Beyond Binkies, Code and Make-Believe

20 People, 1 birthday cake, 6 hours, 50 binkies.

Our daughter's birthday was one of the most memorable this year.  She chose to not have your typical party.  She's not a fan of going places - like the bouncy, pizza scheduled, structured places. She likes it loose.  But this year, after the success of her lemonade stands, she wanted to have a party that would help others.

She allowed me to invite business associates, WEO members, neighbors, girl scouts and her closest friends to her party.  We made blankets -- all day.  We had three sewing machines set up, a bunch of people with scissors and piles of fabric.  Savannah's  biggest concern was that there would still be cake.  She's so much my daughter.  We cleaned the platter of a 1/2 sheet cake by dinner time.

New Season's Market gave us a discount on our food, we had a generous donation from Matraex, LLC in Boise Idaho. Their donation paid for the fabric, food and other supplies to make the event a success.

It was a huge a huge success. The girls and adults all had a lot of fun, we made 50 blankets to donate to local area shelters, two people learned to sew on the machine, our daughter made her first solo binky for Binky Patrol and the cake was great!

A season of giving - once a week.

My brother is joining us for Thanksgiving. We are all very excited. Preparations have begun.  The floor has officially been christened for the holiday season.  We were blessed to truly start the season with a visit to the Good Neighbor Center in Tigard.  We've made and delivered pumpkin bread to older neighbors and teachers.  Cranberry bread is in the oven and we have the recipes out for Special Pecan Pie - pecan and cranberries, and mom's apple pie.  Time to offset the sugar and abundance by helping others.

Good Neighbor Center - Tigard, Oregon

What a great way to welcome the Thanksgiving Holiday. We had the privilege today of delivering 40 blankets, toys, baskets, baby gear to the Good Neighbor Center & Shelter in Tigard Oregon.  This was the follow up to the Bink-A-Thon last month:  http://www.binkypatrol.org to learn more.

Girl Scout Troop (#iforget) joined us for this special outing after helping make baskets of toys and binkies.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s influence in our school.

We had the pleasure of attending "Art Night" at our daughter's school tonight.  This is an evening where each class displays the projects they have worked on through this week.  This includes some of the Art Lit projects such as the Dale Chihuly chandelier, the Korean scrolls on rice paper (<< at left) and the African paper collages inspired by the art of Lois Jones.

Link to 52 Ways To Make a Difference

I received an email from someone who is helping to get people interested in making a difference every week of the year. http://julie.libsyn.com/ - 52 Ways to Make a Difference.  She listed Binky Patrol on her site.  The least I could do was to link back to her.

School Auctions - with a bit of creative forethought they can be successful.

I had the privilege of helping to set up the school auction this morning. I had a lot of fun.  I always enjoy spending time with a group of people with a single purpose - to make a difference and just get it done.

Getting out of my own way and out of my head

I find when I'm in the spiraling funk and can't seem to see daylight it's time to get out of myself and help someone else who can't help themselves.  I break out a bag of scraps and make a binky.

The class quilts

Amazing what a new sewing machine can do.  It can lessen the yelling, cursing, jumping up and down, throwing fabric across the room and general fit pitching.  The tops are done.  It was a long weekend, but sewing with a friend makes all the difference.

Saying goodbye to an old, heavy friend.

(sniff). I'm sad to report that my old sewing machine is going on to service the habit of some meth head as scrap. It was in the familiy for 35 years. I made many blankets and other projects with t hat machine.  It attended several Bink-A-Thons.

Please don't ask me - just pick something.

I work from home.  We have two small children - 6 and 3.  They are very articulate and ask about 500 questions a day.  They are also intelligent. Answering "because" and "I don't know" are not acceptable brush-offs.  They are not to be deterred by our lack of knowledge or lack of interest in answering their questions.