Community Projects

I am currently working on two community projects this year that I'd like to share. You don't have to have a lot of money to make a big difference in someone's life. Just an opportunity and a little creativity.

The Scarves for the Homeless Project

A friend on Twitter has befriended a group of homeless folks here in town. As we head into cold season they need warm things to wear when temperatures dip. I know many people that knit or crochet and we are always complaining at the amount of leftover project yarn we have laying around unused, so I organized a group of several of us and we have started making scarves with it to donate to my friend who will get them to his friends.

If you don't know a group of these people in your area, I am sure that your local homeless shelters would be more than happy to take and distribute donations. Don't knit or crochet? Consider hitting the fabric store and buy a 60 inch length of fleece. Cut it into widths of about 5.5 inches wide and voila! No-sew scarves.

This will be a constant need through the winter I am sure as these people are very transient and there are always new faces showing up at the shelters.

**UPDATE (11/18/10): Since initial post the number in need has risen to over a thousand. I am in desperate need of help. I need volunteer knitters/crocheters and donations of fleece and yarn.

**UPDATE (11/25/10) Please see list added below this post. These are items that the camps are in need of. A wish list. Please consider a donation of any of these items to get these folks through the winter. I do have a safe drop location and will be dropping off donated items once a week so they can be distributed.

My Family's Christmas Plan for the Central Food Bank

I first introduced this idea to my family last year and it was such a huge success that it's the plan again for this year. It used to be a pain to buy for all the adult members of my family for Christmas gifts. A pain because we are all thankfully able to buy what we want or need and so it was usually just a round of the exchange of cash or gift cards when we did our holiday gathering.

Although we will be buying gifts for the kids to open, we take all of the Christmas budgets for the adults, pool it together and then make a large donation to the Central Virginia Food Bank. In a couple of weeks my mom, my sister and I will meet up somewhere for lunch, write our checks and put them in a sealed envelope together. None of us know what amount was donated by the other and we get a pleasant time together and get the satisfaction of knowing that we are giving other folks something to eat in a time when so many are going hungry.

For our holiday gathering, we draw one name each and limit the gift purchase to $5 so everyone still has something to open. Most creative gift with the $5 wins a prize.

Consider giving back to your community this winter season. It really feels good to give from the heart.

Thanks for reading!
Ellen
XOXO

Wish List of Donation Items:

Clothing:
Hats, gloves, coats, long johns, heavy socks, underwear, long sleeve shirts, hoodies, scaves and booots and shoes.

Camping:
Backpacks, heavy trash bags for wet weather, blankets, sleeping bags, flashlights, batteries, radios, lanterns, canned goods, instant coffee and tea bags, water pots, frying pans, dark tarps, tupperware/ziploc bags and rope/string.

Hygene:
Towels and wash cloths, soap, lotion, sanitary napkins, toilet paper, baby wipes, feminine products, condoms and cold medicine.

Toys For Tots

I know a single pencil is an odd picture for the subject line of this post, but you will soon understand why I used it.

As Christmas has past and all of the kiddies are enjoying new toys (and no doubt have them strewn all over the house) I thought I would share a childhood memory of mine that is as crystal clear in my mind as if it were yesterday.

When my sister and I were little we lived for Sunday evenings when Mutual of Omaha and the Wonderful World of Disney came on TV. Mom would get us bathed and dressed in our pajamas early enough so that we could watch the Shasta soft drink sponsored programs before we went to bed.

One particular Sunday, my sister and I had made a complete and total mess of the living room. After bathtime and dinnertime and before our shows came on, my mother and father asked us to tidy up our toys from the living room and get them into their proper places. My sister and I both balked and continued to play despite their warnings about what would happen if we didn't.

We abandoned everything when our shows came on and went to bed leaving the living room a hot mess. We awoke the next morning to find that the living room was completely clean and there was no sign of anything we had left out the night before. We went to school completely unsuspecting and came home that afternoon only to discover that we could not find anything anywhere.

My sister and I asked our mother where our playthings were and she responded nonchalantly that she and my dad had thrown them out the night before after we had gone to bed because we hadn't cleaned them up as we had been asked. My sister and I were dumbfounded. All of the crayons, the blocks, the Barbies, the tea sets....all GONE?

For the next several nights, my sister and I braved it out. We played with the "second choice" toys that had been left in our rooms that Sunday night. We colored in our coloring books with pencils (you see where I'm going with that picture now, right?). Finally, our little hearts just couldn't take it anymore and we cried over the loss of our beloved playthings.

The next morning we woke up and were having breakfast at the kitchen table. Our father entered the room with a massive garbage bag and opened it. We squealed with delight to see everything that had been all over the floor in our living room. We asked how he had gotten it and he told us that he had rushed to the junkyard and had managed to procure the bag just as the junkman was getting ready to toss it into the incinerator. Our father was our HERO!!!

Of course, now I know that the things were just stored in the attic to teach us a lesson. And what a valuable lesson we learned.

Thanks for reading!

Ellen
XOXO

Holiday Gifts

Gary and I (Gary my husband, not @Gary1980Arb from Twitter, although he started the idea rolling in my head) were sitting around about a week ago talking about holiday plans and what we'd like to do for our families for Christmas gifts this year. We go through the same routine every year and every year it becomes a more daunting task.

Our families are lucky enough to be blessed during these difficult times. Everyone who is supposed to be employed has a job, we own our homes, are not facing any foreclosure crisis and have food to put on the table. We are pretty much able to afford what we want when we want it, so it makes the task of trying to figure out what to buy for gifts an impossibly complex and exhaustive process.

Then I remembered Gary's Twitter Food Drive idea (@Gary1980Arb this time) and the light bulb went on in my head. I devised a plan, presented it to my family and they are completely on board with it. Thus, our Christmas will be celebrated as follows...

We have agreed to take all of the Christmas budgets that we would have spent on the adult members of the family (the kids will have a completely "normal" Christmas) and pool it all together. The family matriarchs (mom, sister and me) will take the money and spend an afternoon in the grocery store stocking up on canned goods and dry goods which will then be delivered and donated to our local food bank.

To make things fun and so that we all have something to open at our family get-together, we're going to draw names. Each person will have $5 to spend at a dollar store on the person they draw and there will be a competition for the most creative compiliations of the gift dollar store items!

We will feel very good giving to our community and to those who need some help this holiday season. Isn't that, after all, what Christmas is truly about?

Thanks for reading!

Ellen

XOXO

Celebrate Good Times...

Please forgive me if this post seems self-absorbed. I warn you ahead of time it will also be lengthy as I have many pictures to share. :)

We've had much good news about achievements in our house this week.

My teenage daughter tried out for and made the Winter Guard Squad at her high school. She tried out last year, but did not make it and is one of only two sophomores on the team this year. I am really proud of her. Winter Guard is like the Color Guard in the marching band (flag tossers), but Winter Guard actually performs to prerecorded music and competes. They also bring guns and sabers into the mix along with the flags. Yikes!

I also got a pleasant surprise at work. I have been promoted to an Assistant Vice President of the company.

It seemed that a mother-daughter celebration was in order, so I asked the teen if she would like to go to dinner. She thought the idea to be a good one so I asked her where she wanted to go, expecting an answer like Olive Garden or some other typical place. She said she wanted to go to Ruth's Chris. I looked at her for a moment in amazement and then threw caution to the wind. Why the heck not?

So this post is kind of to memorialize our evening out, but also to give those who have never been to Ruth's Chris steakhouse a glimpse of what you get inside. They truly, most certainly make the BEST STEAK EVER. No doubt.

Ordering at the restaurant is kind of al a carte. The side dishes all can easily feed two people and most who go order steaks and split everything else. The teen and I decided not to do that when we got there. We decided we were going to order whatever we wanted. That resulted in bringing home two massive shopping bags of food which will be devoured again tonight. I can't wait for dinner.

Ruth's Chris locations are generally unique. The one here in Richmond is in an old plantation house which is on the National Historic Homes Registry. So not only do you get awesome food, but you get an EXPERIENCE. The service is beyond excellent too. Staff is carefully screened and you really feel like you are a guest at a dinner party rather than sitting in a restaurant. The people who work there go the extra mile to be friendly and helpful.

Now, it IS very expensive to eat there (my steak alone was $35) but if you did the smart thing and shared on the sides, you can come out without too big a dent in the good old checkbook. We didn't do the smart thing last night and our bill with the tip included weighed in at around $230. But we were celebrating and we eat there maybe once a year and save it only for occasions which deserve something special.

So, to share, here are some pictures of the restaurant and the incredible meal we had last night. I know. I'm such a geek.

1. The outside of the restaurant; 2. One of the cocktail lounges

1. Our dining room; 2. Celebratory drinks...bloody mary for me, virgin daquiri for her

Shrimp appetizers. 1. Shrimp cocktail for her; 2. Barbequed shrimp for me

My steak and potato. The potatoes really do weigh a pound before they're baked!

1. Asparagus hollandaise and spinach au gratin; 2. Savannah's dessert, a banana cream pie that was literally a mini whole pie. My dessert was not as interesting but my favorite so I didn't take a picture but I had the berries and sweet cream.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

Ellen

XOXO

Time Flies

In case you can't tell, there is a bunny on the chair and the child is in tears because it just tried to nibble at her dress. Savannah is a year old here and we were at a photography studio memorializing the moment. It's one of my favorite pictures of her ever. She came running straight to me almost the moment after this was snapped.

This baby will be Sweet Sixteen in March. Where did all the time go? She laughed at me the first day of school when my mouth dropped when she handed me her driver's ed manual and again the day she brought home the order forms for her high school class ring. I know I have watched her growing into the beautiful young woman she is today, but it really hits home when I see this picture and then see her bounding down the hall off to meet friends.

I miss the days when she counted on me for protection and told me everything. We still talk, but these days she is much more reliant on her friends. I guess she is coming into her own.

Nowadays our house can be quite chaotic between all of her activities, functions and outings. I literally live in the bus loop after school and am a constant chauffer on the weekends. I won't know what to do with myself once she goes to college and *YIKES* that's only another couple of years from now.

That being said, I do enjoy the peace and quiet in the house when everyone is gone for a bit, so that's exactly what I plan to do for the rest of this Saturday while the husband is out of town at his brother's and Savannah is at a band competition. Yep, just me and the dog. Maybe we'll go for a walk.

Thanks for reading!

Ellen

XOXO