I woke up this morning to hear that a second 6.1 earthquake has hit Haiti, barely over an hour ago. This is just over a week after the 7.0 one hit. If things were bad before, I don’t even want to imagine.
And this will not be an easy road. There are many easy ways to donate money, which is needed. There are also organizations of speciliazed fields, medicine in particular, who are gathering people to go down there to help. Below are a few links and phone numbers to help you find a way to help.
Please let me know of others, I’ll keep a running list going here.
Thanks everyone, and please keep praying for the people of Haiti.
God Bless.
American Red Cross Text ‘HAITI’ to 90999 to have a $10 donation sent. Up to 3 donations per phone.
Yele Haiti - Text YELE to 501501 to give $5 to the fund. This is Haitian-born Wyclef Jean’s charity.
UNICEF – Link will take you to a donation page, we all know they do great work to help the most vulnerable, the kids. You can call too 1-800-4UNICEF.
International Medical Corps - The link will take you to their donation page to help fund their first response efforts.
Catholic Relief Services – They are sending food, supplies, money, people. Many of the makeshift hospitals now are being made by the churches and convents.
American Jewish World Service – They are helping with infrastructure, short term relief, and planning in helping with long term recovery.
Ravelry: Patterns for Haiti – These are knitting and crochet patterns by people commited to donating part of their proceeds to Haiti Relief. If you’re already planning on getting a pattern, get one of these. It even lets you filter out ones you’ve favored or queued before.
Do what you can, and remember to spread out the love. There’s a HUGE flood of help now (which is of course needed) but this will take a long time, we’re talking about rebuilding a country. So keep these places flagged and bookmarked. Remember, tax refunds will be coming in a few month, use some of that to make a bigger donation 3 months down the line again. This will be an on going process so be ready for the long run.
Keep praying for this to be the last of the disasters for Haiti.
OK. There has been a series of recent events that has got me thinking.
Before I go into all that I’m thinking, since I’m still thinking it, I wanted to ask those of you out there that know me, even if you don’t know me well, how do you see me?
Basically, when you think of me, what’s the ethnic/racial image that you instinctively associate me with. Not what you know I am, since most of you know my whole ethnic and racial make-up (if you don’t just ask, no biggie). I’m just wondering how you see me. Being rather mixed, and extremely American, I realize I kind of blend and have noticed a few people have to put some effort into remembering what I am, even if they know. I’m just trying to get a grasp of how actually do I come off.
I’ll share the results later, and please comment if you aren’t sure how to answer, or have some insight to share. Don’t worry, the poll is anonymous, so unless you tell me who you are on a comment, I won’t be tracking you down.
This hasn’t been the easiest year. By far not the hardest, but still not easy. I’m not someone who likes being sad. I don’t like crying, especially over things I can’t fix or change. But I can’t lie and say it’s been easy to keep the Christmas spirit around here, though Lord knows we’re trying. Holidays are always hard right after loosing someone. It’s funny, in loosing my mom, Christmas wasn’t hard, but Halloween was because that was always her holiday, the dressing up and the candies and her pitch perfect witch cackle. But this year in loosing my dad, Christmas is getting to me. Read the rest of this entry »
It was inspired by West Wing. In the Lemon Lymon’s – my Ravelry West Wing Group, we had a KAL last year and the theme was Gold Fish, because of the GoldFish Gail that Danny gave CJ. So my nickname for this Scarf is the CJ & Danny.
Hope you all like it! Please e-mail me or comment here if you have any questions.
I came to a realization this week. Rather, I correctly identified and named a problem I always knew was there.
The insight is that I don’t have the first clue on how to make friends. Honestly, this is due in large part to me being very picky about who I consider a friend. So those people out there who know you are my friends… HI! you’re in a small and selective club, if you didn’t already know. I think that’s one of my defining Latin qualities, that to be a “friend” is more than to be friendly with. Friends=family. They are a step below the closest of family and several steps above those relatives that we just tolerate out of obligation.
The other problem is that the friends I have, I don’t know how I managed to forge those friendships. They just sort of happened. Kismet. And those with whom I am closest, the only reason I managed to not loose them is very much a credit to one great friend who didn’t give up on me when I had all but given up on myself, and who was an unbreakable tether to everyone else. Read the rest of this entry »
So… the bane of my knitting existence is hats. Hats are kryptonite to my knitting superpowers. I don’t get it, I can’t do it. Give me cables, give me lace, give me socks, and I’ll tackle them all. Hat? Can’t make them to save my life! Until now! Read the rest of this entry »
Ok… We’ve been in the burbs of Chicago for 4 years now, but to be honest, we haven’t really taken part of Chicago. Part of it has been time and being bogged down by responsiblites, the other part has that we aren’t the most socialpeople, but the biggest issue has been we just haven’t wanted to accept Chicago. We’re so homesick for Philly that we (ok, me really) have been stubbornly avoiding anything Chicago-y. Read the rest of this entry »
Ok, so since May-ish, the Mr. and I have been working Dave Ramsey’s Total Money Makeover and trying to get out of debt and save money and all that great financial fitness jazz.
We’ve been doing really well and are proud of ourselves. One of the things about the program though is how to save money and be frugal. And this, believe it or not, is the FUN part! hehehe. It’s a game to see what can be cut and how to do things yourself.
OK, I haven’t been posting projects for a while so here we are!
These are mostly what I did over the winter for Christmas for everyone.
The Shawl is a lace Shawl I made from Brad’s Nana Beadle. It was my first lace pattern. I made the clasp myself with a painted sanddollar from Joann Fabrics and some super putty! I got a clasp that I used there as well. I think it turned out very nice. Read the rest of this entry »
As many of you know, at 11pm on April 14th, my father, Gilber Vieira Branco died of pnumonia and complications from renal failure. Though he pasted in LaGrange, IL (Chicago suburb), we decided to have services in Philadelphia at our former parish, St. Joseph’s RC Church (part of Presentation BVM) in Cheltenham, PA. My parents started their married life there, both Victor and I were born there and that was where we had the highest concentration of family and friends.
I want to thank all my friends and family for all their support with Dad’s passing. Everyone came through, even unexpected people. Read the rest of this entry »
