“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do.” – Helen Keller
Did you miss me last week? I’m sorry I didn’t post Monday Ripples – or anything else for that matter – last week. I’ve been up to my eyeballs with work as I have taken on a second recession era job. The dust is settling for my schedule, so I don’t foresee letting you down again anytime soon.
Now that we have that out of the way, here are a few links that I hope send you into this final week of July 2010 with a song in your heart and your focus on doing whatever good you can.
DIY
Instructables
What is it about making things ourselves? It feels great, doesn’t it? You can make a dish using even the most basic recipe and you feel like you could conquer the world. Am I right? This site has created a fun community where you can find instructions on how to make things yourself, or share your DIY knowledge with others. I’m not just talking food here – maybe you want to convert your car to run on trash, maybe you want to make your own shampoo…well, the list is endless.
IT’S GOOD TO SHOP
SocialVest
Check out this slice of craziness. You shop and anywhere from .5 to 10 percent of your purchase is rebated by the retailer in your SocialVest Giving Account, then you get to chose which of 1.5 million U.S. non-profit organizations you’d like all or some of the money to go to. There are a couple of ways to do it: you can shop online with SocialVest and/or you can register your credit cards so that when you are shopping with participating retailers the donation automatically goes into your account. Being able to do some good, without changing your current behavior – how cool is that?
THE OTHER HALF
A Minute With…Brendan O’Connor
I’ve kissed more frogs than I can count in my quest for love over the years. Well, “kissed” makes it sound charming when in actuality it was often a messy, scarring affair. If someone could have told me that it was all to prepare me for Brendan O’Connor, then I probably would have smiled more and not taken “playing the field” quite so seriously. It is my good fortune to call Brendan my fiancé and, better still, my soulmate. What does this guy have that the others didn’t have? He’s a better person than I am. I don’t say that for purposes of self-deprecation; it’s actually a wonderful thing to be challenged by my partner-in-life to constantly step up my game.
Here’s a profile of Brendan written for the pages of Watermark by Stephen J. Miller. It’ll give you some idea of what I’m talking about.
