Category: Everything Else

Some Christmas presents you can feel good about!

The BOGO flashlight

“Two billion people living in the developing world rely on kerosene lanterns, candles, and single-use battery flashlights for light at night. Not only are these options expensive, dangerous, and harmful to the environment, they also
negatively impact health, education, and security…. Our lights provide an opportunity for children to read at night and to extend school hours. This is especially important in developing countries where most children spend all day tending crops, taking care of livestock, or working in cottage industries. Kerosene is increasingly expensive, especially given the recent rise in the price of petrochemicals, so many families cannot afford it. Flashlights are even more expensive, and candles do not provide adequate lighting to read. As a result, many children will never learn to read and will be trapped in a life of poverty. Our lights give them a chance at a better life, thus education is one of the strongest pillars in our vision to light the world. “

We own one of these flashlights, and after a year of nightly use and frequent abuse (dropped off top bunk, left in rainy window, etc) it still works great. The light is super bright and good for reading by.

When you purchase a light, you donate one to a cause which you are able to choose for yourself.

One Laptop per Child (Give a Laptop, Get a Laptop)

The One Laptop Per Child Organization

“Founded in 2005 by MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte, One Laptop Per Child has a simple mission: to create educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each and every one with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, creative, self-empowered learning.

By giving a laptop, you are helping bring education to children in some of the world’s most remote areas.

You are connecting them to each other. To us. To hope. And to a better future.”

I wish we had some spare cash around for this. It looks really rugged and able to withstand hardcore use; and the older kids are now needing to share a computer for schoolwork. Plus, it’s energy efficient; AND, of course, the price covers the donation of a laptop so that another child gains an education.

TOMS shoes

Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS shoes, donates a pair of shoes to a child in need for each pair purchased. He has set a goal of 30,000 shoes by Christmas to be given in Ethiopia, to help combat Podoconiosis, a preventable soil-transmitting disease.

Watch the video, and pass it on:

One crow for sorrow,
Two crows for joy,
Three crows for a girl,
Four for a boy,
Five crows for silver,
Six crows for gold,
Seven crows for a secret never to be told.

Looked for someone to attribute this quote to, but it seems to be just one of those things you learn as a kid.

We have a family of five crows that hang out in our yard all day yelling at each other.

They crack me up; have you ever watched a crow walk? It’s hilarious. I just want to catch them and dress them up in little outfits. With pocket watches. And maybe false mustaches.

Sometimes they hop up on the felled tree trunk where Maverick’s homemade squirrel feeder is secured and peck at the ear of corn; one crow at a time, the others lined up single file behind him. Crows wait their turn.

Crows are apparently very intelligent; I’ve seen allegations that they can count, have a long memory, and teach each other how to use tools. I can attest to the fact that they are impossible to sneak up on, and that they are somehow aware of my presence here in the house. If I approach a window, there’s a “caw, caw” and off they all go.

My kingdom for a telephoto lens. And a camera to attach it to.

This picture was taken by painstakingly propping the camera up on an outside window ledge, connecting the camera to the laptop, and triggering the shutter remotely. I am not even kidding.

Of course, now that I’ve said that, I’m sure I’ll be flooded with emails with pictures of crows attached and testimonials to how easy it was to photograph them. And all that proves, in my mind, is that my crows are smarter than yours.

Was ever life history written
in more dainty or fairy-like hieroglyphics?

How charming the task of trying to decipher them.

-Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley

I know this is a theme I bring up time and again, but it is truly incredible, the detail of the world invisible. I crunch the frosty leaves underfoot thoughtlessly, without regard for the individual beauty, the crystal architecture of each one.

There are only so many hours in a day, after all, and so many wonders to admire.

I neglected to mention yesterday, what one decoration I put up in celebration of the season, and what book I read to the kids. The decoration was fairly low-key; holiday hand towels were hung as needed, penguins and snowflakes to spread some cheer.

The book was Snow Crystals , a collection of the photographs of snowflakes taken by W.A. Bentley.
Wilson “Snowflake” Bentley took the first photomicrograph of a snow crystal and went on to take more than 5000 throughout his life. He believed snowflakes

“come to us not only to reveal the wondrous beauty of the minute in Creation but to teach us that all earthly beauty is transient and must soon fade away.”

When Bentley died, his local paper ran this testimony:

“John Ruskin declared that genius is only a superior power of seeing. Wilson Bentley was a living example of this type of genius. He saw something in the snowflakes which other men failed to see, not because they could not see, but because they had not the patience and the understanding to look.”

Really, I don’t think it’s possible for anyone- adult or child alike-to page through this book and not be swept away by the delicate individuality of each crystal (by the way, it is thanks to Snowflake Bentley vast catalogue that we say that “no two snowflakes are alike”).

Or not to be struck with admiration for the man who loved the wonder of Nature so much, that he stood in the freezing cold, snowstorm after snowstorm, so that he could share and we could appreciate the beauty of our world.

(Family & friends: I got this book out of the library. Sure wish I had my own copy… wink, wink; nudge, nudge.)

You can learn more about Snowflake Bentley and access his public domain photographs here.

Bentley quotes originally found in Exuberance: The Passion for Life.

There is also a very pretty Caldecott medal biography; named, simply, Snowflake Bentley , which I sometimes read to my kids.

His is such an inspiring story, I think, about embracing life and wonder, of forging past limitation, and following your passion.

What’s inspiring you today?