Life is Good...

Sometimes, life is good. Like now, for instance.

Kullakas, the Aymara women's crafts cooperative from Bolivia, is working with the remarkable Rebecca Kousky of the not-for-profit, Nest, looking to perhaps sell some of their products on Nest's very busy web site, and getting some assistance with product design from Nest's professional design consultants. 

The senior women I am working with here in St. Petersburg continue to make lovely little toys for poor children. In January, they painted jigsaw puzzles that we mailed off to our friends affiliated with Vida Nueva Cooperative in Oaxaca, Mexico. Also sent off in the same package were the prenatal vitamins and folic acid from our vitamin collection. This past week, eight of the senior women met and decorated little beany baby type toys with brightly colored fabric paints.  (You can see our little group in the photo above; that "slightly younger" yet tired looking woman in the pink shirt is yours truly, fighting a bad cold--yes, we do get colds down here in Florida, believe it or not.) These little stuffed toys will go overseas with a pediatric medical mission, and will be used to soothe and comfort little patients before and after surgery.

Carol Mitchell and I are working with the local YWCA on the possibility of helping them start a fair trade craft shop. We are collecting lists of fair trade organizations we have worked with that might be potential sources of crafts for their shop.

Several of us are preparing to host a crafts day at the home of Audrey Steele here in St. Petersburg the first Saturday of March. For a donation that will benefit the Vida Nueva cooperative, women are invited to come try their hands at rug hooking, doll making, scrap booking and wax resist Easter egg making, while snacking and socializing, for a few hours or all day, depending on their time and disposition. We look forward to it not only being a great fundraiser, but a great day out together! Audrey is tireless in helping economically disadvantaged women and children; recently she opened her house for a fundraiser that brought in money for a Kenyan orphanage.

And finally, I am looking at the possibility of bringing a show of peruvian "cuadros" to the St. Petersburg area, which I will speak about in a future blog posting. (In the interim, want to know what a "cuadro" is?--just look at the picture accompanying this posting.)

For now, suffice it to say, I am busy, and very happily so. Having so many wonderful projects to keep busy with is exciting as well as deeply satisfying. I am grateful for the opportunity to have fun projects to be able to be a part of with so many good women. As you can see, right now, life is indeed very good!