Consider This: Becoming a Bone Marrow Donor

Last year, I impulsively decided to register myself on the bone marrow donor list.
I haven't been called to do anything about it yet, maybe I never will be. But I was thinking about it today after I received word via Steve-0 that the beloved football coach at SCA has contracted a rare form of blood cancer, Amyloidosis. Apparently, from what I understand, bone marrow transplant may be a viable option for treatment. Anyway, I won't mince words - apparently giving bone marrow is a rather uncomfortable procedure, but maybe if you know that doing it could save someone's life, someone like Coach Knapp who is loved by many, maybe you would think twice about doing it.

It's not hard. You just sign up, and then you're sent an envelope with a couple of swabs in it. You swipe the inside of your mouth and put it in the enclosed envelope and send it back and viola! You're registered.

We haven't done Good Deed Tuesday in awhile, but this could give you your Good Deed quota for like,...ever.

Think about it.
Than, go here to sign up.

GDT 4/1/08

Good Deed Tuesday
...because all the cool kids are doin' it.

Got your good deed ready?? Mine is (hooray for preparation!) and I'll be executing later today. Put yours in the comments section, or heck - post it on your own blog. And if you don't have a blog, get one. Because that's what all the cool kids do, and you wanna be cool, doncha? DONCHA??

...--{***UPDATE***}---....

I need to try and start doing my deeds in the morning so that i can post the pictures and write about them in a timely manner. Namely, BEFORE GDT is over!

About a month ago, we had some new neighbors move in across the cul-de-sac so while I was at Lowe's the other day I picked up this potted "themed" plant to give to them. It has a tomato plant, a pepper plant, basil, and oregano all in this one handy pot. All they have to do is replant it (if they want to) in the backyard. I might be buying another one of these to magically appear in our garden, if our plants don't grow. :)

Did you guys do one??

"So shines a good deed in a weary world"
-Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice)

The Week In Review

Ok, let's see....Spring Break Started off with a bang on Good Friday, and Steve-0 and I launched into full-fledged spring cleaning the house on Thursday night.
In one 24-hour period we spring cleaned the entire house. It sucked, but it needed to be done. Now I don't have to worry about Tyler catching the Ebola virus from our floors.

Friday afternoon Steve's parents rolled in to town (much to the boys delight) to visit for a few days. I was just glad that the boys were crawling into bed with someone else at 3 am. Steve said it felt good to be able to actually roll over in bed. A night without being smacked in the face with a small fist is rare indeed. If you don't understand, you've never slept alongside small children.

Saturday we went to the coolest Easter Egg Hunt ever, hosted by Clint's Dad and mom. Wish I had thought to take some pictures, but I was unaware of the cool factor seeing as how I was depraved as a child and never participated in an egg hunt. *sob* I know. The HORROR.
Anyway, this was the coolest Easter Egg Hunt ever. Let's just say the boys walked away with a more than fair amount of cash and prizes. Steve and I got $17, a paring knife, a phallic balloon animal, 27 mosquito bites (steve), and minor sunburn.

Easter Sunday after church we all went to the park and had a great afternoon. It was a beautiful warm sunny day with perfect weather, but not-so-perfect kite flying conditions (although grandpa surely tried). The boys played with their new Easter basket toys from grandma and grandpa (frisbees, velcro ball, boomerangs, bubbles, etc). We had a picnic, explored the river, played with new toys, tried to fly a kite, played on the playground, and then went to Two Scoops for gelato. Yum.

Good Deed Tuesday.....I slacked. I thought about it, but with family in town and spring break-itis creeping upon me, I didn't do anything. I know. --->hangs head in shame<-----
Rather, we were on the receiving end, when we were good deed tuesday'd by steve's mom and dad, who filled up our pantry and fridge with food which was awesome. Because well, we think food is a good and necessary substance to survival. Our fridge is bursting at the seams. I think after Steve unloaded groceries I actually heard the refrigerator burp and say thank you.

So, that was the recap of our week.....Here's a few pics of our Easter Sunday picnic.
Hope you all had a great week. :)

Good Deed Tuesday 3/18/08

Don't forget it's....

Good Deed Tuesday
...because not doing nice things for others leads to body odor.

Erica and I are teaming up for a good deed today. We're meeting in a few hours to execute. More on that later...
In the meantime, check out my photoblog for pics of Amy Lynn and Daniel's baby that I photographed yesterday.

Later!
___________ UPDATE _________

My friend Lisa is doing the whole single mom thing while her hubby Dan is away in NYC working this high profile, fancy-shmancy job. We love us some O'C fam, and Dan has been away for, let's see....about 3 and a half months now so Lisa's been holding down the fort on her own - kids, bills, driving, laundry, housework, lawnwork (or not), well...she's goin' solo for now.

So Erica and I thought that we could do some good deed'n at their house today so after E went over to let their dogs out (her daily gig) we stuck around for a couple of hours and cleaned their house and piled up their scattered yard full of broken tree limbs.
Erica set to work painting this beautiful vase, and then we filled it with flowers.


And by "Erica set to work painting this vase" what I really mean is, I found it in their cupboard.

Let me tell you people, this house was hosed. Dog hair on the floor, dishes in the sink and in the family room, laundry piled in the laundry room, underwear on the floors. It was appalling, it was cluttered, it was unbelievably messy....but enough about my house. Let's get back to Lisa's house, shall we??

So we cleaned up while Tyler slept in the bedroom and the boys watched a movie and played outside with ginormous venomous beetles (thanks E, THAT was a heck of a lotta fun - *shiver*).
AJ and Owen enjoyed the secret - "We're gonna clean up their house because it's SOoooooo messy! They don't get a sticker if they don't pick up their rooms!" AJ volunteered to wash the windows, but then he disappeared to watch tv. The bum.

Anyway, that was our good deed for today. Now...post yours. Or did you even DO ONE?? --->insert guilt-inducing expectant stare here <------

Good Deed Tuesday 3/11/08

Good Deed Tuesday
...because People Who Don't Do Good Deeds Suck.

Time is ticking away for this week's Good Deed Tuesday and.....I'm stuck. I haven't left the house yet today and I'm scrambling for an idea for a good deed. Any suggestions anyone? I DID help the neighbor pry open a window because she locked herself out of her house when she was getting the mail....even tossed one of my kids into the open windo to go unlock the door - but I don't think that counts as my good deed because it wasn't planned...or intentional.

Anyway....I'm still thinking.
So if you've done yours, post it here and I'll come back later and post mine.
Unless I'm mired in shame from a deedless Tuesday, and then I'll be wallowing in despair in my bed.
FYI...Cassie did a great deed last week and posted about it in last weeks comments section in this post HERE, so if you're in the Albany area and looking for an idea, she had a good one.

Later.

**^~~..*** UPDATE ***..~~^**

Took the boys out to the baseball game at SCA. Stopped at Sonic to get them ice cream on the way. Paid for us AND the lady behind us. She was surprised, not understanding...looked towards our car - I just smiled into the rear view mirror and drove away. Not as good as the wise libero's (read the comments), but at least I did one. :)

Good Deed Tuesday! Share your deed or feel the guilt

How's this for a slogan?

Good Deed Tuesday
...because it's time to get off your butt and do some nice stuff.

:) LOL

I like animals. I always have. When I was younger, we had many 'o animal friends and prospective pets parading through our house (PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE can I keep him mom??). One of the most memorable was the small black lab mix mutt that I just happened to "find" while out shopping one day by myself. And by "find" I mean that some people in front of Walmart had a box of puppies that said FREE on the side.
I begged hardcore for that one, but my horrible mean mother said no (because I'm the middle child and she likes me the least). I think he found a home with someone in our church. I made a LOT of phone calls that day trying to find him a home.

Even though we have the Fabulous SuperDog Cooper, I still frequently peruse the pet ads in the paper and can't help myself when we walk by advertisements for animals up for adoption at the Humane Society....I MUST look at all their sad little faces. They seem to beg to me, "i need a home, I need a home, won't you adopt me before they kill me?" They make me so sad.
No, we're not getting another pet anytime soon, I just like to know what's out there, okay??

So, last time I checked, I'm a photographer and I thought it might be helpful for the humane society to be able to publish REALLY COOL, professional-grade pictures of pets available for adoption, rather than the standard point and shoot snapshot/mugshot that you normally see. A good picture of a dog really jumps out at you more than the red-eyed blurry photo of the mangy mutt that needs a home, doncha think??
So I called up the humane society, said I'd like to donate my mad photography skillz and the director was thrilled! I'm going sometime on Saturday or next week to take pictures of the current pets. I'll try to do it twice a month for them.

Keeping in tune with the Humane Society Good Deed, Cooper asked me if he could be the face of this blog entry and of course I said yes, but only if he stops licking my ears while I'm watching t.v.

How Rich Are You??

It's Good Deed Tuesday and I've been (briefly) considering over coffee how fantastically weathly we really are. Besides the wealth of my beautiful and healthy family (a richness worth far more than anything else I can imagine), it seems that on a global scale, we have A LOT of money.
The very fact that I'm sitting --in my kitchen (electricity running) sipping hot coffee (fresh, that we just bought yesterday and ground this morning) at my expensive laptop, wearing pajamas that are less than 6 months old - is a sign to our wealth as a nation. Even though we struggle to pay bills sometimes (irony in the fact that our "necessities" are: cable tv, cell phones, car payments, etc) and luxuries are few and far between, the simple fact of our posh existence is testament to our richness and surely puts things in perspective. We are a spoiled and undeserving nation, too quick to whine when we can't get that iphone we so desperately need, or the new car that we've been drooling over, or new furniture for our homes when there are so many other people that have nothing. Seriously nothing.

And it gets me thinking (which I've been doing a lot of lately)...how can we cut back? How can we prioritize? How can we change our way of thinking that we NEED the next newest thing, that our houses MUST have cable, must have luxuries, we must have the newest thing?? It's a hard habit to break, this idea of "being normal".
WHAT IF...you told your family that you weren't going to buy the newest model of cell phone when your contract is up for renewal? That you'd be happy with the baseline model?....if you decided not to buy new furniture...for the next 15 years? Because the stuff you have is FINE structurally, albeit dated?.....if your main purpose behind working so hard at your job wasn't to "improve" your way of living - goals of bigger and better houses, newer and cooler cars, exotic vacations? "I could do that", you think. But then....I'd feel self-conscious when people would come over and our rug is old and ugly, or people would tease me about my crappy cell phone when I text my friends, or...people will wonder why we're still only in a 3 bedroom house.

Just a peek inside my brain this morning.

Wanna see how rich you are on a global scale??

Go HERE to see how you rank on the global rich list. It's humbling.

Hooray for the Trash Men!

It's Good Deed Tuesday!
Rules are simple: Do a good deed for someone else. So?? What are you waiting for?? Go forth...do nice things for others!

Here's mine for this week:

Here's a Fun Quiz

Check your ecological footprint HERE

Mine was 11 - according to that, we would need 2.5 planets if everyone consumed goods and energy like me. :( bummer

Good Deed: Accomplished!

Our neighbors are a little...er...weird.
We've tried on several occasions to make conversation with them, say hello, chat it up, etc. and typically get one or two word responses. They're not RUDE, per se, they just apparently don't talk. Or socialize. Or understand the dynamics of human social interaction.
It's a single woman and her 2 grandsons living with her. The grandmother works funky hours...I think she's a nurse or something, based on the fact that she wears scrubs (i know, I'm a genius), and sometimes I'll notice her coming home from work when I take the boys to school in the morning, and sometimes she'll be heading off to work at 9 am...or 3 pm. It's always different.

Anyway, so my Good Deed Tuesday idea was to make them a dinner so that they could just heat it up and eat it whenever was convenient for them. So this afternoon I whipped up a Fiesta Chicken Casserole and doubled it up so that I would have an extra and just a few minutes ago I took it over.
I felt a little awkward, trying to figure out how I would present it.
"Hi. I'm your neighbor. Here's some dinner I made you" ?? OR...
"I know that we never actually TALK and you've never really told me your NAME or anything, but well...here's some dinner"
They're simple folk, maybe I should go the simple route: "Hi. I made dinner. Here's some for you."

But then the door opened, so I just told them that I noticed that she seemed to work some crazy hectic hours and I thought they might like some dinner. They could eat it tonight, or freeze it and save it for another day. I put in the instructions to bake it and included a side dish with it. And our neighbor...who I've never seen smile, smiled a huge gap-toothed smile, took the food from my outstretched hand and said thank you because she hates to cook.
And then it got a little weird.
Why's that, you ask? Because she just took the casserole and shuffled back into the kitchen.
"Okay! Well...see you later!" I called. And then her grandson shut the door.
Gently.
But in my face.

LOL

But it was fun. And it was my good deed for today.

Did you do one??

We're Theme-ing It....Get Ready For Good Deed Tuesdays!

So....how 'bout we start doing a theme once a week. I made up the theme...you participate. Sound good?

Here's my idea: Good Deed Tuesdays
It's as simple as it sounds....do at least one good deed for someone else on Tuesdays. It can be something small (buy a latte for the person behind you in line at Starbucks) or go all out (give your neighbor your car because theirs broke down). Whatever it is, it has to be for someone else and it has to be somewhat inconvenient for you and not TOO easy (here honey, I'm doing a good deed by closing the lid on the toilet seat so you don't fall in when you get up to pee tonight).

I've already got mine figured out....I'll post it tomorrow....start thinking about yours and then tomorrow: execute! Then tell us about it...either here or on your own blog. No excuses...it's not like you're overwhelmed with getting back into the work week because it's Monday, and you're not too obsessed with weekend plans because it's Friday, it's Good Deed TUESDAY-early enough in the week that you have brain cells left to think of something, but not too late that you're in weekend-mode.

Come ON!! It'll be fun!