Update-O-Rama
For some computer related reason (read: I have no earthy idea, but my darling geek of a Daver did, which is why I married him. My Internet is always in a row.), my blog was down for about a day and a half. This happened to stress me out FAR more than it should, which reaffirms my stance that I NEED to get out more. MUCH more.
Regardless, my blog got moved (again, no idea what this means in actual terms) so some of the comments that got left yesterday are miraculously missing. Everything should be easy-peasy now, so my apologies.
(The blog being down happened to coincide with the winners of NaBloWhatever being announced, and I randomly got selected to win, but since it couldn’t be verified that I did indeed post each day, I didn’t actually win. This is ALWAYS what happens to me when I am in the position to win something.)
(Side story: when I was about 8, I entered a coloring contest for Easter put on by my local grocery store. I colored my heart out, and when I got the call announcing that I had won, I rushed my mother down to the store to claim my overly large Easter basket. When I went to customer service to claim my gift, which of course, thrilled me to no end, the lady at the counter regretfully informed me that although I had been called, it had been in complete error.
I had not actually won the prize.
Oh, the tears. OH the tears. I wept copiously and hard bitter tears at my loss. So much so that one of the cashiers took pity on my sad self and bought me a candy bar. The candy bar was good, but the whole experience has left me a bit shy of anything relating to contests. I don’t win, therefore I don’t bother.)
—————–
The second blood-letting netted me with a fancy new prescription for a brand spankin’ new dosage of my Synthroid.
What this effectively means, is that I have successfully warded off The Crazy, for awhile longer. Yay for not being full of The Crazy.
—————-
Despite my repeated whining about how slowly my weight loss is going, and complaining about a lack of winter coat, I have lost an additional 2 pounds this week. This brings my total up to 14.5, leaving me .5-5.5 to go by Christmas Eve to hit my goal of 15-20 pounds. My goal will be revamped to lose the additional baby weight by Alex’s first birthday, give or take a month or two.
All whining aside, I’m nothing if not realistic about my weight loss goals.
Let’s see if I can do this.
—————–
On a completely non-selfish note, I’d like to talk about giving this holiday season (and no, not to me).
When I was a child, there was always a huge Christmas tree at the mall that you could pull names off of and buy gifts for a needy family. Each and every year, we did this as a family, and I always thought of it as a nice tradition. The holidays must be a terribly hard time for the destitute, especially the children, and it always reminded us that although we may not have had a home with a moat and servants as I wanted, life was pretty damn fine.
But the trees have disappeared, likely because people would pull names and then not follow through with the gifts, which makes me terribly sad. Kids and animals (all kidding aside here) are some of my favorite creatures on Earth, so much so that I literally cannot watch violence towards them fictional or not, and I don’t believe that any of them should go without during the holidays (or any time, really).
Since the trees have gone the way of the condor, I have yet to find anything to donate toward during the holidays, and this makes me sad, as I’d wanted to pass that tradition down to my children.
One of my favorite bloggers, Baggage, aside from being a kick-ass chick, is a foster parent of several young children, which is awesome. I honestly don’t know how she does all that she does, 2 kids are kicking my ass, but I digress.
Today she posted about a site that you can donate to foster children who otherwise will go without this holiday season. I personally have picked out some things today that I will likely purchase tonight (scroll down to the end of the post to see the link).
I’m asking you guys to do the same. It’s not hard and you can only imagine what this will mean for a child.
You can also usually find stuff like those giving trees through local churches. We sponsor a family for Christmas every year through the Community of Congregations in Oak Park (all the churches work together). These gifts are my favorite Christmas shopping and wrapping. I love doing this.
We always request a family with at least one kid Gabriel’s age so he can pick stuff out for that kid. 🙂
Our church has an Adopt-a-Family program. They split the families into manageable numbers so you aren’t overwhelmed by the commitment. We took on four kids again this year. I feel good doing it, but as the deadline approaches I’m stressing a little about not being done yet.
You might check with area churches or DCFS to see if there is someone local in need of help.
Thanks for passing on the link!!!
I remember doing this, and loving it. I’ll check with local churches, that’s a great idea, Gail.
Dana, good idea. I love helping out those kids.
Baggage, no problemo! Always one to help.
Check out your local shelter that serves victims of domestic violence. We participate in our local agency’s Giving Tree program.
Man, you Internets are FULL of good ideas. I love yours too, Denise. Seriously!
1. Whining burns calories. It’s a proven fact!
2. The WryGuy is a synthroid junkie too. We keeps him nice and medicated, yes we do.
3. It’s the local Community Crisis Center (what Denise said) that gets our holiday adopt-a-thing money.
We do Angel Tree through work. My team has adopted 5 this year all of whom will receive an outifit and a toy. I believe this program is available to anyone though through the Salvation Army. It gives me a bit of a warm fuzzy. I am going to Old Navy tonight to do the clothes shopping portion…