When was the last time you donated blood? If it's been a while, or maybe if you never have, there are some changes you should know about. Canadian Blood Services is trying to make donating easier with a few new things:
Wi-fi in clinics
New mobile app to make booking appointments more convenient (for Android or iPhone)
Mobile-friendly website
New eligibility quiz online to help understand if you can donate
All this is in addition to the friendly staff & volunteers at Canadian Blood Services Clinics, cookies & snacks, juice & tea that go along with donating. I know the rest of your 2014 calendar is probably looking pretty packed, so make an appointment for January. Add donating blood a few times a year to your list of resolutions.
A few years ago, we decided to stop buying gifts for the adults in the family at Christmas & give money to charity instead. I found myself spending countless hours trying to figure out what they'd want, then trying to find or make it, for at least a DOZEN people. I love my family & I like to give presents, but there are others out there who could use the money a lot more. We did some research on various charities & decided to support something local. Helping animals was a natural choice & as Oli & I have had pets most of our lives, we decided to support the BC SPCA.
The BC SPCA rescues & rehabilitates abused & neglected animals, with the goal of placing them in new, loving homes. We know a lot of wonderful pets who came to their current homes this way. Obviously, the veterinary care, housing & feeding of these animals doesn't come cheap--here's where you can help!
Please consider donating to the BC SPCA to help these animals get care & find a new home soon. We're trying to raise $1000 by December 15. You can easily donate on the website: just click on the red DONATE button on The Sprog's SPCA fundraising page to give money via credit card. Whether you donate or not, please spread the word to your friends, family & coworkers on Facebook, Twitter, email, etc. Thank you!
Have you got a penny jar in your house? Maybe you've been meaning to cash them in at some point before they go out of production forever. But they're heavy, you don't have time to roll them & go to the bank,
the change counter machines take a cut anyway... You've got lots of excuses not to cash them in. Here's a great reason to give the old penny a
great send-off: donate it to Free the Children's We Create Change campaign
to develop clean sources of drinking water for people in developing
nations.
I'm sure you know that clean water saves lives through avoiding disease (80 percent of illnesses in developing countries are linked to poor water & sanitation), but did you know that women in many rural African villages spend hours a day walking to clean water sources? Did you know many girls do it as well & it's a major barrier to their attending school? Every day, women around the world spend a cumulative total of 200 million hours collecting water for their families.
So... what can we do about it? Well, I'm participating in Free the Children's blogger challenge this
winter. I'm trying to collect as many pennies as I can for the We Create Change project.
2500 pennies = $25 which is enough money to provide clean water for one
person for a lifetime. After going around the house & collecting odd pennies here
& there, then finding our penny jar, this is the result. A good
start on filling our first bag!
Then I mentioned it to my fellow Mount Pleasant Family Centre Board Members & the lovely Patty dropped off a bag of pennies the next day. Check out the stash now:
For the next step, I need your help! If you're in the Vancouver area, can you help us fill this first bag? & the next one? I have a lot of them... Have you got a penny jar in your house full of these soon-to-be-obsolete copper discs? Please email me at lisa.corriveau AT gmail.com if you're interested in donating some of your hoarded pennies, or leave a comment below with contact info & we'll connect. Thanks!
This week was a good one for getting rid of stuff. My friend Laura posted on Facebook that she was going to do a drop-off of cosmetics & toiletries to the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre. The DEWC has a wide range of programs, including an emergency shelter & a drop-in centre. They are always looking for donations of things like moisturizer, shampoo & other toiletries for the women they serve. If you've got a stash of hotel shampoos & soaps or a moisturizer you tried recently & didn't like, bring it to the DEWC! I went through my bathroom cabinets & found some conditioner that I've used a little of & no longer need. I also had a few sample-sized cleansers & moisturizers that I'm never going to use. Then I opened up my nail polish collection. Some you who see me regularly in person, but haven't known me that long probably have never seen me wear nail polish. It's been years. I kept a bottle of red & a bottle of clear polish & gave away the rest: about two dozen bottles, nearly every colour of the rainbow (seriously: blue, green, purple, orange, white, black, silver, gold, the usual gamut of pinks, reds & browns.) Laura picked up the bag & a few from other people & dropped it off by bike this week. I feel so much better having cleared a bit more space in the bathroom & hope that finding a nail polish she likes will bring a smile to someone's face.
I also found out on Facebook about a new thrift store that's opening up in our neighbourhood. Aunt Leah's Thrift Store is collecting donations of clothing & furniture right now, planning their grand opening on December 2. You can find them in the Lee Building at 177 East Broadway at Main Street. Aunt Leah's Place is a charitable organization that helps foster kids & teen moms, focussing on housing, work skills training & parenting skills for young people who would otherwise fall through the many cracks in the system.
Aunt Leah's lovely volunteers arrived today with a U-haul truck to pick up our two TV stands, a desk chair, a rug, a dish rack, a kid's chair & four garbage bags of clothing. If you've got some stuff to donate, please contact Angelina Oates at aoates@auntleahs.org or phone 604-525-1204 ext 232. They'll come & pick it up!
Our living room feels a bit empty with all the furniture we've removed from it in the last month or so. I can't wait to redecorate! We have some white leather armchairs & matching sofa in mind, possibly a new coffee table as well. All are better quality than the stuff we intended to be temporary that we've been sitting on for nearly a decade. Getting rid of all those clothes really feels liberating too. I can't believe how much space they were taking up, just sitting there, unworn. I gave away a few things that I do occasionally wear too--I was fairly ruthless about my 'minimalizing': I tossed many things that I don't really love or that doesn't fit me well. Sadly, I still have a lot of clothes that I don't love in my wardrobe. I think if I reduced it to the favourites that look great & fit well, I wouldn't have enough clothing to go a week without doing laundry.
I'm starting to realize that all the stuff we surround ourselves with can have a power over us, strongly affecting our mental well-being. Having too many things, especially poorly organized, just isn't healthy. All this decluttering, donating (& hopefully some selling) is going slowly, but every bag of stuff I give away makes me feel better. I feel like I was buried in a mountain & I'm slowly digging my way out.
Last night I dropped off a large grocery bag worth of ribbon, paint, beads, yarn & various other doodads at the Rhizome Free Store. Every month they set aside the front part of the restaurant for people to exchange stuff of some sort. This month it was craft supplies, in the past I've been to one for baby & children's clothing.
I feel good that perhaps someone will make something interesting out of the stuff that was clogging the drawers & shelves in my sewing room. I tried to be ruthless, but I barely made a dent in my massive stash of things-I-might-use-for-a-project-in-future.
I've been reading a blog called Minimalist Mom for a while & just started reading her ebook. Her recent post is one of many inspirations right now to pare down all the stuff in my life, starting with orange juice.
We get the bulk of our groceries delivered via SPUD, including not just organic fruit & veggies, but bagels, milk, eggs, cheese & juice. About 6 litres of orange juice a month. Which we actually don't drink that often. Sprout's not yet had orange juice & I don't think I want to give him juice of any kind any time soon. When I logged in to the SPUD site to eliminate this juice from our standing order, I did a quick calculation. We have been spending around $180 a year on juice!
The orange juice isn't the only thing I've been 'minimalizing. I think I'm going to take a second stab at my wardrobe & thin it out even more. The three garbage bags I pulled out last week are good, but I'm still left with more than I really need. Footwear is at the top of the list. I have a number of pairs of shoes hanging around the house that I haven't parted with for some reason, despite never wearing them. Quite a few of them are heels that I loved, but can no longer wear without inflicting serious pain on myself. I am never going to be one of those single-pair-of-shoes people. I regularly wear at least five pairs: runners, brown leather boots, black mary janes, red converse & my green Birkenstock sandals. Then there is the second string of red boots, peep-toe ballet flats, hiking/winter boots, gumboots & a few other pairs of Birkenstocks that I almost forgot to get out of storage this past summer. My coat collection is also a bit ridiculous. If I sit & think about it for a minute, I think I still (after weeding out a few) have more than ten coats of various kinds.
Hmm... you know, I've been trying to 'minimalize' in many small ways for a long time, now that I think of it. A while ago, I came across a post on Google Plus about Inbox Zero. Basically a habit to get into so that your inbox isn't the electronic version of a hoarder's home office. I've been more or less successful at this, having a fairly tidy inbox most of the time. Every so often, I add to my gmail filters to reduce the amount of mail I get that I'm not going to be interested in. I ruthlessly delete anything I don't need & I just click 'archive' as soon as I've read anything that I might want to hang onto. Now if only my actual paper filing cabinet looked as good. That's a project for another day: weeding out ancient documents, scanning some things & organizing what I do feel the need to keep. I suspect there will be a small mountain of shredded paper afterward. Anyone need any for packing material or something?
I don't think I'm getting too obsessed by this 'minimalizing' stuff, but it definitely has become a hobby of sorts. I delight in finding new & interesting ways to get rid of stuff. My latest discovery was the notice of an upcoming craft supplies 'free store' at Rhizome. I have already sorted out a large shopping bag of ribbon, fake flowers, beads & various other crafty items that I haven't touched for years. I realized today while watching an episode of Consumed online that I have several sets of paint that I could add to the bag: gouache, watercolour & oil. I will keep my acrylics though--I actually use those occasionally.
Think I'll sign off with an interesting TED talk I just saw on YouTube. Another way to cut back on the acquisition of stuff: Collaborative Consumption. It's about 20 minutes long, but worth your while.
Last April, I blogged about wanting to pare down my wardrobe. Since then, I've managed to do a bit of decluttering in the rest of the house, but kept procrastinating on the mess in my bedroom. Then a couple of days ago, I finally attacked my closet, dresser & the various boxes & heaps of half-sorted items. After about an hour of sorting into piles of keep, donate, consign, throw out & store (summer & maternity stuff), I had three big garbage bags to give to Big Brothers; a small bag for the garbage of ragged fishnets, holey undies, etc; & a collection of clothes that now fits into my dresser & closet.
I'm still not that happy with the results. So much of my wardrobe is pieces that I bought not because I really loved them, but because they were cheap. If I was truly ruthless & pitched everything that I didn't really like, I'd be left with next to nothing. On the upside, all the bland Old Navy basics that make up a large part of my wardrobe are very washable so I don't really care when Sprout smears food or snot on them. However, I'd like to slowly weed them out, replacing them with interesting stuff I've made myself, the occasional high-quality designer item & unique pieces from local independent lines.
Maybe someday in the future, if I keep up the gradual process of paring down, I'll have a minimalist home & wardrobe. Still not sure how sewing & making stuff fits into that lifestyle though. How do you reconcile getting rid of everything you don't use regularly with a sewing & crafting stash?
