Today is the last day for my WRITERS GIVE HOPE campaign – click to comment-for-llamas, donate-for-llamas, and enter-for-Who’s-Your-Llama-giveaway! While you’re at it, click through to Nathan Bransford’s giveaway to give more to Heifer, and leave some comment love for others participating in his comment-a-thon! Contest ends at 6pm Pacific Llama Time (8 pm for Chicago Llamas). I will update then… Read More
Are you a last-minute-llama Christmas shopper? (I just reached halfway, people. Pray for me.) You can buy llama books and llama shirts, but for the discerning llama lover, there are these llama-licious* gifts: *Thanks to K. Marie Criddle for the llama-licious terminology, which I have officially adopted. I think I just died from the cuteness. And proceeds go to help… Read More
Don’t forget to check out my WRITERS GIVE HOPE campaign to give llamas through Heifer International – and win a Who’s Your Llama t-shirt! Spy Llama An intercepted cable across the mid-pacific line was recently posted on WikiPeeks…the identities of the callers are unverifiable, but circumstances suggest that renegade present-giver Mr. Claus (MC) was one party and a distraught North America Parent (NAP) was… Read More
Don’t forget to check out my WRITERS GIVE HOPE campaign to give llamas through Heifer International – and win a Who’s Your Llama t-shirt! Last year, my kids invented Llama hand signals** and a chant-song to go with them. If you think this is strange, you’ve never had a 3rd – 6th grader. They seem to live for this stuff…. Read More
Because one day of llamas is not enough. I was inspired last year by Nathan Bransford to host a holiday charity drive to help Heifer International. This wonderful charity gives meaningful gifts of hope to hungry families around the world through livestock, training, and other assistance. Heifer deploys the idea Give a man a fish, you feed him for a… Read More
I squirrel away our Christmas books every year, so they are fresh when they come out again. I even hide the Christmas sheet music. (I hid it so well last year, that we have yet to find it.) We save Twas the Night Before Christmas until the Eve itself, but there are plenty of books that get read and re-read… Read More
In the Year of the E-Reader, even holiday cards are getting a makeover. For a while now, my friends have favored those holiday-picture-cards (the ones with pictures of their family) over traditional holiday cards. I send e-cards for birthdays and fun, but somehow sending holiday e-cards feels like cheating. Where are the holiday stamps? The pictures of my kids all… Read More
Health Family Freedom There are so many things to be thankful for, that list could go on for quite some time. But I stopped at Freedom, because without it, everything else suffers. I’m incredibly thankful to the men and women in service who make so many sacrifices to safekeep the freedoms that we have. We don’t often get a chance… Read More
Back in July, I won a prize from The Charis Project’s contest raising funds to help buy a truck to transport kids to school in Thailand. Through the amazing support of the blogosphere and twitterland, they raised enough money (and more!) to buy the truck. I was excited to pick from a selection of prizes like tribal weapons, jewelry, pottery, or… Read More
I reminded my kids about the “paying it forward” concept about a month ago. I had sorted through all the old computer games and educational software that they had outgrown, put all 52 zillion of them into a zippered CD case, and was packing it up to ship off to a friend with four kids under five. When my boys asked what I… Read More
The wonder that is Twitter helped me stumble across this new promotion by Penguin Books: We Give Books Essentially, if you read one of their on-line books, they will donate a free paper book to a non-profit literacy center. You read, they read, we all read – it’s all good! You can choose which non-profit you want to support, including… Read More
If you can read, write or blog today, give thanks. My heart goes out to the people of Haiti. Please consider supporting Doctors Without Borders in Haiti.
Thank you to all the wonderful folks who left comments in our campaign to spread awareness of the great work of Heifer International. I’ve decided to donate my full pledge amount – because I can’t say “no” to the llama! I made my donation through Rothfuss’ Team Heifer page, so that he would match my donation with another 50%. How… Read More
I’m drawn out of my Holiday Hiatus by Nathan Bransford’s holiday charity drive to help Heifer International. If you haven’t heard of this fab charity, they give meaningful gifts of hope to hungry families around the world through livestock, training, and other assistance. Heifer takes the words “Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach him… Read More
On Christmas Eve, we always read ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas, by Clement C. Moore, with the bowl-full-of-jelly Santa and “up to the housetop the coursers they flew!” My kids have come to enjoy it, even if they don’t understand it. Heck, even I had to look up “coursers”, a word which here alludes to Santa’s fleet footed reindeer, but… Read More