If you love it, support it!

Here is a wonderful post from the blog Innovate! It's called The 3/50 Project:

Their concept is simple and the numbers that back up their cause are staggering. The 3/50 project is an organization focused on saving the wonderful mom-and-pop stores throughout the country. I often see small stores that I appreciated close their doors and comfort myself by thinking, ‘Well, I can’t keep them all in business on my own.’ True, but it is quite amazing the profound difference each one of us can make in supporting our local economy. According to Project 3/50, here’s how it is done:

3

Think about which three independently owned businesses you would miss most if they were gone. Stop in and say hello. Pick up a little something that will make someone smile. Your contribution is what keeps those businesses around.

50

If just half of the employed U.S. population spent $50 each month in independently owned businesses, their purchases would generate more than $42.6 billion in revenue. Imagine the positive impact if 3/4 of the employed population did that.

68

For every $100 spent in independently owned stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures. If you spend that in a national chain, only $43 stays here. Spend it online and nothing comes home.

1

the number of people it takes to start the trend… you.

The website is full of great resources, images, t-shirts, etc. to help you show your support! Print out a couple of the fliers and take them by one of your ‘3′- my guess is you and the owner will be smiling after your visit.

I love this idea, and to add to it a bit I would say that we also need to take a closer look at the national chain stores and restaurants we use. We all need to shop at them eventually, but we rarely stop to think about them the same way we would a local business. Do I like the owner? Are they good to their employees? Are they using funds to support things that are against my morals and values? If the answers don't add up to somewhere you want to be putting your money consider switching to a different store. Just ask yourself "where would I shop if this store was not here?", maybe you will find a wonderful shop or restaurant that you had never considered before, and undoubtedly you will feel better knowing what your money is supporting after it leaves your pocket.

Who is human?

I read a fascinating post on the blog Conversion diary several weeks ago, and I have had it on my mind ever since. I wanted to share it with you. The author, Jeniffer Fulwiler, tells of her conversion from being "vehemently pro-choice" to pro-life. Here is an exert from her post:

Back in college I remember reading about how in certain societies throughout history, I believe in this case it was the Greeks, it was common for parents to abandon unwanted newborns, leaving them somewhere to die. It was so deeply troubling to me, and I could never figure out what was going on there: how on earth could this have happened?! I mean, I knew lots of people, and nobody I knew would do that! In fact, in our society you only hear about it in rare cases of people who are obviously mentally disturbed. How could something so obviously evil, so unthinkably horrific be common among entire societies?

Because of my deep distress at hearing of things like this, I found it really irritating when pro-lifers would refer to abortion as "killing babies."

It is a wonderful post, and you can read the rest of it here at: Who is human?

I also recommend How would you know? which goes along with this image:

This picture haunts me:

Both of these are well worth the read!

Happy Halloween!

Ok, now that I'm done pouting over the candy I'll show you some pictures of my adorable kiddos in their costumes! Would you believe I made all these costumes? Haha, no really I only made the Superman one. The girls let me off easy, and we borrowed their's. They were fairies, so cute!

JP's costume was pretty easy, because I was lucky enough to find the perfect blue colored pants and shirt at Walmart, $9! A steal when you consider they are charging $20-$30 for cheaply made kids costumes.

The cape I made with some material I had at home; some silky red stuff, difficult to work with, but begging to be made into a cape so I had no choice. I was going to make the red superman underwear out of this too, but he had a pair of shorts that worked perfect. It's a good thing too, because I don't think he would have gone for the wear-your-underwear-on-the-outside look. Good boy.

The Superman "S" was made out of some paint and a sheet of yellow foam I had at home. I sewed the "S" on to the shirt, attached the cape with snaps, and since the shorts were not a permanent part of the costume, I attached the belt buckle with tape.

Done. We styled JP's hair too, he looked so great! We don't have any pictures of that though, because by then we were already late for the party.

Where's my candy!?

Would you believe that after all that "Halloween candy" talk i did, we didn't end up with any Halloween candy!? Not a bit! We went to two parties where they gave the kids nice sensible toys and trinkets in their goody bags. Then we went to a festival, but again no candy because my kids didn't play the games. Forget the kids, they had a great Halloween; I feel totally cheated! (Ok, there were lots of sweets at the party, but that's just not the same thing!) I was looking forward a full night raiding the candy bowl after the kids went to bed! I have never been into the Trick-or-Treating thing, but we are so going next year.

Kids

Here are some pictures from the last few weeks.

JP and I made some cookies while Immy was at school and Lulu was napping.

He felt so special, and was delighted that he didn't have to share the "licking spoon" with anyone else!

The cookies were really good; oatmeal, chocolate chip, and nuts! Yum; and the girls were thrilled to find out we were having cookies for snack time! We found the recipe here at Allrecipes.com. I love this site, it is great for finding and saving recipes.
Immy had last Monday off from school, so I took the kids to the library. They all love books, so the library is a favorite spot of theirs. After we got home I caught JP and Immy sweetly reading together; I just had to take a picture so I could remember it later when they started fighting again.

Here is one more of our morning outings. I like to take the kids out to activities after we drop Immy at school; this morning we did a coffee break (none for the kids :) at the Burger King with our moms group.

This worked out great also because I had to be back at the school mid morning for our first parent/teacher conference. Immy is doing great in school, particularly in math and reading, so it was a good day all the way around!