Can You Help?

Let me get straight to the point.

A few weeks ago, I was invited by the presiding bishopric of our church via LDS Philantropies to come to Utah to learn about a new initiative our church is starting to help single parents get an education.

The meeting was amazing, attended by wonderful, vibrant female bloggers...

(See how much fun we had?)

...and the guest speaker was a single mom with a moving, inspiring story. Here, let me have her tell it....

(To hear the video, click the little speaker at the top right.)

I met Megan personally. See?...

(I think that blazer makes me look fatter.)

In fact, I got to sit right across from her at our table where we ate lunch together. I fell in love with her right away, and could see the light in her eyes as she told us the details of her story, one beginning with loss and despair, but ending in brightness and hope as she shared that she had just recently secured an internship in her field of study.

Here are a few statistics explaining why our church is focusing on helping single mothers get an education....

• 28 percent of children now live with just one parent.

• 40% of children under 18 experience a parental breakup.

• 90% of single parent families are headed by females.

• Single moms with children have the highest poverty rates.

• 60% of children living in mother-only families are impoverished.

• Single moms are more likely to be poor because of lower earning capacity.

• Single moms median income is only about 25% what a married couple make.

Students who receive scholarships use this money to pay for tuition, books and other fees. 100% of donations go towards these scholarships.

So here's how you can help. Click the "GIVE" button on the above widget and donate via Paypal or credit card. Even just a little bit helps. A lot helps even more.

If giving isn't possible for you at this time, click the "SHARE" button and spread the word on Facebook, Twitter or even on your blog, by setting up the sidebar widget using the "EMBED" option.

All of us seek to do good because we know that experiencing happiness in our lives steams from serving others. Please do help if you can, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this initiative.

For more information about this project, please go HERE.

Also, in the next post, I'm going to tell you how amazing it was for me to travel with no diapers in my purse, or wet wipes or crackers. I had the time of my life.

Thanks for listening!

Homemaker Monday

I'm tending a sick husband this evening, so I will most likely get my Homemaker Monday post up tomorrow morning some time. Here's Linky, though, for those of you ready to link up! Thanks so much for your visit and links and have a wonderful Homemaker Monday! )

Ten Ways to be More Likeable

Some peeps are just naturally likeable, but if you or someone you know needs a little help in this area, this is the perfect article. I actually wrote it with someone in mind. Love you, special someone! :)

It's HERE at socialmoms.com. Thanks for listening!

It's All Coming Unraveled :(

If you'll remember my post from Thursday of last week, you'll know how strenuously I have been trying to organize myself. I have my entire day lined out in writing, from waking up at 6:00 in the morning to start a load of laundry, to ending my day between 10:00 and 11:00 PM writing, reading or editing photos. Most of my day is filled with work, but during the down times while the kids are napping or after they go to bed, I get a little R and R, again, reading, writing, or editing photos.

And things had been going great. Each day I would wash and hang-dry 3 to 5 loads of laundry, take them down from the line, and fold them, and I would make bread, and keep the kitchen clean, and nurse Baby Hippo to sleep, and play the piano at the high school for chorus .... until today.

I think things started to go downhill on Sunday. I try to keep the Sabbath holy by not doing laundry, deep-cleaning or making the kids do inordinate amounts of chores, but even so, laundry still builds up, which leaves me with an extra 2 or three loads to do on Monday. On Monday, however, I spent the morning feeding company, then, in the afternoon, John and I went out to lunch, alone. While I was so happy to have company for breakfast, and go on a date with John, I got even further behind. Also, when I tried to hang my laundry after our breakfast guests had gone, it started to rain immediately after I had hung about a quarter of the days loads, so I had to directly remove the laundry items from their clothes pins, put them back into the basket and take them back inside.

Fast forward to today. I woke up feeling achy and feverish. I couldn't believe it. On Thursday I am scheduled to travel to Utah for a blogging conference, which trip will be the first I've taken without the kids in over a decade. I needed to avoid this illness going full-throttle at all costs, so I decided to do almost nothing the entire day.

Here's what I did do....

-I made the kids pancakes for breakfast, because, after all, they do need to eat. I used this recipe, though, and I already had the mix bottled in jars, so it was no biggie.
-I made fires in the kitchen and living room, because I was cold, even though I didn't think anyone else was.
-I put at least three loads of laundry in the washer.
-I put my makeup on, in case a good soul decided to come visit me. Two people did. But I didn't do my hair, and it looked like a scarecrow's.
-I stopped by the only restaurant in town on the way to school and ordered 8 quesadillas and 6 burritos for lunch instead of making one from scratch.
-We set up a picnic blanket on the lawn and ate lunch outside, since the kitchen was such a mess. It was quite nice...

-I asked my babysitter who cares for the kids while I am at chorus to come anyway, even though I was staying home, to help me with the kitchen. She willingly obliged, because not only are we employer/employee, we are friends, and she comforts me when I stand in need of comfort. (Mosiah 18:9)
-I nursed Baby Hippo to sleep.
-I put a movie on for the twins.

Here's what I didn't do....

-I didn't clean the kitchen ever, and fruit flies seemed to mate and have babies all over the bits of watermelon that were left out.
-I didn't make lunch for someone I always make lunch for on Tuesday, but commissioned a substitute instead.
-I didn't hang laundry, but tossed it into the dryer.
-I didn't do my hair or get ready for chorus because I didn't go to chorus.
-I didn't make bread as I had planned to.
-I didn't get up out of bed while Baby Hippo took his nap and the twins were supposedly watching a movie when I heard one twin playing the piano. I knew this was a bad sign because it meant that he was no longer interested in the movie and would soon be getting into mischief.

And I was right. When I rose from my sick bed, I awoke to several eggs having been cracked on the floor, even though I had locked the food storage room door where we keep them. (They've apparently learned to quietly move stools around.) I was also confronted with spilled water on the couch, sidewalk chalk thrown and broken all over the kitchen, and a few water-balloons broken on the floor.

The rest of the afternoon, I received two visitors and after they left, I simply wandered around aimlessly. Thank goodness the kids were so helpful and babysat and helped keep the kitchen clean.

No, the house won't be clean when I leave for Utah, but hopefully my illness will have abated because I didn't stick to my schedule.

And I really don't know why I wrote any of this. But thanks, as always, for listening.