File under Fair Trade:
RUGMARK is a global nonprofit organization working to end illegal child labor and offer educational opportunities for children in India, Nepal and Pakistan.
The RUGMARK label is your best assurance that no illegal child labor was employed in the manufacture of a carpet or rug.
They are holding a raffle for a nifty rug that has a Dalai Lama quote woven into it. Check it out here.
You know, if this one was local I'd give her a call.
Actually, I should mention, she contacted me for a story I'm working
on. All hail PRNewswire, but I thought I'd pass along the site because
for those of us 214ers, it's kinda neat to see you can make a living
at this.
I'm home sick with a bad throatie-headache-exhaustion combo. I swear, I've had more physical maladies since coming off the pill than I have had in the past three years. Anyhow.
I just read the word “youngster” and had to read it twice, because I could have sworn it said “yuengster.”
Some of you will recall that i contacted my best friend from college a few months ago and a couple of weeks later, she wrote back, and I was uberhappy about this.
We scheduled a reunion of sorts the same weekend that one of the hurricanes dumped a shitload of rain on us. She lives by a lake, and there was flooding, so we had to reschedule.
I'm going to see her for the first time in almost 12 years in a matter of hours. The last time I saw her, K was barely walking.
There are a flock (is that the right word?) of sparrows living in the hedge outside our ground floor. These are likely the population that Cody was picking off when we used to let her sit out there.
Yesterday we rather spontaneously decided to go visit Nicole for thanksgiving, and twas lovely that we did. I apologize for not reaching out to the other NoVa/DC orphans as I had originally thought to do. I'm really overdue for visiting and at this point. Others of you that I tend to see more of in clubs that I haven't gone to in just under a year–sigh. I'm beginning to think I need to have folks over rather than delude myself that I will get out.
So anyhow, we came home with leftover bird that I turned into turkey hash–saute up some onions and rosemary, add leftover turkey, potatoes, stuffing, anything else that you want to toss in–stir that around for a bit then add gravy and cream (in our case, whole milk)– salt and pepper to taste… Best way to use up leftovers I know, but it's antithetical to those who don't believe in mixing food up on the plate.
Several very fat sparrows are hanging out on the balcony now, and I'm not sure what to make of this.
I was going to post something rantly about how we are manipulated to shop on this day and hallelujah for those that resist the retail machine. That said, I always like to plug the small businesses of friends of mine that kick ass, and i will do so in a week or so, after payday. But I'm not buying a thing today. I'm going to sell some things today, but that's not the same thing. There's something about mall culture during the holidays that I need to experience again, and so off I go to the little Borders to foist books on people.
But then I found out that http://www.goingjesus.com has made WTFWJD shirts available in black, and I remembered what the spirit of the season is really all about.
I am so pleased that my son doesn't really want anything for Christmas. All my years of poverty that I did manage to get him Santa, and now that I SHOULD be able to get him a healthy roster of stuff, I can't afford to, mostly because he's outgrown all his clothes and is now 5'4.
If anyone has some 32×30 jeans lying around that don't fit anymore, they'll fit him (cuffed), so…
Oh, wait, that's my size. (sigh!!!!!) Eeek!!!
And he turns 13 in just over a week!!!
The devotional book in which I am published has a companion website, http://alightblazes.blogspot.com/ — you can follow along with the lectionary and devotionals there.
Right now, there's the moving foreword, and a number of “blurbs” along the right-hand side.
My copy should arrive any day now. I'm excited. 
Happy Thanksgiving, all. I was going to post a little thing that Fr. Jim read in church this past weekend, but I didn't find it in my inbox, so I'll post it when I can get it from him. I did do a bit of Thanksgiving reflection in this October post.
And I'm baking bread. Mmmmmm.
The weekend has filled up, as I expected. I need to find a church in the Shenandoah Valley I can go to when I'm out there, as I will be this weekend.
My left shoulder hurts almost every day, now. It reminds me of the torticollis Dean had last winter, except my pain is in the rotator cuff, probably the teres major.
I have a nasty habit of sleeping on that side that I need to break, bigtime.
Some years back, Jenn compiled a CD called “A Brief History of Helen's Hair.”
that is becoming an opus. Some 32 pictures at last count, and there are gaping holes that I'm trying to track down. I even found one from 1996. There are others that we may scan. Those of you on flickr now can see what all those old pics are for.
I promise to give you guys a link to it when the montage is complete, because it is absolutely hysterical just how many hairstyles I've had over the past ten years. (to say nothing of the ten before that, where we have less photographic evidence.)
That said, if you have pics of me lying around that I haven't seen or don't have copies of, feel free to pass them along. For now, from the best of files…
New Years Eve, 2002-3. The picture that inspired “Please don't feed Helen's hair after midnight.” With Ms. Laura-Fe.
(Also: Flickr will be down for a couple of hours around 11PST, so if you're tuned in then, check back tomorrow.)