Lessons from Girls Scouts

It's that time of year again when Girl Scouts hang out in all the popular places--grocery stores, hair salons, subway stations--set up with tables piled high with boxes of cookies.  Delicious cookies that only come once a year that I would buy many more of, if only for one thing: if the Girl Scouts asked me more often.  I insist on walking past the tables and the boxes of Thin Mints and Do Si Dos unless a fine young lady asks me, "Would you like to buy a box of Girl Scout cookies?" Because, duh!! Of course I want to.  But in the spirit of the Girl Scout mission to develop young women in to leaders, I insist they ask me.  Which makes the following conversation with Dave on the way to the subway station that much more funny.

Me: Damn.  I was going to say I really hope a Girl Scout asks me to buy cookies today because I really want some Samoas, but I think I only have $2.00 in my wallet.

Dave: So why shouldn't they ask you?

Me: Because I only have $2.00 so I'll have to say no.

Dave: And that doesn't teach them a lesson?

Me: No, that's not the lesson I want to teach them.  I don't want them to think I just don't want them or that I'm poor.  Thinking I'm too poor to buy Girl Scout cookies is a terrible lesson.

Dave: How so? It tells them about their market and that they're priced too high.

Me: No, that's not the lesson.  The lesson I want to teach them is if they asked me to buy cookies, I will; but if they don't ask me I won't just offer them money for cookies.  I don't want to teach them that if they ask me and I say no that I'm poor.  That's a terrible lesson.

Dave: But it's a lesson in the market which is also valuable.  They shouldn't charge so much.

Me: No, no, that's not the point.  The point is that if they don't ask me, I won't buy, so they won't get what they want.

Dave: That's just silly.  You should teach them as many lessons as possible.

Me: Well, you should be giving me $2.00 so I can say yes when they ask me!

Dave: I'd give you $2.00 if you asked!  You didn't ask, so I'm not going to just give you money.  You have to ask for what you want!

Touche, husband, touche. 

But regardless, it didn't really matter because I actually did have money in my wallet to buy Girl Scout cookies.  Unfortunately when we go to the subway station there were no Girl Scouts hawking their wares that I could teach a lesson to.

Damn.  And I still want a box of Samoas.

Operation Baking GALS

As challenging as life has been these past few years, I've continued to seek ways that I can feel rewarded.  I truly believe in the good karma that comes from volunteers and giving of oneself in time, service or goods and money.  Since Dave and I have had to be careful with our budget during his unemployment, the checks once written to the causes we believe in have gotten smaller.  But my willingness to help has probably gotten bigger.

One of the reasons I started crocheting was so that I could give my friends and family beautiful homemade gifts, but also so that I could create items to donate to people in need.  So I've made  Comfort Scarves for women in domestic violence shelters and chemo caps for cancer patients at area hospitals.  We began fostering dogs for All Dog Rescue partly because of our desire to have a dog in our lives, but also to help save a dog and give it a good life while finding it's forever home.  We have the love, time and home to give so it made sense to get involved. 

About once a year my department at work has an opportunity to do a volunteer project.  We are given the opportunity to leave our desks for the morning and join a group of our coworkers to help out an area agency (as a group) for a few hours. Then we come back, have lunch and return to our desks for the afternoon, feeling fulfilled, at least in my part, because spending the morning sorting food at the Greater Boston Food Bank or organizing donated children's clothing at Cradles to Crayons puts everything in perspective and inspires me to be a better person and help those around me.

Even my baking has become a source of goodwill.  A couple weeks ago I was looking for recipes from a fellow blogger, Beantown Baker, and found a link to an organization called Operation Baking GALS (Give A Little Support).  The group is an all volunteer, web-organized effort that succeeds in getting groups of people to rally and bake homemade treats for service members.  The idea is that service members are nominated and each month maybe 5-10 teams are created to bake for one of the nominated individuals.  Team members bake up treats and ship them to their service member, who over about a week's time ends up with as many as a dozen or more packages full of goodies and other items from home.  The idea is to give these heroes a reminder of home and let them know they are supported, even if it's from a complete stranger.  I instantly loved the concept and had to join.

So this weekend I'll be baking for Denny, a first lieutenant in the Marines stationed in Afghanistan.  Denny grew up in Altoona, PA, not far from where I went to college and only a couple of hours from Pittsburgh.  When looking through the 10 nominated service members, I could have baked for any of them, but the almost-hometown connection sealed the deal.  I'll plan to make something yummy and add some extra store-bought comforts lacking in Afghanistan (apparently Denny is a fan of Cheez-its and Pringles).

It's so easy to be kind to people and help others.  Sort of amazing that in a time of financial crisis globally and a tight budget at home, I've found more ways to help people that I probably ever have before.  I plan on saving all these karma points for something big.

A Few Projects

While I was at jury duty in March, I started working on a few crochet projects (it made the time go by).  Following a free pattern I picked up from Joann Fabrics, I figured out hats a little bit better and was able to finish 5 chemo caps recently.

The Michael's craft store near me collects the caps year round for area chemo patients, so I dropped off all of them there.  I liked this project because I felt good about helping someone else, I used up some extra (read: free) yarn and I learned something.  A veritable trifecta.

I also finished up a beach bag for my friend Lisa.  Her birthday was last month and she's moving to Florida next month, so I came up with this patterns after failing miserably at one of the patterns in the Chicks with Sticks book. 

I used bamboo silk yarn and it's so soft.  The bag will stretch a lot, but the yarn is strong, so it'll be great for sunglasses, sunscreen, a book and some snacks.

A few other projects are lined up now, but we'll see how much I get on the ball with them.  I think I have 4 projects in various stages on not being done right now.  Oops.

Bake Sale Begins Today!

Today's the day!  The Bloggers Bake for Hope Bake Sale has opened with dozens of delicious and tempting treats up for bid.  Please support this group of volunteer bloggers raising money for Race for the Cure by bidding on an item (or more).  Bidding will  close at midnight on Friday, so be sure to get your bids in by then.  And please pass this information along to anyone you know who might be interested!

From my kitchen, I've got Banana Split Cookies and Kid's Candy Cookies up for grabs.

Thanks for the support!

Bake Sale!

Bloggers Bake for Hope

Today I stumbled upon (literally, I was blog hopping and stumbled upon this link) a volunteer effort that I'm excited to join and something I think you might be interested in as well.

I hope you'll join me in supporting this cause.  If you're a baker, please register to donate an item.  If you like sweets, please consider bidding once the bake sale begins.

During the first week of May, a nation-wide, all volunteer virtual bake sale will take place to raise money for breast cancer research.  As a baking blogger, I am donating a batch of cookies I've featured on my baking blog.  Bloggers have until April 30th to register their goods, and already a lot of yummy treats are listed.  I'm sure you'll find something that catches your eye and teases your taste buds. 

Beginning May 4th you'll be able to bid on the treat (or treats) of your choosing.  If you win, your treats will be shipped directly to you.  The goal is raise $2,000 for the Komen Foundation, and I'm sure that can happen.  For more information, visit Bloggers Bake for Hope.

Projects and Gifts

It's been a long while since I talked about my crochet projects,but I have good reason.  Everything that I've made in the past few months was a Christmas gift and of course I wanted to keep them a surprise.

It started in September when I decided I would make my nieces and nephew blankets.  I started with Elyse's and finished it it about 3 weeks.  Except for the edges, which I did the week before Christmas. Just in time to wrap and ship it.  But I digress.  I didn't use a particular pattern--I just decided to use a stitch I liked and consulted a few patterns for an estimate on number of stitches to get roughly the size I wanted.  After taking only 3 weeks to finish a pretty big blanket, I thought, "That was easy, of course I have time to do one for Aidan and one for Abi."  Oh what a silly girl I am some times. 

First I struggled with getting the yarn I wanted.  It was only available online and then I had an issue with the website showing one price, but charging me another (higher) price, so I had to call and get that sorted out.  It was relatively painless, but nonetheless took some time. 

And then cookie season started and most of my time usually spent in front of the TV (perfect crochet time #1) was spent baking.  Additionally, since these blankets were pretty big, I couldn't very well do them on the train (perfect crochet time #2).  But I worked and worked, and by mid-December, I had all three blankets complete, except for the edges and tying in the ends.

I had the brilliant idea that I would use the cute, fuzzy fun fur yarn to do the edges on Elyse and Abi's blankets.  It would be adorable and they would love it.  Now, a few years ago, my mom had made me a scarf using that kind of yarn and had told me it was a labor of love because it was a pain to work with.  Not that I didn't believe her, but holy crap.  That stuff it just awful for crocheting. A friend tells me it's better for knitting, so I won't completely dismiss it as a medium in general.  And I bought 4 skeins of it.  Want to know how much I used?  One and quarter skeins.  So of course I will suffer through making something else using it because I'll hate to see it go to waste.  After completing the edging on Elyse's blanket and starting on Abi's, concerned about being done in time to wrap and ship, I looked at Dave and said, "Next September, when I say I want to make all the kids sweaters for Christmas, I give you full permission to punch me in the face."

Elyse's blanket

So I was a little ambitious, but it was totally worth it.  After using every bit of spare time I could find, three beautiful blankets were wrapped, each with a book, perfect for snuggling.

Aidan's blanket

Abi's blanket

My sister let Abi and Aidan open theirs as soon as they arrived (a few days before Christmas), so I was treated to a chorus of thank yous for their "wubbies."  I did use an actual pattern for Abi's, using it as an opportunity to learn something new.  Abi's blanket was a free pattern from Lion Brand Yarn, Child's Chevron Throw (pattern # 80787AD).  Instead of using 6 colors, though, I just used 2 and ran the dropped yarn up the side.

But wait, there's more!  I had to have something to do on the train.  So a BUNCH of people got scarves.  I made popcorn scarves, crossed double scarves and lots of curly ruffled scarves.  They were pretty fun and I gifted them to friends, Dave's family and my cousins.

Ruffle scarves for friends

Diagonal scarf for my cousin. I also made a pink one that looked more like camo.

Crossed double scarves for Stacy and Jo.  I also made one in cream wool for Madaline.

Popcorn scarves for Annette and Donna.

Popcorn detail.

I made a few other ruffled scarves, but forgot to take pictures. And I made myself a simple scarf out of lavender bamboo yarn that feels like silk.  It took me about one evening while watching Dave play video games.

Finally, as my gifts were completed (and so were the cookies), I found I wanted to keep making things.  So I went back to my charity projects and decided to check in on the Special Olympics scarves.  The good news is that instead of just being a project for the Washington State Special Olympics, the national Special Olympics organization has picked up the project.  The bad news is that they changed the colors from red and white to two shades of blue.  Which means all the scarves I already made can't be donated to them.  So, if you know of any charity organizations where I could send between 6-10 scarves, please leave me a comment!  I'm on the hunt for new charities and would welcome any ideas.

Helping Others Through My New Hobby

I've become a little obsessed with my new hobby.

I'm really enjoying crocheting and have been occupying my evening time with new projects. I've also spent a bunch on yarn (always on sale or with coupons, though!) and am trying to complete the projects I've started. Most of them are unfinished because I've run out of the yarn needed. So I start something else until I get back out to Michael's or Joann Fabrics. So it's not that I've lost interest in a project--I've just decided I'd rather be working on something new than not working on anything at all.

However, I've also determined that I can only give so many people in my life a scarf for Christmas (or a bag or a blanket), so I've been trying to think of another outlet. While looking online for free patterns today, I stumbled upon a listing of charities to send completed projects that will be donated to people in need. The resources run the gambit of needing blankets or hats for newborn babies to lap blankets for the elderly to scarves for the homeless, both locally and nationally. Ultimately, I imagine I'll create something for several of these organizations, but there was one that really caught my eye, mostly because I'm new to this and my skills are still limited. And because this charity is something I can donate a lot to in a short amount of time.

Miles of Smiles is a group associated with the 2011 Special Olympics Washington State Winter Games which will be held in March 2011. The goal is to create/collect 2,500 scarves in order to distribute one to each athlete at the games. I love this idea. Using many different patterns in the same color and brand of yarn, this is a fantastic idea to use my new creative outlet and help out a good cause.

This picture is from the Miles of Smiles blog tracking the progress of their effort. These are just some of the scarves donated by crocheters.

As a person used to volunteering on a regular basis (I was a Big Sister, served in my church growing up, helped out in the community for a long time), since moving to Massachusetts, I've been looking for some new way to do my part in making the world a little brighter. It's been a struggle with my work schedule and commute, but this is one way I can contribute. I can even do this on the train, so I should be able to make several scarves in a relatively short period of time.

I'll keep you updated on my progress and would love to learn of any deserving charities that I might be able to contribute to.