Day 89 ❦ Give Political Action

Day 89 ❦ Give Political Action

The Gift: Vote Buttons

I am always amazed at the power of a vote. Now I know we have had some sketchy elections lately in which courts have been involved instead of the “people” and the electoral college has made decisions that may not be consistent with the popular vote, but I am an idealist. I believe that every vote matters. Every one no matter how you vote. So you can imagine my delight when I was at a conference recently where they were selling VOTE buttons for November 2nd. I bought every one they had, not sure about what I was going to do with them. I have been carrying them around in my purse since.

Tonight I am going to attend a League of Women Voter’s meeting where they are going to be talking about voter registration initiatives for the upcoming elections and I am excited to hear about all that they have planned. With this group I am among a group of people who are like-minded, they also believe in the power of the vote, recently sharing the movie Iron Jawed Angels, a documentary of the women behind moving women’s vote to the forefront. Imagine, it was not that long ago that women could not vote, and more recently, that people whose skin is black. Wow - think about it. Combine the increased voting pool with the power of the vote and we should be moving mountains in this country. But alas, I am surrounded by skeptics and zero sum thinkers - so I need to confront that. Maybe that is why I am tired - I need to surround myself with “can-do” people, and the League of Women Voters are just such a group. As we go around the room and do introductions, I pull all of the buttons out of my purse and distribute them...this was really fun!

❦ Your vote counts!

Day 88 ❦ Share some loyalty today

Day 88 ❦ Share some loyalty today

The Gift: An oil change

Giving every day has certainly got me thinking differently about coupons. For a while during my undergraduate college days I lived on coupons. In fact, all of the girls in the house in which I lived planned out our meals, which were planned around the coupons that we were able to scrounge up. Meat was very expensive then, or so it seemed and while I was a vegetarian, I found myself scarfing down on beef liver when we could get it at a really great price (and enough onions to mask the taste...). Now when I say that I was a vegetarian, it was more because I had not gown up eating a lot of meat and simply didn't have a taste for it, that continued on until my first pregnancy when all I craved was hard salami.

Okay, so I was talking about coupons. After college and moving out to Boulder, I was able to get a pretty good job as a CFO of a large privately held business and finally made enough money to buy a car, I only had a bike prior to that for transportation, I bought my first television, which remains the only television in my house eighteen years later, and coupons went by the wayside. Then I moved to the small rural community in which I live where customer loyalty and service is really important to the local shops.

It was very odd moving from Boulder where I never knew my neighbors names, and the people were really transient to a small rural community where everyone knows everyone. Literally everyone knows everyone and most really care about who we are as people. In a community like this, coupons take on a new meaning, they become real and valuable loyalty bonuses, buy 10, get one free, buy 4 of something, get one free and my favorite, the subject of this story, have your oil changed 4 times get the next one free. Now this is not just “special” customers, although we are that, we have a fleet of 3 cars and we get our oil changed every 3,000 miles - that is how we get 300,000 miles out of our cars, this loyalty bonus comes in the form of a card that can be given to anyone and it has real value. And today, I had my oil changed and received one of those cards.

Giving opportunity in hand, I went in search of someone who could use it and decided to go over to the church that I have been attending and give it to the Pastor to give to someone. Who knows who got it, but I am certain that it was appreciated and useful to someone. Yipiee!

❦ Share some loyalty today.

Day 87 ❦ Fill Someone’s Cup...or Boot

Day 87 ❦ Fill Someone’s Cup...or Boot

The Gift: Change/Coins

Today my giving opportunity came right over to my car while I was sitting at a red light. I am going to count this opportunity, although I do not know if I could say I gave it willingly, nor happily. I live on a little one-way side street in our town. The address is very difficult to find because there are only a few houses on the one-way and  the street is a small half circle in a town whose streets all face north and south or east and west. I like it that way. But this week, I don’t like living where I live because I have to turn from one of the busiest intersections in town at one of the only stop lights in town.

I have just finished grocery shopping and am stopped at the stoplight, several cars from the beginning of the line, fortunately, at least I have time to start digging. Ahead of me I can see firemen, we have no firewomen in town (can you believe I actually had to add that word - firewoman, to my spell check dictionary??). The fire trucks are stopped at the intersection and the firemen are all out of the truck. They are approaching each stopped car in full gear with a fire boot, going car to car asking for drivers to fill their boot. On the corner, I see one of the guys working the traffic controls, so I know I am going to sit here until I cough up some money.

Now, I have no grudges against the fire department, in fact, I appreciate them very much and have had several occasions to call them to my home, again stories for another day. But I travel enough and go through my ”smart-traveler” safety in my mind that I get a little panicky when I feel like I am being held hostage. And, because of an incident years ago when myself and another relative were kidnapped at gun-point and held for a brief period of time - I find myself having an uncomfortable reaction when I feel like I am going to be taken again. So as the fireman approaches my car, which is going to be held here until I comply and put money into the boot I panic. My palms start to sweat, I can’t breathe and my brain is racing. Frantically digging through my purse, I realize that I have no cash - I’d had to write a check at the grocery store...what am I going to do. He is almost at my window and I start digging through the box that I keep between my two front seats looking for anything to put in there. I can’t breathe.

I am mortified and embarrassed as he approaches my window and signals me to roll it down. All I have is a handful of change which I drop in his boot. As I do so, I realize I am almost on the verge of tears and I can’t stop shaking...great - he is going to think I was caught doing something wrong and have his friend at the police station check up on me. I know now that that is really irrational thinking, but I am in the midst of a full blown panic attack. I quickly roll up mu window, lock my doors and count to ten before I open my eyes. Shortly after that, the light turns green and we are released and I go home. It takes a little bit before I can sink back into my skin. For all that excitement, I am going to use that as my giving opportunity today. Giving done. Willfully and gratefully, no, but giving done.

❦ Breathe.

When Life is Difficult...Give Even More

Yesterday in real time, 2013, April 15th to be specific...we were attacked...again. The overwhelm of the media, the pictures, the crying, the blood, the fear, the angst, the loss, the grief can easily sweep us all into a very dark place and we can't let that happen. We need to be able to find reasons to wake up and function and breathe. Without diminishing the pain and the loss...we still need to be giving human beings in the world...as crazy as the world may be. So in our own pain, embracing our own losses, we need to give. That is what this entire exercise is about...stepping outside of ourselves and reaching out to someone who may be in even more pain, who may be more frightened and who may be at risk of not breathing.

I am reprising a post that I published a few weeks ago. It is relevant today. If it does not strike a cord in you, look through the previous 85 days if you need to find inspiration, a reason to give, a reason to step outside of your own darkness and breath life, light and hope into someone else s life.

http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=2440410872275813627#editor/target=post;postID=4520779303188112782;onPublishedMenu=template;onClosedMenu=template;postNum=14;src=postname

Give and when life is difficult give even more...

Day 86 ❦ It’s a chocolate kind of day

Day 86 ❦ It’s a chocolate kind of day

The Gift: Chocolate bars abound

Today’s giving opportunity came to me yesterday when my daughter brought home a big box of chocolate bars to sell as a fund-raiser. I love fund-raisers where I can really get into what they are selling. And chocolate bars fit in that category.

So rather than have her go door to door (which I make her do with wreaths, candles, and booster books) selling these chocolate bars, I decided to buy the whole lot and have her go around the neighborhood and to our friends and family who have purchased tons and tons of “stuff” from her and our older daughter and just give the chocolate bars away as a thank you.

She started with our neighbor who has been so generous with her support - what fun! This is going to be a great day!

❦ You make lots of friends when you give away chocolate.

Day 85 ❦ Sometimes a problem can be another’s gift.

Day 85 ❦ Sometimes a problem can be another’s gift.

The Gift: Ink Cartridges

There are times when I am a contradiction in terms; sometimes simple and hippie-like and sometimes methodical and techie. Sometimes veggie and others, prime rib. One thing I can say though, is that whatever I am, I am passionate and usually just do it. It is rare when I second guess myself in my no-regrets living, and today’s giving opportunity is helping to take me off of the hook as I am caught between the two extremes that consume my life. The quandary is about the by-products of technology...what to do with all of these darn empty printer cartridges???

Despite my rather simple life-style and beliefs, like not owning a car for years, nursing my washing machine to last 25 years, and having only one ancient television in our entire house, I also find myself liking technology - some technology - the kind that really makes my life simpler, that is after the learning curve has been mastered.. I realize that I struggle more than most when it comes to learning curves. You see, I really dislike reading the instructions - I like things to be intuitive...perhaps that is why I wasn't so great at physics, I still think physics is intuitive, but...oh well, my struggles with physics are for another time.

One new technology that I am absolutely loving are the new ink jet printers. Gone is the carbon paper! Present in print to anything my brain thinks about and I love it. I am such a tactile person anyway, that increasing opportunities to hold ideas and thoughts in my hand on paper is really exciting. And the really great thing about the new printers is that they really are plug and play, once the drivers are loaded and initialized...but basically fool-proof in my book. However, as with anything good, there is a darker side and I am sitting here looking at 25 printer cartridges that I just can’t force myself to just throw away. I have had to move my collection from a lunch bag sized baggie to a gallon sized and now am collecting them  in a grocery bag, and they make a mess, don’t stack well and take up room. I have got to get rid of these somewhere or I might break down and toss them.

So with that problem in the forefront of my mind, I head out to meetings today, and of course, immediately find the solution. At a meeting today of the social agencies that meet in town, one of the representatives for Spruce Up Austin, which helps to plant trees in our community, announced that they would be collecting ink cartridges to recycle them. After they had some of their own research about how to recycle their collection of cartridges, they learned that some businesses will give $2.00 credits back on all recycled cartridge, and they jumped all over it. The group that they were going to be recycling with was willing to actually pay them $2 cash for each cartridge they collected and so they put the word out. Within hours I was at Spruce Up’s Director’s office with my bag and he already had several filled boxes. What a great win-win. Yippee. Recycling, giving and cleaning out my office! Yippee.

❦ Sometimes a problem can be another’s gift.

Day 84 ❦ Support Someone you Believe in

Day 84 ❦ Support Someone you Believe in

The Gift: A Political Contribution

We are in the midst of a crazy election period, although because I do not watch either television commercials nor the news on television, I am pretty insulated from the worst of it. Not only do I dislike the divisiveness of the elections - I really dislike it when the ads, or candidates are outright lying. It drives me crazy, so I have to work pretty hard during this time to tune it all out - I will base my votes on actually talking to the candidates and deciding for myself how I think they responded to my questions...candidates be warned - if you knock on my door, I will invite you in and we WILL talk. I believe my vote is important as is supporting the candidates I believe in.

This election year has really been focused on throwing around promises and allegations about issues over which the candidates have no purview, for example - the School Board can’t do anything about lice, the County Commissioners can’t do anything about Federal immigration issues and the Mayor can’t deal with privacy issues in the school and it makes me crazy when I hear them making promises about just such topics, although I know such promises will get them votes, regardless of the veracity behind them. So when I do find a candidate who has common sense and is really talking about the issues over which they do have some control, I will do anything to back them. I do not have a lot of money but I have one of the best yards in town on which to put signs and I can stuff envelopes. I can’t knock on doors because I am so involved in the community, it can get confusing to figure out on whose behalf I am visiting, so I draw the line as door knocking. Anything else - I am there.

Today I am going to a coffee for a candidate for Mayor whose opponent is slamming her on her immigration stance - she does not have one, nor should he - the Mayor does not have any control over Federal issues and in this town, the Mayor does not even have a vote on the City Council, unless there is a tie - it is called a “weak-Mayor” system. But saying that he is “going to drive all of the immigrants out of town” should scare all of us - except the Native Americans...but actually, since I know he can’t drive me out of town because my family was not born here I am not worried about that - what I am worried about is that it looks like people believe him. His lies have a lot of traction and I am worried about that. So today, I put my money where my mouth and beliefs are and made a political donation.

❦ Support Someone in Whom You Believe