Friday, April 10, 2009

Well woke up to white out conditions, blowing snow and cold temps. Looks like winter doesn’t want to go anywhere. The dogs didn’t even want to leave the doorway for their morning outing! From the looks of it right now, it doesn’t look as if we’re going to get a plane again today. Maybe it will clear up later today….

I got down to the office and got the charge slips entered in. Pretty slow morning, the phone rang like less than 5 times, we had like 3 people come up to cash their checks, but other than that, nothing much going on. The freighter should be leaving Seattle today, so we’ll have more stuff for the store next week. The office is supposed to be officially closed today, but both my mom and I are here at work. Good Friday today, Easter this weekend. I remember back when I was younger how much of a big deal this time of the year was. Easter egg hunts, warmer weather and church… out of those three we still have church at least! The last 5 years or so it has snowed on my birthday!

I had a couple people pay on their store accounts. Then I had one person bring me a bunch of coins that were counted and wrapped up already. So I went thru them all recounted almost all of them, and then gave them the cash for the change. We will always accept people’s change and give them cash back! Half the time they either put it on their store account or they will take it down stairs to the store and go shopping!

For lunch today I made us blueberry pancakes – we ended up having ham steaks, eggs and toast for dinner last night! I ordered a couple new pairs of heels from various places (I’m a big eBay-er!), I needed to find cute orange accessories for the wedding I’m attending this summer (since the colors are pink and orange). I already got my super cute pink dress… so I was shoe shopping… I found a couple cute pairs of orange heels and was torn between picking between the both of them… so I just got both of them. I have a weakness for super cute heels! (what girl doesn’t!). At least my hubby deals with me and my “shoe habit.” Every once and a while I go thru all my shoes and donate a bunch of them to Soles4Soles (http://www.soles4souls.org/) – an organization that helps give shoes to people and kids who need them from developing countries and people around the world. Changing the world – one pair at a time!

I’m also a supporter of Kiva.org. What is Kiva you ask? Kiva lets you LEND to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world – empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty. They help people from developing countries around the world with start-up loans for stuff like: opening grocery stores, starting a clothing shop, helping buy spare parts for their work vehicles, just to name a few. You help by lending $25 to someone who can use the money (and it says what they are going to use it for and how long they hope before paying it back to you) and over the money is paid back to you. Once you get your whole $25 back and you can lend it to someone else to use, donate it to Kiva, gift it or you can cash it back out. I thought it was a nice way to be able to help other people out there in the world who aren’t as fortunate as some of us who can spend $25 on useless crap that we eventually throw away or don’t even use!!!! Please check it out! I picked Mrs. Srey Mom Yein, 18, mother of a 2-year old child, who lives in Prey Me Long Thboung village in Takeo province of Cambodia. She owns a mall grocery store, which is going well. She wants to expand her business and is asking for a loan to buy more grocery items for her store. She hopes to increase income and improve her family living conditions. Her husband, Mr. Mun La, a construction worker, makes a small income to support the family. I have a pic of them from the loan page. Repayment terms were 14 months I believe. There were 19 people who lent money to them, including me! Here is my lender profile page addy: http://www.kiva.org/lender/kqasAprilDawn. I hope other people have a heart and are able to give and help some of the people on there, it makes me feel good knowing that my hard earned money is helping someone in another country who can really use it. You know that one saying when you don’t finish your food on your plate and someone comments about all those kids starving in Africa and it makes you feel kind of bad and you want to try to finish all your food. Well think about all the junk and stuff that you buy and waste your money on… then think about what someone in another country could have done with that money! That’s how I look at it! Plus makes me feel good to know that I’m helping someone else out!

Walking out of my house at lunch time and I was almost blinded by the bright light of the sun reflecting off all the new fresh white snow. I immediately had to shut my eyes and they started to water, so I hurried up and put my goggles on so I can see, then drove down to the office.

Not much going on this afternoon either. Working on some stuff for the auditor and getting a deposit ready- even though the plane doesn’t look like it’s coming in today. It’s cleared up a bit, temps in the low-mid 30’s, a snow squall every once and a while, but I still don’t think the plane is going to try. Sharon and Christine must be a little disappointed, I was hoping they would make it back for American Easter this weekend. Russian Easter is exactly a week after American Easter – we celebrate both here! I still need to find tin cans to bake kulich in…. I hope my mom still has some cans I can use… I really don’t want to make mini kulich in small tin cans…. Hopefully find some somewhere…. (I’ll try to make some and send them over to CB to pass out for me over in Dutch!!)!

There is the potluck thing that the people from the Trident church are throwing tomorrow. I guess Marylil and her husband Vince are taking off (they were only supposed to be here temporarily) and another couple and their 3 kids are supposed to move here for the next couple years. So Marylil wants to have a potluck tomorrow as like their going away party and an Easter/celebrating spring potluck. So I will look around and see what I can bring… maybe fry up a whole bunch of alaadikax! I know those will get eaten up. I hate taking stuff that I get left with a whole bunch of leftovers to take home. I like making stuff that gets eaten up! I don’t mind bringing leftovers from other people’s dishes though!! I just get burned out on my own cooking that I like to eat other people’s cooking… I should see what my mom and mother-in-law are making tonight… if not I think we’ll just eat cereal… I don’t really want to cook…. But we’ll see... I have to go down to the store and go shop… then wait for Eva to get the paperwork done up down in the store so that I can get my paperwork done up here in the office, then I’m going home to enjoy the weekend with my hubby and pups!

I hope everyone had a great Friday!! Enjoy the weekend!! Until tomorrow, TTFN!!