile. She likes them too much.
• Today I pulled out some clothes that I was saving for her next growth spurt and put her in a dress that was mine when I was little. Totally cool! So I'll probably do a post -- with photos! -- about that.

Now, off to bed with me.

3 Gifts was Enough for Jesus

I took a moment this morning to read some OMSH about Christmas gifts and how less is more. As I read and nodded my head "YES!" I came across this in a comment by Amber:

...each child gets pajamas from the pajama fairy on Christmas eve, then on Christmas day they get three gifts (the rationalization is that three was enough for Jesus so it's enough for us) from santa/mom and dad. As we've had more kids they now trade names so they'll get one more gift from a sibling.

Oh, yes! That sounds like the best plan ever! It would be so nice if those pj's were made by me. And it would certainly be easy to make sure that 3 gifts per kid were handmade in America. I am officially stealing that plan.

But what to do about the grandparents? This year, thanks to the move, our wish list was "don't get us anything because we don't want any more than we already have to pack." My mom and step-dad gave us money (very unexpected and very helpful with the move!), but my mother-in-law can. not. stop. She actually said it was a small Christmas this year, but there was yet another sweatshirt from her for each of us. I don't think that she knows she's gotten us one every year for as long as I can remember. While it's true we are moving to a colder place, we are also moving to a place without a hall closet. I'm not sure if I can leave them here with the other charity donations because when she finds out it's going to hurt her feelings. I think all the coats may come with us to go to a charity up there where it's colder. And she did get us gift certificates, but had to also buy clothes and books and stuffed animals for the kids. Mind you, we are talking about a 2.5 yo that could care less about unwrapping things and hates stuffed animals, he was happy to sit by the fire and hang out with us, and an 8mo who has no idea what's up with "stuff". But back to Amber who has the best idea for over-indulging grandparents:

Grandparents still spoil- but this year especially we’ve asked them for cold weather clothes that the girls need- or passes to the zoo or the children’s museum. We don’t need more stuff that could be recalled in a month.

THAT last sentence would get my mother-in-law's attention. And the fact that these are activities where the kids would get out would grab my mom's attention. Finally, a solution that should work. At least if I can get up the guts to tell them that for anything that comes into the house something else has to go out AND make them understand that the something that goes out might be something from them that still fits or functions just fine.

Go Forth and Check Out This Stuff

First, please go check out Daring Young Mom. On Saturday and today she blogged about helping their neighbors in Lewis County recover from the devastating and surprising flood they found themselves in. These are not people who live in a flood plain. In fact, one of the videos that DYM linked to shows a furniture store owner explaining that he couldn't buy flood insurance because they were shown a map that said his shop was not in a flood plain. Not a good surprise.

Second, I found a cool thing that I want to share. I used to think that parents who put leashes on their kids were lazy. But I was young and childless. Now I worry about someone wanting to steal my gorgeous tots. Of course, they would bring them back when they see how much work they are and realize that you can't get top dollar selling a screamer, but still I worry. I ran across these cool tattoos and finally feel that maybe I don't need to get a leash for the Biscuit. The idea is that you have a special pen and write in a phone number then put this temporary tattoo on your kiddo. I think it is a great idea. It would take a lot longer for a stranger to remove than an ID bracelet. They have a special version for kids with Autism, too. Very interesting. Still won't stop the Biscuit from running out into the street, but it could be helpful on vacation.

I found the tattoos through an ad on Our Special Kids. That is a website for the parents of kids with special needs "because parents have needs too." Yeah!

That's it for now. I'm up late doing laundry because we are leaving tomorrow to find a place to live in the Pacific Northwest. No towns mentioned so my hubby doesn't beat me with a wet noodle, but we aren't going up I-5 as far north as the floods. ;-) Here's hoping that we find a nice place for not too much rent that will let us sign a 6 month lease.

See ya when we get back!