Kate at Babylune ran this crafty little contest where she asked everyone to blog about thier favorite charity and then she was going to give her blogging income to the winning charity.

Very cleverly, she devised a way to include everyone and make everyone feel validated and appreciated by dividing the winnings up among all entrants.

Here is the entry in which she chose Big Brothers Big Sisters as the recipient in honor of myself and Jennifer of Tree Hugging Family. Both of us are fans of mentoring.

Jennifer has a great story titled One Small Step about how an odd coupling of mentors, from her mother’s meeting a man in a bar, changed her life.

Jennifer is now a mentor herself and I’m stealing a few of the great stats from Big Brothers Big Sisters that support mentoring from her blog.

Kids with mentors are:

• 46% less likely to begin using illegal drugs
• 27% less likely to begin using alcohol
• 52% less likely to skip school
• 37% less likely to skip a class
• more confident of their performance in schoolwork
• one-third less likely to hit someone
• getting along better with their families

Thanks for your great contest Kate and thanks for helping us get the word out about mentoring. You Rock. I hope you have the best Bulgarian Vegetarian Feast anyone ever had. I appreciate everything you do to help women through one of the most transformative experiences in life – having a baby.

Find a mentoring group in your zip code by clicking on Mentoring.org.

Post from: Blisstree

I Won the Babylune Contest!

She writes about our never-ending time problem as women. We’re trying to do it all and frankly, it’s killing us. We all want to slow down. We’re tired and getting cranky.

I think she’s hit on the answer too. It’s the same answer I’ve been reading and seeing everywhere from Christine Northrup, to Suze Orman to Eat, Pray, Love to Oprah to Kate from Babylune.

We, women, must learn to say NO. Every woman I’ve been taking notes from in 2007 has told us that we must build a wall of NOs around us.

This last part of the year I’ve tried it. I quit a volunteer thing on Wedsnesday nights volunteering with teenagers. I truly believed in the cause and felt I was well-suited for it.

But, it was one less night at home with the family and it was one more thing I had to rush for and it was one more cause of friction between my husband and I.

 I sobbed while telling the leader that I was unvolunteering – I truly did feel that terrible about it. But, in the ensuing weeks, I found a level of peace by being at home on Weds that I hadn’t experienced in a while. It hurt to say no to a good thing, but the peace bought by it has been treasured.

New Years Resolution for women in 2008 – Find something to say no to.

But, do stop by and vote for Kate.

Post from: Blisstree

Say No in 2008

Isuspect that if there is a solution to this dilemma, we won’t find it in popular culture. Sexual desire, sexual politics, firey flirtation and displays of desire are always being played out in front of our eyes. But, those are played out by the young, the single and the physically flawless. What we don’t see are relationships turning in, one person toward another. We don’t see desire developing into devotion. We don’t see intimacy growing into trust, mutual support and constant communication. We don’t see attraction turning to adoration. And yet, are any of those qualities less wonderful than the display of how we understand modern sexuality.

I have an instinct that parenthood presents a remarkable opportunity for a romantic relationship, for a true a partnership, to grow and deepen. Instead, too often, couples withdraw from each other as resources like time, energy and attention grow scarcer as they are shared out among members of a larger family.

Read the whole post here and then vote for Kate in this blogger contest she’s doing.

Me? I’m just too tired to feel hot. Unless you mean can you turn the air conditioner on?

Post from: Blisstree

Hot Mama

1. I was raised a Mormon Military Brat. We moved a lot, as a result I could pick up and go at any second. For a job or out of boredom I have sold everything I owed to relocate as an adult four times already. I am only 33-years-old.
2. I am a journalist by profession. I resent my previous employers for not allowing me to work from home when I became a mother. I am a writer and since the invention of e-mail there is really no reason to make me come to the newsroom 40 hrs a week. I think it’s “motherism” as my employer allowed a man to work out of his home but denied my request. I’ve not found my female employers any more supportive of working from home than my male bosses. But, I do resent them more.
3. I got married when I was 17-years-old. That was a stupid thing to do. I totally believe in divorce and thank God every day that by 19 I was smart enough not to make my childish mistake a permanent one. I didn’t marry again until 27.
4. After my child-bride experience I found that I was unwilling to change my name back to my father’s name and unwilling to keep my ex-husband’s name and unwilling to take any future husband’s name. I went to court and dropped all the last names that made my identity relational to the men in my life. I decided to have an identity that did not change with my marital status. My given name at birth was Tracee Sue and I thought Sioux would look better in print – well, I AM a writer so it DOES matter how marketable my name is. I was only 19 when I divorced so it seemed inevitable that I would eventually get married and have kids again. But, it did not seam reasonable at all to change my identity in any way, including my last name. So, I am Tracee Sioux. Legally now and forever. It is not a nom deplum – Sioux is my legal last name and it is who I am.
5. I witnessed 9-11 when I was 8 months pregnant with my first child. I was on my way to work. What strikes me now about the experience is that as a reporter my first instinct was to buy a disposable camera and report on it. I got a shot of the second plane hitting the building. I wasn’t close enough for anyone to buy the shot. The second thing that sticks with me is how worried I was that I was going to be late for work and how my boss might be annoyed with me – as if for the first few hours the shock was so complete that I didn’t understand the magnitude at all and went about my normal business like buying a chocolate donut.
6. I went to Lithuania after college to teach English, I wanted to travel and had been a political science major with an interest in the breakdown of the Soviet Union. Lithuania was a brand new democracy.
7. I’m grateful beyond belief for my current opportunity to work from home blogging. I feel like this is a “calling” for me. I’m pretty intensely spiritual about my So Sioux Me website and my work at b5media writing BlogFabulous to empower people and especially women. It’s my path, my personal legend, my way of being part of the soul of the world, my way to affect the collective consciousness.

So I’m tagging Therapydoc at Everyone Needs Therapy, Steve at Inside Fatherhood, Karen at Thrifty Mommy, Cory and Kerri at Marriage Actually, Kate at Babylune, Karen at Live the Power and Courtney at Courtney Tuttle. Consider yourselves Memed by Tracee Sioux at So Sioux Me and BlogFabulous.

Post from: Blisstree

I’ve Been Memed