Thursday, September 30, 2010

Busy, Busy, Busy......

It's been a bit since I've posted. From the middle of September to about the second week in November is always a busy time. Between work and personal interests/events I'm on the go most of that time, and this year is no exception. Lots happening, and I'll have plenty of thoughts to sort out via the blog once November rolls around. In the meantime, I'm posting this wonderful work by artist Larry MacDougall, entitled "Moving Day." It seemed to fit the spirit of this blog perfectly, and I thank Shane Odom for sharing it.

Have a good October, and I'll post again in the Celtic New Year!

Krista

Friday, September 10, 2010

Only One Wish

I've had a bad week. Health problems, car problems, my son in a bad place, frustration in the workplace. I've been feeling angry and bitter.

So this morning it's time to stop and take stock of where the good bits have been over the past few days. The weather yesterday and today has been absolutely gorgeous. The time I've missed at work because of the transportation issue has enabled me to make some progress on the sort out at home. And yesterday the universe once again handed me a gift in the form of a lead on a local architect who specializes in inexpensive sustainable homes.

It's also time to remember why I'm going down this "daring to be happy" road. I made a friend this summer who's from Serbia. He's been here for the summer on a work visa, leaving his wife and family back home. He goes back in a few days, and while we exchanged contact information so that his family and mine can stay in touch, we got talking about things. I told him all I want is a quiet simple life. He said it's the same for him, and how the civil war in his country has made him appreciate the importance - the good luck really - of being whole and healthy. He said that "If you are healthy you have lots of wishes. If you are sick, you have only one wish." Clearly adversity has made him wise.

That's the whole point of all this for me too. I want to be healthy - physically, mentally and emotionally, financially, environmentally.

When times are rough I need to remember to have only one wish.

Krista

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

A Really BIG Thing to Know About

It seems to me that Goodwill Industries has gotten a mite picky lately. I'd heard it from others, but experienced it myself for the first time this weekend when I took a couple of boxes to our local 'superstore.' The boxes contained, among other things, some books - some good books. The first box was thrust back at me with the rather surly comment, "We don't take these, we only take novels." Then a second later, "Oh, these are cookbooks. Okay, yeah, we'll take cookbooks." Second pile..."No, we don't take reference books. No reference books." ...Really? Where's the goodwill?

Since it goes completely against the grain for me to toss out a book, no matter how much I don't need it, I turned next to the local public library. The librarian cheerfully took my donation, but also told me about a wonderful local initiative - Books for International Goodwill, or BIG.

Started 15 years ago by the Parole Rotary Club of Annapolis, BIG has shipped almost 4 million books to poor communities overseas and in this country to Indian Reservations and communities recovering from natural disasters. They have sent books to Africa, Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, and to US Service Personnel, Peace Corps volunteers and other mission-sponsored schools. BIG "believe(s) that the route to world peace and prosperity is through giving people the tools to learn how to feed their minds....."

BIG is an all volunteer organization, they have two drop-off points in the Annapolis area, and they will take anything - even reference books.

Now there's goodwill. It makes me happy.


BIG is having a book sale at their new warehouse on Saturday, September 18th. For more information go to http://www.big-books.org