A little love from a fellow blogger!

A few months back, my ties were featured on Erin Gets Married, an awesome wedding blog. Check it out and show her a little blog love!

Spotlight on Erin Gets Married

To see my current selection of ties, please visit my Etsy Shop.

Free spider clip giveaway!

My favorite holiday has always been Halloween. I love pumpkins, the crisp morning air, the gloomy rain clouds, and spicy hot apple cider. In celebration of fall, I'm giving away a free spider clip!


You'll get one entry for each of these:

-Follow my blog
-Comment on a post (unique comments only, 1 per post)
-Write about my shop on your blog (post a link in a comment to this entry)
-Add my shop to the links on your website, twitter, facebook or blog. I have easy share buttons in the right navigation bar. (post a link in a comment to this entry)
-Write about my shop in your status on a social networking site. (post a link in a comment to this entry)


The winner gets a free spider ribbon sculpture on a lined alligator clip. You can even pick the hourglass color out of my in-stock ribbon! Winner will be chosen at on October 10th.



Visit my Etsy shop to see more clippies and ribbon sculptures!

Operation Garbage Reduction

I decided to challenge myself to reduce the amount of trash we're putting out each week. I'm not a hard-core environmentalist. I don't consider myself an environmentalist, but I do see the value in reducing our impact on our world. Resources are finite, so why not preserve them while we can?

We keep two cans in our kitchen. The silver can is for trash, the white can for recycling. Since we have to keep our big garbage cans in the garage, cutting back on the stink factor is a big deal. So that explains the need for the challenge. I decided try to salvage as much as we can to either put in the worm bin, feed the rabbit, or put in the recycling bin. That means cutting up paper and boxes, saving scraps for the worms instead of tossing in the trash, rinsing cans so they can be recycled, etc.

In one day, I managed to save:

-two popsicle boxes
-two mailers
-three toilet paper rolls
-one paper towel roll
-two newsletters
-one coffee pod
-one Costco sized garbage bag box
-a cereal box

I cut these all up and soaked the mix in some warm water to soften it up for the worms. The paper filled a loaf pan and was enough to start a new tray for the worm bin. Considering that this was one day's trash, it really puts the amount of trash generated each year in perspective. The average family produces 100 pounds of trash a week, or 5,200 pounds a year!

My exciting weekend

I had the least exciting weekend in well, probably ever. My throat has been sore and red and angry looking since Wednesday morning. I had my tonsils out when I was nineteen, and the surgeon left a tiny sliver of tonsil on the left side. That tiny little sliver is huge now, so I think I have tonsillitis with really no tonsils to speak of. I don't think I have a virus, I don't have a very high fever, but it sure looks nasty and hurts like the devil. I might drag myself to the doctor tomorrow...we'll see.

Most of my time I've spent propped up in bed reading the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris. Adam bought me a boxed set last week after me 'hinting' for weeks that I'd like to read the books. I'd been meaning to borrow the series but never got around to it. I have to say I like the series enough to keep reading, but it doesn't draw you in like other series that I've read. It might be the perfectionist in me, but I have to chuckle when I find a typo, grammatical error, or a chink in the storyline. I have noticed a few errors when she talks about things that happened in a previous book. The type of car will be different, the timeline is a little off, etc. Oh well. I've been entertained. For those of you that haven't seen the tv show, HBO has based the series True Blood on the books by Harris. The show is much more graphic than the books. I got sucked into following the tv show recently, but something was bothering me. I couldn't put my finger on it for a couple weeks, until I realized it is their accents. That fake Louisiana drawl just bugs the heck out of me. Sooookay and Beeeehl....

Be the match - Part 1

Vampires gravitate towards my husband. Not the type with fangs...I mean the type with needles and purple nitrile gloves. You see, he is tall and strapping with big veins popping out of his arms. His blood comes in a particularly delicious flavor - type O-. If he happens to miss the blood drive every couple months at work, we get a phone call asking if he can come by and donate.

Two months ago I was browsing the web while he was at work, and stumbled across the site for the National Marrow Donor Program. I didn't meet the requirements, but it looked like Adam did. Because of the high cost of testing, the program normally charges a fee to join the registry. Thanks to a large donation, they were offering kits for free until they ran out of funds. I let Adam know and asked him to think about it. Within a couple days, not only had he signed up but he had asked his work to spread the word. Instead of just telling the employees at his center, an email went out to every employee with the company...all 65,000 or so.

His kit came in the mail while we were preparing for a sale to benefit a family who's little girl was badly injured in a car accident. While we were waiting for guests to show up that first day, Adam pulled out the cheek swab kit and then dropped it in the mail. I think that we both figured it would be a couple years before he would get a match. Little did we know that doctors somewhere were searching to find a match for their patient...

We got a call from Fedex to confirm our address last Thursday. I thought it was a little strange, but I was expecting some packages and figured one was mislabeled. The next morning, the doorbell rang. For some reason the Fedex guy was standing there instead of sprinting back to his truck, so I rushed to the door. He had to confirm again that had the right residence. Strange, I thought. After he walked off, I stood there with the door open and tore open the envelope. I had to read the papers a couple times before calling Adam. He was a possible match for a 64 year old male. The patients doctor was trying to determine options as quickly as possible. Since it was Friday, Adam left a message on the donor coordinator's website. I spent the rest of the day reading about the donation procedure and what to expect.

Adam heard back from the coordinator yesterday. She wanted to confirm some information on his paperwork. He had a case of sinus ventricular tachycardia when he was in bootcamp. It was an isolated event and his doctors have cleared him of any problems. If their is any risk to the donor the coordinator will not allow a donation since this is a voluntary donation to a patient we do not know. (The rules for family are different and allow a little more risk.) She confirmed that he was willing to donate. After she checked with the doctor to see where the patient is in the process, she would call back to schedule confirmatory testing. The donor coordinator let us know that after the testing is complete, things could move quickly. The patient has to be prepared for the procedure through chemotherapy, and it may only be one to two weeks before they need the marrow. If the donor backs out at the last minute, the patient will almost certainly die. Gulp.

We've spent time talking about the two different collection procedures and how things might go. He understands what to expect. Some of his friends have asked why he'd go through the whole ordeal for someone he does not know and might not ever meet. His response? "What if it was your daughter, or brother, or friend that needed that donation? What if I that person's only chance?" It reminded me of a saying by the Jewish scholar Hillel. The name may not ring a bell to most, though his words do. Hillel the Elder penned another pretty famous saying - the 'golden rule'.

If I am not for myself, who will be?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
And if not now, when? -- Rabbi Hillel

For more information on bone marrow donation, please visit www.marrow.org.