Today I gave a gift, but since I got something in return, it hardly feels like I gave.  That happens a lot with gifts…you put some good karma out there and you get something back.  I bought 5 tickets to a fundraiser for breast cancer, but in return I get to enjoy a morning with my daughters and friends at the American Girl Store.  That was painless!

My friend Sharon and her friend Kymm are walking in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer on May 15th-16th.  This is a walk of up to 39 miles to raise money for cancer screening, support, treatment, and research.  They’re holding a fundraiser at the American Girl Store in Natick on Sunday, April 11th.  Tickets are $25 and you can read all about the event here.  To RSVP or request tickets, email teamdoublepink@gmail.com.

Check out Team Double Pink’s site if you can’t attend the fundraiser but would like to make a donation.  Here’s more about the walk:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGhH2OkQTls&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1]

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Today my gift was to give a big basket of Happy Heiny’s cloth diapers to my sister-in-law, who is expecting my niece in June.  People thought I was crazy when I decided to use cloth diapers for Norah (like I didn’t have anything better to do than wash diapers), but when I saw the video below, I was sold. 

Being the highly impressionable do-gooder that I am, I wound up buying a bunch of cloth diapers and really liked them. I had to use disposables for day care and I also used them while traveling, but I used cloth diapers the rest of the time until Norah was potty trained just before she turned 2. I’m so glad Josh & Rachael will be able to make use of them.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw0exbJUdxs&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0&border=1]

Speaking of wet, holy crap we’ve got a lot of water! The rivers are higher than I’ve ever seen them (photo stolen from my SIL, Monica – note the duck swimming across the yellow line), and lots of basements are flooded, including ours.  We had borrowed a pump when we had the last flood a couple of weeks ago, and we had used it intermittently until yesterday when the water came back in full force. Our friends who loaned us the pump needed it back, so we began the hunt.  I should have just ordered one but hindsight is 20/20.

Last night I went to Lowe’s and they were taking names of customers to call when they received their next shipment.  My name was at the bottom of a double-spaced list on 8 1/2 x 11 paper.  I haven’t gotten a call yet.  This morning I called about 10 Home Depots, and nobody had a utility pump.  One woman answered the phone, “Shrewsbury Home Depot, we’re out of utility pumps, how may I direct your call?”  I got two leads from a couple of the friendlier H.D. customer service people – Home Depot in Worcester and Russell’s Garden Center in Wayland.

I called HD in Worcester and they said that they had utility pumps.  Ben drove all the way there to find out that they only had sump pumps left – we need the kind that will take water off the floor, not out of a hole.  I called Robinson’s Hardware when I dropped Norah off at preschool, and they said that they had some.  I was going to go in right then, but it would have meant driving Adlani and Aliya to school and Adlani really wanted to take the bus, so I went to the bus stop first.  By the time I got to Robinson’s, they only had sump pumps too.

Ben went to the hardware store in downtown Framingham (no luck), and I went to Russell’s.  I haven’t gone to Russell’s in years and I think we were buying a tree at the time so we didn’t check out the whole store.  It’s awesome!!  They have EVERYTHING for gardening, plus a lot of gifty-type things – there’s so much to see.  In their water garden department they had koi (giant goldfish) and were expecting a shipment of bullfrog tadpoles.  They also had pumps!  They were pumps for garden ponds, so not ideal, but we didn’t have many options.

A really nice and knowledgeable guy (Tim) helped me figure out how to rig up a pump to work for our basement, and I was on my way for $139.  I took it home and explained our plan to Ben, and then jumped on a conference call.  By the time my call was over Ben was all in a lather because the pump wouldn’t work.  I called Russell’s and explained the problem (the water wasn’t deep enough).  Tim said we could return the pump and I asked him to hold the more expensive model that I had tried to avoid buying.

So Ben went to Russell’s and I went to work for back-to-back meetings.  When I got home at 6, the pressure of the rising water had obviously gotten to Ben, because he was going ape-sh*t about how the pump was a rip-off, wouldn’t work, blah blah blah.  Or I should say, BLAH BLAH BLAH.

I am now actively avoiding the situation.  Ben will be staying home for the third day tomorrow to try to deal with the water.  I will be finding somewhere to hide until it recedes again.

Today my gift was the creation and facilitation of Aliya’s presentations on Morocco to Adlani’s kindergarten class and her second grade class.  I was amazed by how well both groups of kids listened, and the questions they asked at the end. 

Aliya did a fabulous job (video to follow).  Her Spanish is unbelievable.  She didn’t have a rehearsed speech, she just chattered away in Spanish and answered questions from the teachers and kids without stopping to think about what to say or how to say it.  I was so proud of her!

Adlani did a good job of sitting quietly and using appropriate language, unlike another friend who had to leave the circle area because he asked if people in Morocco go poopie.  Yes, they do.  Especially visiting Americans who aren’t used to the Moroccan diet.
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I’ve officially hit the wall.  I can’t do anything else.  This morning I moved mountains to get to preschool before school started to put up the teachers’ wish list bulletin board (below).  The idea is that parents will pull off a leaf, each of which lists something the teacher needs for her classroom, and buy that item.  So my gift of creating the board will hopefully turn into a multitude of gifts for the teachers. 

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After I put up the board, I dropped Aliya and Adlani at school and headed home for a conference call.  I worked frantically all day on a project that I need to finish tonight, while constantly getting emails and phone calls about other things I need to do.  Aliya is doing a presentation on Morocco (in Spanish) tomorrow morning – first for Adlani’s class and then for her own, so I had to get everything ready for that tonight.  Then I went to pick up my niece at work, except that due to a communication problem I was sitting in downtown Boston and she was on the train heading to Riverside.  That’s an hour and a half of my life that I’ll never get back. 

Now it’s two quick blog posts, finish printing the Morocco stuff, a couple of hours to finish my work project, one more load of laundry, and I’m done.  Not done, like all tasks are complete and my house is in order, just DONE.  Toast.  This morning, the school nurse saw the wish list board and asked Aliya if I was this creative at home.  Aliya said, “No, our house is a mess.”  I’m seriously thinking about taking the piles of stuff I’m supposed to deal with out to the yard and burning them.  What’s the worst that could happen?  An unpaid parking ticket?  The feeling of freedom would be worth the risk. 
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This morning I came home from 1 1/2 hours of Zumba with Ali (totally awesome teacher!!) and I went to Facebook to add her as a friend.  While I was there I saw an ad for Pedigree dog food – for each person who became a fan of their Facebook page, they would donate a bowl of dog food for shelter dogs.  So I joined the group and donated bowl #336,745.  That was easy.  I also saw an ad for fake vomit (right) which was just strange enough that I clicked on it.  Sucka!

The dog food donation made me wonder about other Facebook fan pages where I could give a gift just by joining.  Little did I know that there are tens of thousands of Facebook charity groups, fan pages, and causes…too many to digest.  Here are a few of the popular ones in case you want to give a gift too:

Pedigree Adoption Drive – 1 bowl of dog food will be donated to shelter dogs per fan.
American Cancer Society – For every 5,000 fans, $500 will be donated to fight cancer.
Donate Life America – Spread the word about organ and tissue donation.

I spent most of today working on work, working on trying to clean up the pigsty we live in, working on the laundry mountain, and working on the teachers’ wish list board for preschool (the gift for Day 6).  Ben took the kids to see his mom, which has become a very welcome weekly habit.  I’m sure she’s wondering why I never come along, but hopefully she understands.  I’ve got to start being more selfish with my time because I feel like every minute is double-booked.  When I hostessed my Partylite show, the candle lady asked everyone at the party to say something about me.  When it was Aliya’s turn she said, “My mom does a lot with a little bit of time.”  That’s the story of my life.  Maybe after I’m done giving 29 gifts, I’ll try 29 days of exerting the bare minimum effort necessary.
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