Late night cards and other forgetful things

Imagine that late one night you are busy boxing up a package to mail first thing the next morning. Suddenly you realize that you don't have a birthday card to mail with it. The nearest store is 2o miles away and closed at that time of night anyway. What do you do?

I grabbed some paper and ribbon and set to work. This is what I came up with. The picture isn't as clear as I wish it was, but you get the idea. I hope the recipient liked it, or at least appreciates the effort.

Blessings.

Cold house... warm hearts!

Tears roll down my face as I sit on my comfortable couch in my safe home watching the images of the horror in Haiti. I am simply overwhelmed by the raw emotion of the victims. I feel their grief as they share the stories of the loved ones they have lost, and I recognize how truly blessed I am to be who I am and to live how I do.

These precious human beings enduring the unimaginable have touched my soul. I can not sit idly by and simply watch them suffer. I have to help. My husband and I have decided to give until it hurts, literally.

We are going to cut our heating budget in half this month and donate the remainder to charities assisting earthquake victims in Haiti.

The weather here has been milder recently, which means the temperatures have been hovering around the freezing mark during the day and staying above zero overnight. That is a January heat wave in my neighborhood.

We heat our home with a pellet stove and normally use about two bags of pellets a day. That keeps our house in the upper 50 degree range. For the rest of the month we are going to use only one bag of pellets a day. That will drop the temperature in the house to the lower 50s.

I am already wearing 3 layers of clothes anyway, so I will just put on a 4th one.

I don't actually even mind, because the joy I feel from knowing that we can make a difference means so much more to me than any slight discomfort I might feel in the coming weeks.

So if you want to feel good too, I encourage your family to give until it hurts too! There are many wonderful groups helping in Haiti right now. Please donate to one of them. Every donation can make a difference. Water purification tablets only cost a few pennies each, so every DIME can truly save a life.

Here are links to the agencies we are donating to. I have personally seen both of these charities in action where I live following other natural disasters. They are truly angels ministering in the midst of suffering.

Convoy of Hope: http://www.convoyofhope.org/


United Methodist Committee on Relief: http://new.gbgm-umc.org/umcor/work/emergencies/ongoing/haitiearthquake/


Blessings to you.

Happy New Year

Thank you to all the sweet bloggers who dropped by and left me a note while I was absent. I appreciate your kind words. I am sorry to have been gone so long. I kept intending to get back to blogland, but life got in the way. Nothing terrible happened, just lots of little changes and inconveniences all at once, which seemed to overwhelm me. I will update you on everything when I can.

Happy 2010 to everyone. I hope your new year is getting off to a great start. Soon I will be dropping by your blogs to give you my well wishes in person. Until then, blessings to all of you.