I gave a couple of gifts of hardware which you can see on my other blog, but since they were actually on Ingersoll Rand’s dime, I won’t count those as my own gifts.  However, I did give a related gift to an entrepreneur in Kenya, who needed a micro-loan for his hardware store (!), where he sells “doorlocks, padlocks, chains, forks, iron boxes and other items.”

I funded the micro-loan through a non-profit organization called Kiva, which I heard about through my cousin.  Kiva’s mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of relieving poverty.  You can search for lending opportunities by gender, type, and region, and when the entrepreneur pays back your loan, you can loan your money to someone else.  The minimum loan amount is $25, and the organization has loaned more than $129 million dollars to entrepreneurs in developing countries.  Here are some stats from the Kiva website:

Total value of all loans made through Kiva: $129,498,985
Number of Kiva Users who have funded a loan: 442,524
Number of entrepreneurs that have received a loan through Kiva: 330,313
Number of loans that have been funded through Kiva: 181,141
Percentage of Kiva loans which have been made to women entrepreneurs: 82.29%
Current repayment rate (all partners): 98.47%
Average loan size: $395.59

Follow this link to see a short video about the organization:

Kiva Documentary-What Did They Do With My $25 Loan? from Brent E. Huffman on Vimeo..

You can make a difference too! What have you got to lose? $25!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkqAErSitJM&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1]

I don’t know if a gift for my family really counts, but since there are no strict rules for the gift-giving challenge, I’m going to call our Easter activities my gift for the day.  I helped the Easter Bunny with some ideas for just what the kids would want in their baskets, and he hid eggs everywhere!  I have personally eaten enough candy to cancel out my next 15 Zumba classes.

A few days ago Ben said that since I missed Thanksgiving (I had the flu) we should have a big Easter dinner and invite a bunch of people over.  Because I always say yes to everything, I initially agreed, but the more I thought about it I just didn’t see how I could handle it along with everything else.  As of yesterday afternoon we hadn’t planned, shopped, or invited anyone, so I went online to see where we could go out for brunch/lunch/dinner.

I was lucky to grab some of the last tickets for a lunch cruise on the Spirit of Boston.  It was GREAT!  The food was typical banquet food, but it was such a GORGEOUS day and it was a really nice ride around Boston Harbor.  The Easter Bunny came along too, and Norah got over her fear of furry creatures with giant heads and by the end of the cruise she wouldn’t stop hugging him.  That exposure therapy really works!  They had goody bags, egg dipping, and an ice cream bar for the kids.  There were definitely times that I wished I was alone in my room at the asylum with a ham and scalloped potato TV dinner, but the DJ was loud enough to drown out the kids’ bickering for the most part.

Everyone came home and took a nap…a great day all around.  I find it vaguely disturbing that the three photos from Easter morning where the kids look the most excited are the ones with the $1 bills, but I guess it could be worse.  I heard Adlani say to Norah the other day, “You can’t buy ANYTHING with a dollar!”  He has probably pocketed all 3 dollars by now…halfway to a new Bakugan!!

In case you’re just tuning in, I’m working on a challenge that entails giving a gift each day for 29 days.  Today is Day 11.  Read on to see what my gift for today was, and why my husband and son are virtually bald…

I found out this week that one of my oldest (in years of friendship, not age) and dearest friends has Leukemia.  She’s a young, vibrant, healthy, beautiful mother of two boys, and she’s attacking cancer head-on.  I know that her strength, positive attitude, sense of humor, and all of the people who love her will see her through, but the treatment will be extremely tough.

My gift today was to assemble a care package to send to her.  I can’t say what’s in it in case she’s reading this post, but Ben and Adlani decided to get into the act and help out too:

My gift today was a donation to the Massachusetts Audubon Society.  We took advantage of the beautiful weather and the Good Friday holiday to spend the afternoon at Drumlin Farm, a trip that has become an annual pilgrimage to commemorate the beginning of the beautiful spring weather.

It was a little muddy, and there were quite a few detours on the way because of the flooding, but we had a great time and enjoyed the gorgeous afternoon.  The kids were exhausted afterward, so we took a driveway nap – one of my favorite pastimes when the kids were babies.  I’d drive them around until they fell asleep, then I’d go through the drive-thru at Dairy Queen, drive home and sit in the driveway eating my ice cream and reading a book.  When I got tired out I’d put the seat back and zonk out.  That’s what I did at about 5 p.m today, minus the ice cream.  Ahhhhhh…..

Here are some photos from this afternoon…lots of signs of spring: