Changing the world - Day 42

This good deed is pretty good indeed. Frenchy's brother and his little friend flew in from France on Wednesday and are staying with us. So I have opened up our home to an extra 2 men...that means I am now sharing the house with 4 boys and 1 male cat...dear God. I am a saint.

The bathroom looks like it's been carpeted. I am up to my boobs in pubes. The bath mat is constantly scrunched into a festering, wet ball beside the shower which makes me want to vomit a little bit.

There are more shavers hanging around than in the Shaver shop, as well as misfired bits of shaving foam on the sink, the mirror, my makeup. Aaaarrrggghhh.

I hope this still counts as a good deed even though I'm whinging about it? On the plus side, it's very nice to see my brother in law. He and his friend are helping me practice French and I'm helping them with their English.

Until tomorrow do-gooders xx

Changing the world - Day 41

Today I did a good deed that not only failed miserably but could've got me killed! I am not joking. An apocolyptic storm rolled into Woodend at the strike of three o'clock. I was having a read of my book club book 'One Day' and was most content. My husband was in the lounge room sorting his affairs and the baby had just been rocked to sleep when a bolt of lightning lit up the house like an x-ray. Before I could fully reigister the severity of it a thunder clap shook the house to it's very foundations and chased me from my recliner.

I caught a glimpse of my husband crouching in the middle of the lounge room floor as I sprinted towards the baby's room to soothe his no-doubt petrified nerves. (He wasn't fussed at all as it turned out). At least he wasn't until he was in my arms as the next lightning bolt struck and exploded our fuse box. I screamed like a harassed maiden and the baby burst into tears. Frenchy flew hither and thither trying to find candles to light. It looked like the depths of a moonless night outside.

At length I resolved to do my good deed. Much like that fearless heroin in 'Twister', Helen Hunt, I decided to step out my back door and into the eye of the storm with nought but a camera phone set to video. I wanted to capture the raw fury of nature to teach future generations to respect her all-encompassing authority.

After I stopped squealing with each lightning strike I managed to get a rollicking good commentary going. The eerie darkness, the regular bursts of forked electricity, the earth-shaking thunder and the mad tradesmen who continued using power tools outside at my neighbours house were providing an exceptional light and sound spectacular. After a while I realised that I was freezing. The earlier mild temperatures had vanished and an icy wind was whipping around me. I retreated inside and touched the record / pause button only to see the little numbers begin ticking over. I had not been recording at all! Oh the injustice! My soon-to-be Walkley winning video report at the eye of the storm was a mirage. A cruel phantasm.

I returned inside dejected and cold. The sky had begun to break up and the foreboding darkness of earlier was washing away in the growing light. My good deed was non-existent.

What was I to do instead? Fortunately a couple of things presented themselves to me as it turned out. Though the power was out I was still able to access the internet via 3G and saw that Oscar's Law had a new set of e-mails for me to send to parliament. So I did that. I had also received an e-mail from AVAAZ to sign a petition to stop a highway being built through the protected Amazon rainforest in Bolivia. I did that too. A couple of very worthy causes. I have attached both the links and encourage y'all to check them out if you haven't already.

Avaaz - http://www.avaaz.org/en/bolivia_stop_the_crackdown/?cl=1289828810&v=10466

Oscar's Law - http://www.oscarslaw.org/act-now.php

Until tomorrow, if we haven't washed away (as much of our newly-planted veggie patch has :-(

xx

Changing the world - Day 40

Oh my god - day 40. What a milestone! To celebrate, today I did something pretty generous. I cleaned out all the shoes in my closet that I haven't worn this year, boxed them up and took them to the Salvo's.

The less fortunate in Woodend won't know what hit them! There were barely worn Nine West ankle boots in a very cool khaki colour. There were gorgeous strappies from Mollini in yellow and white! (as in 2 sets of shoes, one pair yellow, the other white). There was a pair of Crocs flippies that I've never worn because, despite all the hype, they actually weren't comfortable to me...I hope the next owner has a better experience.

There were a few other pairs as well...including some random sneakers that weren't mine but frenchy kept moving closer and closer to my stuff until they finished in my closet. I think they actually belonged to his Mum when she was here for our wedding! Oh well - she's inadvertently done a good deed now too!

Until tomorrow do-gooders xx

Sent from my iPhone

Changing the world - Day 39

Did a few good deeds today. First, Frenchy, Noam and I drove to Trentham to visit the little local market. And it was little! And cold. Bloody cold. But we still walked around the tiny set-up, I think there was about 8 stalls in all. Most of which were selling second-hand jars and old cups. But we did buy a big bag of Dutch Creamy potatoes from a lovely man. Yay spuds.

Then a couple of gorgeous friends came up for a visit and somehow I managed to create a pretty nice lunch for us from the nothingness that was in my fridge. Excellent.

Also bumped into my delightful old neighbour and gave her a big cuddle as it had been a while since I'd seen her. She's one of those really genuine people and I just know that our catch up, though brief, made her really happy. I must take Noam over to visit (he was asleep at the time) she adores him. Aw.

I think that was about it. Sometimes lots of little deeds make up a nice, big juicy deed and that's how today was.

Until tomorrow do-gooders xx

Changing the world - Day 38

Today was a pretty lazy day. Managed to get a decent sleep since Noam only woke up once. Bless. Also realised that I actually have two 'day 19' good deeds, which means I am 1 up. I thought about not doing a good deed today and transferring one of my day 19's over to day 38 but no. That's not very good-deedily of me.

So, today I took some afternoon tea up to my friends who are renovating their house. I'm not sure that they ever actually stop to eat once they're in the reno zone so I figured my arrival bearing sweet vanilla slice treasures was a pretty good deed.

They seemed not only grateful for the sustenance but also the interruption. I can understand that. I reckon renovating is a pretty stressful game. And I'm basing that on hours of research watching 'The Renovators' (which I love!) Navy blue team better win. If that little hobbit that sucks her cheeks in all the time to transform her dimples into cheek chasms wins I will spew. Or her little fart-arse partner August. Booo - what a cretin he is. I like Keenan but what happened to his wife? Does anyone know? Did she do a runner or did she meet an unfortunate end? He defo gets sympathy points as a single Dad. His partner - that little blonde thing - makes me want to hurt people though. She is so annoying. I quite like the khaki team now that Natalia's on there. I don't mind orange Peter either except he can be a little dramatic. His partner Sam is a bit nothing though, right? Who else is there? Oh yeah - sky blue. Boo. That crazy boofy guy is a tool. I don't mind the young thing but I feel like he might be a little 'I am'?

Anyhoo - that was a lesson in how to get sidetracked. Point is my good deed was done thanks to the internationally accepted symbol of good deeds - offerings of dessert.

Until tomorrow do-gooders xx

Changing the world - Day 37

Did a few good deeds today...like sat through the Collingwood v Hawthorn match because friends of ours wanted to watch it and don't have a tv at the moment. That was hard since both teams are repugnant :-)

I also let someone push in front of me at the supermarket. I'm not sure if they knew they were queue jumping or not but I figured 'hey, am I in that much of a rush? No.'

But my main good deed was to take a photo of one of our beautiful tulips that frenchy's dad planted when he was here to put on our blog. I'm pretty sure I've written a post about the blog we set up for frenchy's mum that is all photos of Noam? Well sometimes I like to throw the odd one in for Papy since he loves Noam too but also did a power of work dans notre jardin when he stayed with us for a few months.

Et voila. Good deeds done today.

Until tomorrow do-gooders xx

Changing the world - Day 36

I just have to say that I am really enjoying this 365 days of good deed blogging. I feel really good about things...So, on to today.

I am not a religious person but I was raised as a Catholic and spent every Sunday at mass with my family until they decided I was old enough to make my own decisions. At which point I happily rolled over in my bed on Sunday mornings and went back to sleep.

But one thing has stayed with me (well a lot of things have - how can they not when you have religious education class for 13 years?!) and that is the story of the rich man and the poor woman who go to offer a donation to the local church (or something like that). The rich man gives heaps of money but it is only a fraction of what he has. The poor woman, on the other hand, has very little to give but she gives everything she has. And the morale of the story is the rich man is morally bankrupt and the old woman is a saint. (I've paraphrased for

convenience :-)

With that in mind, I always feel like I'm never doing enough to help those less fortunate and really I should be living in a mud hut without any creature comforts. But I know that that is pretty unrealistic and since I'm not religious, but instead subscribe to the 'be kind to others' school of life, I content myself that doing something is better than nothing. Even if I could always do more.

So, getting on to today's good deed. For the past 5 years I have sponsored a child in Africa - Clifford is his name. I found Clifford through PLAN International which I think is a fantastic organisation. Anyway. Today they rang me up to ask whether it would be possible for me to contribute just a little bit more each month for a new program they are running called 'Women Champions'. The plight of the girls in Africa is more dire than that of the men and they need extra special help. Many of them just 'go missing' which is definitely code for something heinous. The lovely PLAN spokesman also told me that African women reinvest 90% of any income they make back into their families and communities where-as the men re-invest only 30%. So they're thinking that the ladies need a bit more help which will in turn help everyone. Agreed.

So I said I'd pitch the extra $9.00 a month (not much when you consider all the good it will do) and fingers crossed the girls might get a slightly better deal.

Until tomorrow do-gooders xx