A Good Cause

If you haven't noticed yet, I'm a sucker for a good cause. I feel that I have been blessed with so many things in my life (a home, a wonderful husband, more than enough food on our table, good health, family, friends, and living in this country). So when I find a way to help people who are less fortunate than I am, I want to do what I can. Sometimes, that isn't a lot, but I firmly believe that every little bit helps. In a sense, it's almost unfortunate that there are so many good causes out there...I can't support all of them! Although Shawn and I are rich compared to so many people throughout the world, our money is, of course, limited.

You've all heard this saying: "Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime." One problem with a lot of charitable organizations is that it feels like they're giving people fish. In other words, you can donate money to an organization that will get it into the hands of people who really need it. Or they'll use the money to buy things that will be given to people who need it (like food, clothes, or shelter). Obviously, these are good causes. But at some point, ideally, the people on the receiving end of this charity will be able to stop needing it. In order to do that, they'll need to be able to become self-sufficient.
And that's where Kiva comes in. Kiva is an organization that I am proud to be involved with. I first learned about Kiva over a year ago from my friend Greg (who, incidentally, has recently started his own good cause, Sense the World). You may have heard of this organization through the New York Times or through a TV show such as Frontline, Oprah, or The Today Show.

Basically, here's how it works. People from developing countries around the world apply for microloans (a "big" loan is a couple thousand dollars) in order to start or improve a business of their own. As the business succeeds, they repay the loan. Sounds pretty simple, right? Where does the loan money come from? From the lenders (people like you and me) at Kiva. So instead of giving these people fish, Kiva teaches them to fish...provides them with the means to become self-sufficient.

I already mentioned that I'm involved with Kiva. No, I didn't loan someone hundreds of dollars. I loaned $25. I was able to search through their list of people applying for loans and learn a little bit about them...their marital status, their children, where they live, the kind of business they want to start (or already own). I chose a person I wanted to support, and then I simply donated money that would go towards their full loan amount. Now here's the cool part. The money really is a loan...not a true donation. So when the person I chose to support had paid her loan back, that $25 was credited to my Kiva account. At that point, I could either have that money put back on my credit card, I could donate it straight to Kiva (for operating costs), or I could reinvest it. So I chose to reinvest it. And when Juliana Okyere in Ghana is able to pay off her loan, I'll most likely reinvest again. I'm a little intrigued to see just how many people that original $25 "donation" will eventually help! If you're interested in loaning a little money, go to Kiva's website. They've apparently been updating it recently, so if you get an "unavailable" message, please do try back a little later!

Updates

Oops. I was on a roll with the blogging in January, and then I got stuck. Sorry about that. Nothing super exciting has been going on around here the last few days, but I'll give you an update.

On Friday, Shawn and I watched the series finale of Stargate Atlantis. If you aren't already aware, Shawn is a big SciFi fan. He's really excited for the new StarTrek movie coming out later this year, and he was bummed to learn that this Stargate series is over. But never fear...Stargate Universe will be coming out this summer! And this Friday starts new episodes of Battlestar Galactica. Just in case you were concerned. :) But I'll admit...I was enjoying Stargate Atlantis. I'd watched enough of it to know what was going on, and the writers of this show weren't afraid to make fun of themselves. (One of the main characters mentioned more than once during the show that he's not a fan of SciFi.) Shawn has decided recently that I'm a closet SciFi fan, citing my love of Lord of the Rings, LOST, and Twilight as evidence. I refuse to agree with him. I'm not a dork...really.

On Saturday, Shawn was at a rugby training for most of the day, so I used the time to get a lot of reading done. That night, we went out for dinner. If you don't have a Boston's restaurant near you, you're missing out. I've been craving their chicken parmesan pizza for weeks, so I didn't even need to look at the menu. It was super yummy!

On Sunday, after going to church, we headed downtown. For Shawn's birthday, his brother bought him a "family" membership to the Seattle Aquarium. If you're having trouble thinking of a gift for someone...what a great idea! The family membership means that we both get into the Aquarium for free (and I think 2 kids could get in, too) as many times as we want for a year. I've already been there a few times over the last few years, but I've enjoyed it every time. Yesterday, my favorite part was the mammals. One of the Northern Fur Seals was showing off for everyone, and both of the Harbor Seals were posing for all the aquarium guests. Seriously, these two little guys were coming to the top of the water and just poking their heads out, staring at everybody. Since the seals are pretty much vertical while they do this, I pointed out to Shawn that their fat little bodies look like Russian nesting dolls. :) We forgot our camera, but this is basically what they looked like (but their water was more still, so you could see their entire body more easily):
And that was pretty much our weekend!

Romp to Stomp Out Breast Cancer

Have you ever heard of the Tubbs Romp to Stomp Out Breast Cancer? According to their website: "Since 2003, Tubbs Snowshoe has partnered with local affiliates of Susan G Komen for the Cure to present the Tubbs Romp to Stomp Out Breast Cancer - a snowshoe walk series modeled after the highly successful Race for the Cure. Since then, the Romp to Stomp has raised nearly three quarters of a million dollars for Susan G Komen affiliates..." This year, there are events being held in New Jersey, Vermont, Utah, Oregon, and Frisco, Colorado.

I'm sure you know that cancer is something that affects nearly every one of us. A friend of mine lost her battle against a rare form of cancer this past September; she was only 25. Shawn's father lost his battle against cancer in March of 2005. My grandmother lost her battle with breast cancer when my mom was only 27. Fortunately, I also know lots of people who have fought cancer and won. My father defeated cancer when I was a very young child, and he has dealt with skin cancer recently as well. I have friends, family, and family of friends who have faced breast cancer and beaten it. As pessimistic as this may sound, I believe that if you have not yet been personally touched in some way by cancer, it's not a matter of "if" this may happen...it's a matter of when.

Those of us who are healthy have two main things that we can do in the fight against cancer: we can raise awareness, and we can raise funds that will go toward research and toward helping people who are battling the disease. This is what the Tubbs Romp to Stomp accomplishes. On March 7, 2009, I will be participating in the event in Frisco, Colorado, along with my friends Mat and Abby. I'm excited to get out into the snow of the beautiful Rocky Mountains and to raise awareness for this great cause. I'm also excited to raise funds that will go to help women in Colorado get the support they need to fight breast cancer, and I'm excited to raise funds that will help continue important breast cancer research.

And that's where you come in. If you would like to donate to this cause, please click the link to be taken to my fundraising page: http://www.active.com/donate/RompCO/CShanno17. Every little bit helps! If you're in the Denver area and are interested in participating with us, feel free to let me know and I'll get you the info to register as a part of our team.

Thank you very much in advance!

My New Challenge

Obviously, we're at the beginning of a new year, and this is the time that people start thinking of resolutions and things that they'd like to change. I'm not really big on resolutions, but I do like to use this time of year to try once again some of those things that I've attempted in the past. So far, I've done a good job of getting up earlier in the morning (before 9:00!), drinking more water, and getting more exercise.

In order to work on getting more exercise and losing a little weight, I began looking at various websites this weekend to find a little extra motivation. There are a couple health/fitness/shape up boards on the nest that I've been reading and posting on over the last few days. It's always nice to have other people to talk to who are pursuing the same goals. I've also been reading some articles on peertrainer.com. I've been using peertrainer to log my food intake since last summer (to some extent...I forget sometimes).

Somewhere along the line, I found a link to something I thought was interesting, and I've decided to add this to my list of goals for the year. So as of Sunday, I am participating in "The One Hundred Push Ups Program"!

You can click here to read about the program. I completed the initial push up test on Saturday, and I was able to do a grand total of 4 push ups. Yep. That's it. But to my credit, they were "normal" push ups...not the kind where you leave your knees on the ground. I started the official program on Monday...and following the "week 1, day 1" schedule, I was able to do 13 push ups. Assuming that I stick with it, I should eventually be able to do 100 push ups!

Frankly, I think it would be pretty impressive to be able to just drop and do 100 push ups. But I also think that doing push ups will be a great way to get my upper body and core muscles into better shape. After just one day on the program, I can already feel that muscles in my arms and back are a little sore. But I can also feel it in my abs, which is great (although that may have partially come from using my Wii Fit yesterday). I promise to keep you updated occasionally on my push up progress!

Snow Adventures, part 2

Yesterday, I blogged about our trip to Leavenworth and snowshoeing. We really did have a very good time, but I have to admit...I didn't tell the whole story. Shawn asked me to save the rest of our adventures for another blog post; he wanted his brilliant plowing/parking job to get the credit and attention it deserved. :) So here's the story of the rest of our evening.

After leaving Leavenworth, it got dark pretty quickly, and we noticed it was snowing lightly. It really wasn't snowing very hard at all, but it was enough that when there were two lanes of traffic going in one direction, only the right lane was clear. Although even this kind of snowfall makes me nervous when I drive, it really doesn't bother Shawn at all. He's used to driving in all kinds of weather, and he does have that wonderful, 4WD SUV.

We got up and over Stevens Pass with no problem. Everyone else was driving really slowly, and once we were off the mountain, the roads were actually relatively clear. However, this part of the state has gotten quite a bit of snow over the last few weeks, so there were small banks of snow on the shoulders that had been left by the snow plow. The guy in front of us was driving a Jeep Wrangler. For no apparent reason, just as he was going around a slight curve, the Jeep's right tires went through one of those snow banks. This did not make the car very happy. Shawn and I watched as his Jeep tried to cut through the snow; then his right front tire seemed to get caught in the snow and he came to a very quick stop. The back end of the Jeep slid out to the left so that his Wrangler was sitting sideways in the road.

Shawn basically had two options. Either keep driving straight and try to stop, or try to steer around the guy to the left of his Jeep. Since this part of the road was only two lanes (one in each direction), that would have meant driving into potentially oncoming traffic. We also think the left side of the road had a ditch which eventually dropped off into a river. I agree with Shawn's decision to keep driving straight and trying to stop. Unfortunately...that didn't happen until the right front corner of Shawn's car came into contact with the right front fender of the other guy's Jeep.

Fortunately, none of us was hurt and both cars were still driveable. Since we were more or less in the middle of nowhere (at night, on a 2 lane road, on a curve, in the snow), we decided to keep driving until we got to a town with a McDonald's, where we stopped and Shawn and the other driver exchanged info. Here are the pics of the car that Shawn took in the parking lot.

We're just glad that no one was hurt and that we were able to easily drive Shawn's car back home (instead of having to get it towed). Sadly, we've been informed by the insurance company that it's considered our fault since we didn't stop in time. Bummer.

Snow Adventures

Shawn and I headed to the Cascade Mountains today. We got a slow start, though. As we were waiting for the gas tank to fill up, we realized that we weren't exactly sure how to get from our place to the Highway that we needed to take into the mountains. I thought we should go north, so we started out that way. After a couple exits, Shawn checked his Blackberry and realized we should go south, so we turned around. We passed our original exit, and after a few more exits, I realized that we'd forgotten our snowshoes at home. So we turned around again to get them.

So we wasted an hour, but we eventually got on our way. We went over Stevens Pass without any difficulty (only a little snow and not much traffic). We hadn't been to this area before, so we did originally miss our turn off and and had to turn around once. But then we found the trailhead pretty easily. The problem, though, was that the plow had only cleared one lane. It made a loop, so cars wouldn't get stuck, but there was nowhere to park. That didn't stop Shawn, though. It took him about half an hour of driving back and forth, but he eventually was able to use his car to create a parallel parking space. In the picture below, his left tires are basically on the line that the plow had created. We were very proud of his "plowing" abilities. :)

After parking, we got on our snow gear, put on our snowshoes, and hit the trail! This was Shawn's first time using the snowshoes I bought him for Christmas...he seems pleased with their performance. We didn't make it a very long hike, partly due to our rather late start, but we had a lot of fun enjoying the snow and this beautiful area of Washington.
After snowshoeing, we made a quick trip to Leavenworth. This town is a Bavarian Village...everything looks like it came straight out of Germany (even the Starbucks didn't have its normal corporate logo!). It was very pretty (especially with the Christmas lights still up), and I'd love to spend more time looking through all the little shops. But frankly...it was really cold! So after taking a quick walk through the town (and purchasing some fresh salami and a 1/2 pound of really good fudge), we decided to head home. But here's a pic of the downtown area!

San Francisco, Part Three

Happy New Year! Hopefully everyone had a fun, safe holiday and has gotten off to a good start in 2009. I don't really have very many exciting or unusual resolutions...pretty much things like drink more water, exercise more, eat less junk, and start reading through a weekly devotional book with Shawn.

I figured I should devote one more blog post to our trip to San Francisco. I've mentioned my friends from thenest.com on here on more than one occasion. When we knew we'd be going to the Bay area for Christmas, my friend Caroline and I were excited to meet each other! She and her husband actually live near Sacramento, but they were nice enough to come into San Francisco to meet us on Monday.

The four of us visited Alcatraz on Monday. The first thing that concerned me was getting there. I'm sure you know that Alcatraz is an island, so we had to take a boat to get there. I get motion sick extremely easily, but I forgot to take medicine for it. Fortunately, I had no problem with the boat this time! Yay! :) Once we arrived at "The Rock," we had to walk up to the actual prison. Part of our ticket price included an audio tour, so we were each given a headset and an audio device. It was really nice, actually, because the audio tour allowed all of the visitors to spread themselves out instead of getting stuck in a big group. You could also replay a portion of the tour if you missed something, and you could pause if it you wanted to take more time to look at something. Unfortunately, though, the audio tour means no tour guides who would want to be called Vicky. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, you really must go watch So I Married an Axe Murderer...awesome movie, and probably the best ever filmed in San Francisco.)

Here are some of the pictures that we took of Alcatraz, and the last picture is of my friend Caroline and me.