I’m on vacation in Satellite Beach, Florida, staying with my in-laws at their condo on the beach with the three kids (sans husband, who couldn’t get time off work). Tonight, we watched the Space Shuttle Discovery launch from the balcony. We had a great view, being only about 25 miles from Kennedy Space Center.
Discovery is in the air.All the people on the beach waiting to see the shuttle launch.
My new handbag is a Juxtaposie handbag. Founder Kristen Hendricks made a decision that part of the profits from the sale of her handbags will go toward providing hope and healing to children who have suffered from commercial sexual exploitation. “As fun and fabulous as our handbags may be, we recognize purchasing one may not dramatically change your life, but it may change someone else’s. Thank you for helping us make a difference,” Kristen says.
Kristen recently founded a not-for-profit called Purse of Hope. The initial mission of Purse of Hope is to rescue and rehabilitate 100 girls in Uganda who are the victims of sex-trafficking, forced prostitution, rape or other sexual crimes. The organizations long-term goal is to expand this program to include several other countries and rehabilitate more than 1,000 girls worldwide. A portion of Juxtaposie profits go to this organization.
Now, check out my cool purse:
One of the really cool things about these Juxtaposie bags (besides the amazing quality and attention to detail) are the beaded handles. Incorporated into each handle are several hand-rendered beads created by Northern Ugandan refugees that were forced to flee their homes due to a 21 year civil war. Plus, the handles are detachable, so you can buy several different versions to go with one purse, totally changing the look.
Juxtaposie also offers women a career opportunity to sell these fun bags. One of my friends, Dot Vision, is a sales director in the St. Louis area, and she’d love to tell you how to earn a Juxtaposie bag for yourself for free. You can reach her at dot.vishion@juxtaposie.com. Or, if you want to shop online, you can do so here, and then enter Dot’s consultant code, #001007.
Now, I need to go play with my new purse some more.
Most people who know me, know I hate flying. But I’d fly with the pilot of this plane ANY DAY. Wow. I’m so glad everyone was alright. Look at this amazing picture of the rescue.
We’re supposed to fly to Florida for spring break . My baby still qualifies to ride as a “lap” child. I don’t like doing that, but the economics really make sense — until now. I think we may be changing that ticket.
UPDATE: The DB is now flying in her own seat to Florida for spring break. My husband can’t go, so it was a fairly easy “economic” decision — we simply paid $130 and changed his seat into her name. And I feel a lot better. I don’t know if the infant on Flight 1549 was an “infant in arms” or not, but it’s got to be safer for a baby to be in her own seat, strapped into a carseat.
I was very encouraged to read this story in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. We have four Ipods in our family. The two older kids have the swanky square Nano’s that play video, and my husband and I have the old rectangular Nano’s. I got mine about four years ago and still love it. My husband inherited his when the kids were “upgraded” to the newer Nano’s via their Nana.
With four of us using Ipods, we’ve spent plenty of money at the Itunes store. Therefore, it is incredibly frustrating that we can’t use any of those songs, which were legally purchased and belong to us, with other software programs like my slideshow program in Adobe Photoshop or my Flip movie-making program. I’ve had to download music from Amazon.com to do that. And I love the fact that Amazon has a bunch of songs you can download for free that work with ANY software program. In fact, the video in this post is utilizing one of those free songs.
But now it looks like Apple is going to lift its copyright protection from eight million songs immediately and from the remaining two million songs by the end of March. Plus, you can pay to “upgrade” any existing songs in your Itunes library to the copyright-free version. I doubt I’ll be doing that unless there is one I just have to have for a slideshow or video. But I am glad to hear that anything purchased going forward will be more user-friendly.
Oh — and Apple is implemeting a new pricing structure, with some songs costing only 69 cents, some remaining at 99 cents and some songs costing $1.29. Apple says the vast majority of songs will cost 69 cents. Whatever. I’ll believe it when I see it. I’m more excited about the copyright issue, because I think this new pricing plan will probably be a price increase.
I was a newspaper reporter in my former life (my life before kids). I mostly covered the cops and courts beat. My dad was a cop, so the whole crime and punishment thing was a natural for me. I wrote about some serious tragedies, like this one and this one. I interviewed the families of these victims, sometimes within hours of their loved ones’ deaths. I interviewed the family of the man sentenced to death in this case within hours of his arrest. I even met my husband at a memorial service for a police officer killed in the line of duty — I was covering the service for my newspaper. None of this bothered me. It was simply part of my job.
These days, in addition to being a mom, I’m a freelance writer and public relations professional, and I still do some newspaper writing. Even though it doesn’t pay nearly as well as my “corporate” work, reporting was my first love and I want to keep those skills sharp. One of my former newspaper colleagues is now the editor of a local paper in my community, so she sends story assignments my way from time to time. And since she knew me when I was a “tough” cops reporter, she didn’t hesitate to assign me a story about a young woman who was killed in a car accident on Christmas day.
I didn’t hesitate to take the assignment, either — that is, until I had to make the phone call to the young woman’s parents. I was secretly hoping they’d refuse to talk to me, and I’d simply write the story from the police reports with a few quotes from the cops. But not only did these parents agree to talk to me, they insisted I come to their home and talk with several family members and look at pictures of their lovely daughter and really get to know who she was.
I talked with these kind people today. The interview that I dreaded all weekend ended up being a lovely way to spend an hour this afternoon. I got to meet a family that really knows how to celebrate life. I wish I’d known their daughter, because she sounds like she was amazing. Still, doing the interview wasn’t easy. And I might think twice before taking another assignment like this one.
My husband asked me what happened to the tough reporter that he knew all those years ago. I think she died in childbirth.
The holiday season is officially here. And the shopping craze has begun. I admit to being a part of it on Black Friday. I did a little shopping online, but then my whole family (DH, DD, DS, DB and I) headed out into the madness and we actually got a lot done.
But my church, Windsor Crossing, along with hundreds of other churches across the country and across the globe, is participating in a movement to do the Christmas season a little differently via Advent Conspiracy and Living Water. I wrote a whole article on it here for West NewsMagazine. Check it out and consider getting involved. The Advent Conspiracy Web site has a really cool video! Our family will be contributing to this effort via our church. I hope it helps us keep in mind the true meaning of Christmas.
A Los Angeles jury on Wednesday found Lori Drew guilty of three counts of accessing a computer without authorization. The judge declared a mistrial on the felony conspiracy charge against her, which involved accessing a computer without authorization to inflict emotional distress. The jury could not reach a verdict on that charge.
Drew, of O’Fallon, MO, was standing trial for her part in a MySpace scheme that involved creating a fictitious profile and harassing 13-year-old Megan Meier, who hung herself after reading messages from the ficticious MySpace account. Supposedly, Drew did this because she believed Meier had said mean things about her daughter, Sarah. Meier been treated for depression.
Drew faces up to one year in prison and a $100,000 fine on each count for which she was convicted. She could have faced 20 years in prison if convicted of the original charges.
As a mom, I have to wonder if justice has been served. Some people think Drew has been punished enough. She’s been shamed, forced to move from her home in Dardenne Prairie, MO to O’Fallon, MO and faced a criminal trial in Los Angeles where MySpace is located.
When I first heard about the story, I was shocked and angered. How could a mother be so stupid? I mean, I’ve gotten my gander up over things, particularly when it comes to my kids. I’ve wanted to anonymously email someone to give them a piece of my mind. I’ve wanted to post things here to vent my rage against people who I think have hurt my children with their words or actions. I’ve wanted to text and “spread the word according to me.” But then my “filter” kicks in. I remember that I’m supposed to be an adult. I remember that my actions or words could hurt the child of someone else. I think as moms, we’re supposed to have better filters than anyone else. We’re supposed to be empathetic and sympathetic. We may not REALLY love the children of other people as much as we love our own children, but we’re supposed to try. We may not even like the children of other people. But at the very least, we should make sure we don’t do them any harm. We should ACT LIKE MOMS. And we should probably take it upon ourselves to call attention to any wrongs being done to any child.
So, I think what Lori Drew did was wrong. Regardless of whether Megan Meier suffered from depression or not, she should have NEVER suffered humliation at the hands of a mother — ANY MOTHER. Perhaps by calling attention to this case and its verdict, we can remind other people to use their filters before using their keyboard.
