A gift certificate to help the poor, they mean poorer than me. They are all into that stuff right now, hopefully that'll change next year... err umm.. yeah, they are all into that stuff, which is a good thing really. I think it comes from the fact that they recently adopted an adorable little girl from Ethiopia, Averie Lyn, *rummaging through emails.. I think I have a picture of her in here somewhere* oh, ok, there it is.
That's my nephew Austin with her. I have another niece too, she's not in this picture. They are 4,(Austin)3(Allison) and 2(Averie Lyn) kudo's to my brother and SIL, not just for adopting Averie, but for having 3 kids so close to the same age... Me? I waited 6 years in between all 3 of mine. I mean come on, they needed to be older in order to help feed, change and push the stroller, cause I'm too lazy.. err I believe that everyone helps out in the house one way or another...
So, back to my Christmas present. It was actually pretty cool. I went to the website OptiNow. It's for Entrepreneurs in impoverished countries. I wanted to find a mother, married or not, didn't matter. As long as she was a mother. That narrowed it down a little bit. From there, I wasn't really sure what else I wanted other than a very poor country, more so than others.
I choose Ghana. Which really narrowed it down more. At first I decided to find an artist, but in Ghana there weren't any, so I looked around a bit. For some reason I wanted to stay away from retailers of clothing and toys, preferring to find someone that was starting/running a business that people actually need. (I know, people need clothing and kids should have toys, but wrap a sheet around you and play in the dirt.. see you CAN live without either of those two things)
So that narrowed it down even more. What CAN'T you live without... Food. Ahh, a grocery store or mini mart, which in Ghana they don't have mini marts, nor does it seem that they have actual grocery stores, at least not what we are use to here in America. Outdoor veggie stands, small one room markets... that's what they seem to have.
I looked around a bit, didn't take long since I'd narrowed it down to about 8 people. And then, I found her.
Comfort Dufie. (more info on her can be found here Comfort Dufie) Don't you just LOVE her name? That's what first attracted me to her. She's my age, married and has 4 children. Her name caught my eye and it was just icing on the cake that she was in Ghana and had 4 children. I know she was married and there was probably some single mothers out there that needed that 25$ and picking someone because of their name is silly, but hey it was my Christmas gift and I got to do with it what I wanted and she is the one I wanted to help out. So I did and felt good about it. I might have felt better if I'd had that 100$ gift certificate to Target (I KNOW, I am selfish you don't have to point that out to me, although I had intended on buying presents for the kids with my gift certificate, so that balances it out, no?), but nevertheless I felt good helping someone else..She still needs 675$ to complete the "loan" she wants. (check out the website to see how all that works) I think if I can, every few months I might send her a little bit to get her closer to her goal.
*****
Snow. There is no school today because of the snow. For those of you who have never heard of such a thing, it's called a "snow day". The boy has had snow days before, from living back east for 4 years. The girl, never has had a snow day in her life, but then she has lived in Vegas since she was 8 weeks old. Yes, I know that doesn't make sense, another time I'll explain why she didn't live back east with us too. Long story and this is already a long post, plus I'd like to go back to bed, being that it's 6am and I don't have to take her to school today...
So, yeah, they have a "snow day" even though the snow appeared to have stopped sometime during the night, but Vegas shuts down during storms like this (even big rain storms cause Vegas to become semi immobilized. So imagine what happens when we get snow!). It looks like I got about 4-5 inches here, Henderson got about 8 inches. Mt. Charleston got 11 inches. We definitely set records here yesterday and through the night.
According to the news, it looks like we may get some snow or rain on Christmas, which would be way cool! Right now, there are still roads closed down. IF I had wanted to or needed to get out of Vegas last night, I couldn't have, unless I was going to Utah. The roads were shut down at Stateline, so you couldn't get to California (or come into Vegas for that matter)Railroad Pass was shut down, which meant you couldn't get to Laughlin or in my case, to Phoenix should they have called me letting me know that Dad was getting a new heart. (I couldn't have gone anyways, since I'm flat freaking broke) You could BARELY get from one side of town to another.
Ok, well, I better get some more sleep in, a few more hours. The kids won't be up for a couple more hours and won't wake me up any how.. one of the benefits of having kids old enough to take care of themselves. Yay, kids! And if you are wondering, it's 34 degrees here, cold cold cold. Rio doesn't like it much at all. Shylo was loving it last night, we'll see how she reacts today, with snow still on the ground. And gazeline, my daughters dog, liked the snow too, but being so little (she's 4 pounds and will not get any bigger) she was shivering each time we took her out. Cold, but enjoying it. The cats? They are indoor cats, but occasionally will sneak outside (mostly America does this, but Tiger and Blizzard have been known to run out every once in a while) all of them were making noise till late at night...not sure why though, they are usually pretty quiet.
One last thing. My olive tree in the front yard, lost 4 branches from the snow. Now I need to find someone that has a chainsaw or ax. The trash people won't take the branches as big as they are. (I know this because one branch broke off Monday from the 50+mph winds and they didn't take it yesterday)I just hope that I can get it taken care of before my landlady sees it AND I'm still hoping that one branch that is right over my living room doesn't snap off. I'm nervous that if it does, it'll come through the house. Hope with me that it doesn't do that!!
Off to get a few more hours of sleep!
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