Why World Vision?

I've mentioned before that World Vision is one of my favorite charities, but I've never gone into detail about why I like it so much that I would voluntarily subject myself to the torture of asking my friends and family to give up their hard-earned money for my fundraising project. 

I first got involved with World Vision about 3 years ago when one of my best friends from high school took a job with them and asked me to sponsor a child.  She already had the child picked out for me - a little girl from Rwanda named Valerie.  I agreed, and when I got the information packet, I knew we were destined to be her sponsors because not only did she share my name, but she shared a birthday with my husband.  I was very impressed with World Vision from the start because they sent information about what projects they were working on in her community.  My sponsorship didn't simply send her to school - it impacted her entire community with clean water, appropriate farming techniques, nutrition education, medical projects, economic development etc, all working together to create a better and healthier future for Valerie. 

A major criticism I've heard about sponsorship programs in general is a skeptism that the money actually goes to that child.  In many ways, that seems to be true, because the money goes to Valerie's community projects, and in effect helps not only Valerie, but everyone in her community.  However my correspondence with Valerie is personal.  I have sent her small gifts and she has thanked me for them.  (We also sponsor a child through another Christian organization and I have sent him small gifts as well, but I never recieved aknowledgement from him that he got the gifts, but maybe that's just because he's a typical boy and hates writing thank you notes).  She also always draws really cute pictures on the letters that she sends.  And here's my favorite part - we are also able to give personal donations to her family.  It's called a "gift notification" and the family is notified that they have recieved a gift.  The World Vision staff works with the family to decide what that gift is based on the needs of the family and the amount of the donation.  (Most of the donation will go directly to the family with a percentage that goes to the community projects - the percentage varies depending on the needs of the community, but World Vision was upfront about the percentage when we made the donation).  Valerie's family got a cow with our gift (I didn't think I gave them that much money, so maybe they added some of their own savings) and then they sent us a picture of Valerie and her father with the cow.   I just love that kind of stuff!

While in Charlotte, I joined Women of Vision (WoV), a volunteer ministry of World Vision.  I got to hear from several women who have served World Vision projects on mission trips, some even had the opportunity to meet with their own sponsored children!  Also, my friend who works for World Vision has also visited several projects and can attest to the impact of the work that Word Vision has on communities around the world.  As an insider, her own words are a testimony to their work - she currently donates to World Vision and feel good about how they use the money.  For 2007, 86% of their expenses went to programs, leaving only 14% for administrative and fundraising costs, which is considered very good in the world of charities as noted in this quote from Give.org "The BBB Wise Giving Alliance recommends that the charity should (1) spend at least 65% of total expenses on program service activities and (2) spend no more than 35% of related contributions on fund raising expenses."  Charity Navigator gives it a 4-star rating, the highest rating. 

In closing, in addition to supporting my own fundraising for the triathlon (donations go towards water projects in Zambia), I highly recommend child sponsorship.  You link to child sponsorship through my fundraising webpage (click on link below) or though WorldVision.org.  

 

 

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Three strikes and you're out.... or not?

Coulson had his first T-ball game today.  I was a bit skeptical about how this would work with a bunch of 4 and 5 year olds.  A few months ago I tried to explain baseball to Couson while we were at a minor league game.  The concept of hitting the ball was pretty easy, but then I tried to explain strikes and outs and it got very complicated. Coulson's eyes glazed over and then he just wanted to go back to climbing over the stadium seats (it was a curiously empty stadium, probably because it was in South Carolina on a Sunday -- no beer). 

So thankfully the rules for T-ball are a bit simpler than baseball.  For each inning, the teams bat through the whole line-up.  For each hit, the runners each advance one base (if the ball goes out real far, there is potential to go more, but that didn't happen today).  In the field, once a player gets the ball, he holds it up in the air and yells "time."  The coach explained the reasoning this way:  "One - they can't throw the ball and two - they can't catch it."  The game continues for about an hour, or four innings, whichever is less.  No strikes, no outs, everyone scores, but no one keeps count.  We made it through 3 innings today.  It was mostly the coaches directing the kids what to do and where to go, but by the third inning, the kids were catching on a bit.

Enjoy the video Casey made.  It's about 8 minutes long, but it's edited, so it's not boring endless taping.  There is also some cute commentary by Charlie (examples of the endearing "oh man").  Coulson is number 4.

 

Coulsons first Tball Game

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How clean is your drinking water?

Team World Vision in Africa

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Another way to give

If you want to sponsor me for the triathlon, but you don't want to use the online service for some reason, you can still give with a check.  Just make the check payable to "World Vision."  You can mail the check to me and I can send it in for you, or you can print and fill out this form and mail it in yourself.  If you mail it in yourself, please let me know so I can add it to my total on my webpage because they don't yet have a system to notify me when a donation is made on my behalf.  World Vision will mail you a receipt for your donation.  If you want me to mail the check for you, send me an email so I can know to expect it.  Thanks!

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Happy Birthday Charlie!

DSCF2090

Charlie turns 2 today. I think he's going to be a pretty fun two-year-old. He is still as smiley as can be and sometimes he gets a great belly laugh that I just love to hear. We heard that fun laugh last weekend when he and Coulson were teasing my brother-in-laws dogs. He loves dogs, well all animals. Every time we see a dog, he asks to “pet dog” even if it's a mean, growling dog. Yesterday we went to a petting zoo and he loved chasing the goats and sheep around, petting them and trying to give them hugs. The animals were gracious, but I don't think they really appreciated the hugs.

 

A few months ago, his language skills just exploded. He quickly progressed from single words (ma-ma, da-da) to two and three word phrases (“want cookie NOW!”) and most recently he's been working on some five and six word sentences (“I wanna cookie NOW pease!”) I think he's going to be a pretty good talker, just like his brother. I love listening to him talk. He has such a sweet little voice and he's pretty polite. Sometimes, he'll say “please” and “thank you” without me prompting him first and he automatically says “bless you” when I sneeze. His most common phrase right now is “Oh Man” whenever he's disappointed with something. “Man” has 2 syllables, like me-ann. (No, Charlie, you have to finish your sandwich before you can have a cookie. “Oh Man!”)  I can't wait to start some "Conversations with Charlie" blogs!

 

 

Eating a Peanut Butter Sandwich?

Charlie's love affair with balls has intensified. Now he is learning that there are different kinds of balls – soccer balls, basketballs, baseballs, golf balls, etc. He likes really small bouncy balls and really big bouncy balls. And he's learning about sports, like putting balls into holes or nets, or hitting the balls with sticks. He will often find some long stick-like object and try to hit a ball with it. It's kind of fun to watch him try to hit a soccer ball with a baseball bat, swinging it as if it were a golf club. Actually he's pretty good at most of the sports he tries and it's hard to keep him away from sports activities. Coulson just started T-ball and I'm sure there will be much consternation when Charlie isn't allowed to go out and play with the team. (“Oh Man!”) Speaking of sports, that was the theme of his birthday party on Saturday. Even after most of the guests had left the party, he was still outside playing ball games with his Pop-Pop. And when he wore out Pop-Pop, Grandpa Bud took over and he continued to play until way past his bedtime. After he wore out both his grandpas, Charlie could have kept going - it reminded me an old research study on toddler energy levels.

 

Play it again, Charlie

Charlie now shares a room with this brother and that has worked out pretty well.  They usually go to bed at the same time and I can hear them chatting away (or singing sometimes) with each other after I say goodnght.  He wakes up and happily chats in his crib for a while.  Sometimes Coulson will climb in with him and "read" him some books or play with some toys together, which gives me about 5-10 minutes to snooze.  Those mornings are nice.

 

He is starting to assert his independence and wants to do a lot of tasks all by himself.  He likes to carry his own diaper bag (it's a kid-sized backpack in the shape of a turtle) and he tries to put on his own shorts and shoes.  He also tries to put on his own diaper sometimes, but he's doesn't have a lot of success.

SuperCharlie!

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Charlie Photos

Training for the Tri

*** Wow! This entry got pretty long!  It's a conglomeration of about 10 blogs that I've been wanting to write for the past several months, but kept procrastinating, so if you don't want to read the whole thing, I'll go ahead and skip to the important stuff: Sponsor Me!

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When I decided to do this triathlon, I was basically a couch potato.  A few months before, my exercise consisted of walking to the park and some Jane Fonda videos.  But I got bored with Jane and it was too cold for outdoor walks, so I hadn't done anything for a while. 

So I started training for the triathlon in late December, but I didn't have a bike or access to a pool (and no money to remedy that situation) so I did the only thing I could do - I starting running.  I took Chester (my dog) with me and the first week out, I could barely run 2 blocks before I had to stop and walk for a bit.  My goal was to run for about 20 minutes 3 times a week, but the cold weather and my lazy nature collaborated to make running even once week a miracle sometimes.  I used my Christmas money to buy a fleece sweatshirt and some running shoes, so that encouraged me to run up to twice a week.

After the first couple weeks, I could feel a difference.  I still needed to walk, but not as frequently.  I really felt like I was making progress when I realized that Chester was holding me back, so I would run with Chester for about 15 minutes, pass by the house again to drop off Chester and then keep running.

In March I visited my brother in NY.  He's does a lot of races and knew I was training, so he suggested that I run a 2 mile fun run with him.  My 10 year old nephew joined us.  2 miles was a big deal for me, at the time I was running a little over 1.5 miles on my runs, and still stopping to walk once or twice.  My brother was nice and kept pace with his son and I did my best to keep up with them.  And of course they didn't stop to walk.  It was rough, but I survived.

Once the heat of summer hit, it got harder to keep running in the brutal southern sun - somedays it was over 85 degrees by 8:30am, and this was just May/early June!   So I slacked off took off a couple weeks and just waited until after we moved to resume my training.

I joined the YMCA first thing after moving to our new town.  It was literally the first thing I did because I took the kids and was signing up for the Y while Casey was at the house helping the movers unload the truck.  The YMCA has a pool.  Two down, one to go - I still didn't have a bike.  The Y does have stationary bikes, so I started working with that, but I don't know if it's the same thing.

I love the Y.  It has great childcare and the boys like it (well, "like it" is a strong word for anything that doesn't include me, I should say that they "accept it" which is the best I'll ever get for a drop-off childcare situation).  My first couple workouts in the pool were like my first attempts at running, but I was still surprised that it only took about 15 minutes to finish the length for my triathlon race.  Now I feel pretty good about the swim and I can finish in just under 10 minutes.

So lately I've been focusing on the biking and running.  Last week I tried the full lengths for bike and running back to back - 12 miles on the bike and 3.1 miles running.  Now, working out at the Y is nice because it's got A/C and the bikes have individual TVs and when I was doing this particular 12 mile bike ride, I found Pride and Prejudice on the Oxygen channel (the Keira Knightly version), so I was actually disappointed when I finished (of course I finished right when Elizabeth was ready to accept Darcy's final proposal).  The run was a bit tough.  My heart and endurance were okay, but my leg muscles were really tired.  I wanted to stop, but I forced myself to get through it, and I survived. 

So now I kinda feel like I'm in pretty good shape for the race, except for one thing - I'm still biking on a stationary bike.  My mom is letting me borrow her bike and I just got my helmet yesterday, so soon I can start biking for real and find out if my training on the stationary bike was any help.

Now, you've made it to the end of this super long blog entry!  And again, here's the good part:

Donate to World Vision through Firstgiving

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Vermicomposting, again...

I finally transfered the pictures from my camera from the month of July, so now I can blog about my adventures in vermicomposting.  Soon after moving into our new house, I bought a a fancy worm bin for composting.  When I first learned about vermicomposting, I wanted to go all natural and just use a plain box made out of scrap wood (there are several websites that give directions for making your own vermicomposter).  But after my failed mini-experiment, I read some more about the daily maintenance of the worms and the harvesting of the compost for use in the garden, and I decided that buying a special worm bin would be best for our family.

I bought a worm bin starter kit from Happy D Ranch.  First, they sent the worm bin and a bunch of information about vermicomposting.  Coulson and I set up the worm bin so it would be ready when the worms arrived the next day. 

 

The first week was probably the most difficult.  For the worms to thrive, the conditions in the worm bin need to be suitable - not too hot, not too dry, not too wet, not too much food, not too little food, enough bedding (shredded paper, dirt, old leaves, etc.) enough air, etc.  So I fretted for the first week about whether the conditions were just right because I didn't know if my worms were acting right or not.  But now in retrospect, I think they were just getting used to their new home.  Now they seem to be doing very well and are busy composting my kitchen scraps and shredded paper and Chester's hair and coffee grounds, etc. 

It's a bit grosser than I anticipated.  I was envisioning "feeding the worms" as a chore Coulson would do after dinner each night, but I'm not ready to let him be in charge of such a messy task just yet.  I'll spare you the pictures (the above pictures are from when we first put the worm bin together - it doesn't look so nice now), but I will only feed the worms when I have my big rubber gloves on so I don't have to sink my hands into the slimy half-composted food from last week.  But it doesn't smell bad (they advise against putting meat into the bin because it will rot and stink.)

So in all, I am still excited about composting and I am glad that I decided to buy a special worm bin.  Of course with my timing, our first bin of compost will be ready just as the growing season ends, so I'll either save it for next year or do some major indoor plant projects. 

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I'll try again...

Okay, I'm going to try to blog about this again and I'll remember to save after each paragraph...

In December I made a crazy decision to race in a triathlon.  It took me about eight months to decide to do this, but I finally gave in when I learned that I could raise money for World Vision at the same time.  The idea first took hold last spring when I read a brochure from a non-profit that encourages people to train for marathons, triathlons, century rides and half-marathons and ask people to sponsor them to raise money for their organization.  I was interested, but it wasn't a good time in my life to training for something so big (small kids, moving to new town).  It was for a really good cause, but not one that I was super passionate about.

I liked the variety of a triathlon, but the length of a half-marathon - if only they had something like a half-triathlon.  Well, in the fall, one of my friends told me that, yes, they do have such a thing.  It's called a sprint triathlon.  My interest was gaining, but not enough to push me over the edge.

Then in December, I read in the newsletter from World Vision, one of my favorite charities, that they had a program called Team World Vision.  Mostly they try to recruit a team to run the Chicago Marathon, but they also provide a way for individuals to raise money for them through any race they enter.  So I decided to go for it!

I'll blog more about the training process - that's a totally different story.  Don't forget, if you want to make a (tax deductible) contribution, visit my fundraising page at http://www.firstgiving.com/valglass

 

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Conversations with Coulson

On medical technology:

Coulson:  What if shots didn't hurt but they tickled?  Instead of a needle, the shot could have fluffies.  And then it would explode.  BAM!

 

Coulson: Does the needle poke through your skin?

Me: Yes.

Coulson: Why doesn't it leave a hole in your skin?

Me: It does, but your skin heals itself..

Coulson:  No!  That's what the band-aid does.  Band-aids keep the hurt in.  It keeps the hurt in inside your body so it doesn't get out.

 

On tiredness or hunger?

I'm so tired I could barely eat a camel.  A camel with two humps.

 

To Charlie on a tire swing:

You have to hold on real tight.  You can't let go.  If you let go, you'll fall through and knock your eye out.  And your knocked out eye will be all yucky and then you'll die!

 

 

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