It's Time for Pysanky Again!

If you're in the Tampa Bay area and free this Monday evening, consider coming over to the Franciscan Retreat Center for an evening of pysanky making! (That's Ukrainian wax resist Easter eggs, like the ones in this picture) The cost of the evening is $35, which includes a traditional Polish dinner, instruction and materials on how to create these eggs, and your very own pysanky making kit to take home with you, including dyes, wax and "kistka"--you know, that little copper and wooden tool for "writing" on the eggs with wax. The evening is a fundraiser for projects support by the Global Women's Artisan Alliance. See you there!

Happy St. Paddy's Day!

I consider having married an Irishman a special sort of blessing! And predictably, St. Patrick's Day is a big day for my husband and I--a day that tends to last for more than a week between special dinners, DVDs and television shows from Ireland, reminiscing about "home" and sharing Irish culture with friends. And a few pints of Guinness...

So, for you my friends, in honor of St. Patrick's Day, please enjoy these photos of the "auld sod" (taken on our last trip back to Ireland in May, 2008). And as the Irish say "Beannachtai na Feile Padraig!" or "Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Kullakas Featured on www.buildanest.com

I continue to be grateful to Rebecca Kousky of Nest for all the help she's given Kullakas Women's Cooperative of Bolivia. Kullakas is now selling some of their best items on Nest's website (www.buildanest.com) including their lovely 100% alpaca socks, the woven shawls and those adorable little "chola" dolls we sold last spring here in Florida. Here's hoping this kind of exposure will help the women market their well-made handicrafts even more...If you log on to Nest's website, consider sending a "thank you" to Rebecca for all the fine work she's doing helping women artisans around the world to earn a livelihood through their creative talents!

"Craft and Crash"?

We were a small but mighty contingent that showed up for a crafting fundraiser for Vida Nueva Cooperative. Funny thing was, it took us nearly two hours to actually sit down and craft anything--so many of us were so tired after a long week, and the company and conversation was so good. In fact, it was decided that we simply don't get together enough to just sit down and talk! And, next time we gather, maybe we'll call it a "craft and crash" gathering, so those of us just way too tired to do anything at all are "given permission" to just "crash" with a bunch of super women!

The way the world is anymore, people are always so busy. Yet I am always impressed at how people will take time for the important stuff--helping those less fortunate than themselves, creating a thing or two of beauty, and taking time to have a heart to heart talk about the things that really matter in life. Today reminded me of that. Thank you to everyone who gathered in support of Vida Nueva Cooperative, but thank you, also, for gathering to support one another on the journey. Good friends and good conversation are just as important as good causes! Today made that clear to me in a way that I hadn't experienced in a long, long time.

"Fun-Raiser" for Vida Nueva Cooperative This Saturday

Like scrapbooking? Dollmaking? Interested in learning how to hook a rug or create Ukrainian style Easter eggs? If you live in the Tampa Bay area, consider joining us this Saturday of our "fun-raising" fundraiser for Vida Nueva Women's Cooperative in Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca, Mexico. We'll have all kinds of arts and crafts opportunities for you to choose from, plus a simple lunch of egg salad sandwiches, with accompanying snacks throughout the day. All we ask is for whatever monetary donation you might want to make, large or small. Every cent will benefit the work of the women of Vida Nueva, who do educational outreach to poor, rural women in Oaxaca state, as well as fund projects to improve the lives of the poor, such as building wells in villages with no running water, and supplying solar ovens to women who have no electricity for cooking. Email me for details-- I hope we see you there! karen_rushen@yahoo.com 

It's Time to Send Your Grandma A Box of Love...

It's that time of year when Adopt-a-Native Elder is soliciting for sponsors to donate food boxes to Navajo elders--the vast majority of them women who have spent much of their lives raising sheep, carding, spinning and dyeing their own yarns and, with those yarns, weaving beautiful Navajo rugs and blankets that have helped support them and their families financially. Now these lovely elders are often too old to weave much, if at all, and many of them live in impoverished conditions, often in homes without central heat and running water. Linda Myers of Adopt-a-Native-Elder, based in Park City, Utah, has assembled a cadre of guardian angels that deliver food boxes, fire wood and toiletries to the elders, once in the spring and again in the fall. Linda is now looking for volunteers to fund the spring food box runs, and to financially, in a spirit of loving care, "adopt" an Native elder, becoming a sustaining presence in their senior years. For $75 you can donate a great big box of food items and necessities to an elderly artisan in need. Please see their web site at www.anelder.org. 

Life In Florida Can Really Be For The Birds...

Steve and I needed a day away, and after going back and forth on whether to head down to Naples or up to Orlando, we landed on simply heading over to Lowry Zoo, one of our favorite Florida destinations.

 

Lowry Zoo probably gets overlooked by a lot of tourists in favor of Busch Gardens or Disney World, but it really is a lovely place with lots of interactive animal encounters--we also wound up watching preschool children feed crackers to the giraffes and spent time petting (yes, petting) the stingrays.  There are plenty of exotic birds and critters in very "viewer friendly" environments. I can't ever remember being there when it was very crowded. Our favorite destination is the lorikeet house, where you can feed the little guys nectar out of a cup--they'll be your new best friends, for as long as you're feeding them. You can see whose husband has the "Doctor Doolittle effect" with the animals. One little bird hung out on Stephen's knee for a full ten minutes, where critter and hubby had quite a conversation going on. Afterwards we went up to Temple Terrace and had a Middle Eastern meal at Greenland Restaurant, a nondescript looking establishment in a strip mall which served the best Middle Eastern food we've had since coming to Florida, followed by a cup of Turkish coffee at the hookah joint next door. It was a simple--and relatively cheap--day out that rejuvenated our sagging spirits and reminded us of the healing qualities of nature--and winter!--in Florida.