Nov. 23

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with family or friends, ate a delicious meal and gave thanks for your blessings.

...And now it's Black Friday. Everyone in America, it seems, is out shopping on the biggest shopping day of the year. I know this year I personally will be buying very few gifts that aren't helping someone - somewhere - somehow. Is my purchase paying someone a living wage? Is the organization donating most of all of the profits for a worthy cause? In order to accomplish this I will need to shop at places like Heifer International or Unicef or WorldVision or Ten Thousand Villages and the like. You know to be honest, though, I know even as recent as a couple of years ago, I may have been a little disappointed in a gift of a goat donation in my name. And I'm ashamed to admit that. (remember that episode of Seinfeld when George gave gifts to his co-workers in their name to the Human Fund?) But now that I am more educated and sensitive and empathetic and disheartened and enraged about extreme, abject poverty and suffering around the world it makes commercialism that much more disconcerting.

After writing that I feel a little bit of a hypocrite writing that I spent money today on home upgrades. I realize I am fortunate to be able to afford a home and make it comfortable and I suppose as long as I also share my good fortune and time and knowledge with those in need, it's OK. I don't know. What do you think?

Here's what I did today:

1. Tried to place the order for the plantation shutters but the information wasn't in the system so they wouldn't allow me to pay for them. In a way it was good though because it allows me a couple more days to decide which rooms I want to order them for. I left the blinds section and went over to appliances and bought a new dryer. I am so excited! I have been without a dryer for months. I looked on line at Consumer Reports before I left and knew the exact model I wanted. They ordered it for me and even met the price I had found on the internet!
~2 hours


2. I went to Ikea and got some more things for the house. So much stuff was on sale! I got a lot there for very little.
~2 hours


3. Laundry, as usual. But soon I will have a dryer and it will go so much faster!
~30 min.


4. Finally I went to a hardware store and got some fishing wire (to hang my $3.00 star ornaments I got from Ikea from the chandelier), some plastic to cover the windows to keep the cold out and some nice holiday scented potpourri.
~ 45 min.


Woo-hoo! Can we say pro-duc-tive!?


Hope you had a productive day. See you tomorrow.