Music Corner: Kimbra

Kimbra was in the last music corner, as a featured artist, but after exploring some of her own stuff, my husband and I think she deserves her very own Music Corner post.

My favorite:

Imagine a one-and-a-half year old sitting on Uncle Jeff's lap and shaking his shoulders to this video. It's as adorable as it sounds.

The next one is a little slower, but her voice is simply amazing (especially towards the end):

And she's freaking adorable!

And so it begins...

The first boxes into our storage unit.

Mostly books.

I feel like a bad mother leaving them in there.

I rationalize it by telling myself that they'll be unpacked into a better home someday.

Until then, at least they've got climate control!

I survived.

Thanks to a generous friend who purchased a good deal on Groupon (for two), I went to my first Bikram Yoga class yesterday. Some of my thoughts:

• I think what people should be warned about, more so than the heat, is the stench of feet that assaults you when you walk into the room. Feet, and bleached towels.
• I sweat more than I thought possible, and I'm pretty sure I said that after rubbling in Haiti. The difference is that this heat has no redeeming qualities: no cool breeze, no Prestige, no amazing conversations.
• I didn't know one person, alone in their car, could fog up all the windows. Now I know better.
• A change of clothes is a must. I'm pretty sure my car still reeks from the pool of sweat I left on my seat and seatbelt on the drive home.
• What sounds like a leaky faucet is actually men who are sweating more than I am, and standing in a pool of their sweat, literally.
• I've missed Machu Picchu legs. What are Machu Picchu legs, you ask? That's when you've been climbing up tiny ruin steps all day, and then when it's time go down down those same steps, your legs are so exhausted that they shake with every step. They're awesome.

It's definitely a challenging workout, but I do feel great today, and we're going back on Friday. Hopefully this time I'll be a little more adjusted to the heat and won't have to sit down so much to avoid passing out...

Random Updates...

I've been going to the gym! Well, to be honest last week I failed, but the two weeks before that I was a frequent visitor, and I went today. I do have a confession: today was the first time there was no one else there (it's the small gym from my apartment complex), so when the below song came on my Pandora...I actually did a little dancing on the elliptical. It was very niiiice.

(In asking Jeff for help in finding this video, he just shared with me how him and Pat used to cruise around bumping their Pure Funk CD. I love him.)

Anyhow, not sure if I mentioned that we put in our 30-day notice at our apartment complex. We did. Sigh. We're really gonna miss this place. I stopped by the leasing office today to pick up some move out paperwork, and they kindly informed me that no matter how clean we leave this place, they're still gonna rape us for all that our deposit is worth, and more. Uuuuuggghhhh.

So, in preparation for this monumental move, we started packing today. We decided to start with the stuff that's easy to pack: DVD's and books (I'm terrified of packing up the kitchen. Uuuuuggghhhh x2). In packing up the books I came across the one item I've ever stolen [from a store], in my life. I was about six or seven. I have a super clear picture of the parking lot, and the check out stand, but for the life of me I can't remember what store it was. What I do remember is that by the check out stand there was something I really wanted, and my mom said "No" when I asked her to buy it for me. It was like a buck fifty, and I was a little pissed she wouldn't spend a buck fifty on me (as in $1.50, not $150.00).

My mom and the register lady started chatting it up, which I took as a distraction mechanism. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I grabbed what I wanted and hid it in my sweater. We then walked out of the store and into my mom's Mitsubishi, which was sweltering. "Why don't you take off your sweater? It's hot in here." I tried to make up some excuse, but the heat was undeniable, and mother knows best. It probably didn't help that I must've had the most guilty expression on my face ever.

So, she made me take off my sweater...and that thing I had just stolen slipped out. Needless to say, she wasn't happy. I started crying. She threatened to make me go inside and return it (we were still sitting in the car, in the parking lot), but I think she was a little embarrassed herself, and my tears were probably pretty convincing of my regret. So, we never returned it. It's actually floated around between my mother (yeah, she had the nerve to keep it for HERSELF!), then my grandmother, and when I found it again a few years back, I finally took possession of it.

What is it?

A BOOKMARK!

Hahhahaha, so lame.

Charity of the Month: One Mango Tree

It started with one woman. One sewing machine. One story.

Halle Butvin, Founder and Director of One Mango Tree, was strolling through the central market in Gulu, Uganda, when she met Auma Lucy. Auma was alone in her market stall, just her and her sewing machine. Halle and Auma struck up a conversation, which developed into a friendship, which developed into a partnership. What Halle learned about Auma was that she was like so many other women in Uganda: abandoned by her husband, and left with several children to care for. Not only did Auma have to provide for her children, but she was also caring for 11 nieces and nephews that had been orphaned, through both the war and AIDS. Halle found a way to make a difference for Auma and women like her: One Mango Tree.

In deciding to start One Mango Tree, Halle had to decide on an economic model for her organization, and jump through all the loops that are involved in starting a business in a developing country. In deciding on a for-profit model vs. a non-profit model, Halle says that she "really felt that the products needed to sell themselves." In essence, in order to create something that was going to be sustainable over time and have long term efficacy, it had to stand on its own, without the need to seek donations in order to stay open.

Making that decision was only the first hurdle, however. Just some of the challenges Halle had to overcome in getting One Mango Tree started in Gulu: registering, getting tax ID numbers, getting export licenses, navigating trade policy to determine tariffs, finding reliable shippers, etc. If these things would be difficult to do in the US, imagine doing them in a different country! However, Halle says the biggest challenge is working on their supply chain: the demand for their products is there, but the supply is often lower than demand due to lack of reliability within the textile industry, price fluctuations, and just generally a lack of available fabric.

The good news: this hasn't kept Halle and One Mango Tree from growing and doing what they meant to do. Through the making and selling of their products, One Mango Tree has changed hundreds of lives by creating sustainable incomes for women, who can feed their families, send their children to school, and even start saving money to expand their business.

One Mango Tree also takes part in what they call "holistic community improvements." I mentioned this "holistic" approach when I wrote about Corazon: you're not just building houses, or selling products, you're actually going beyond that to see what the needs of the community are: education, access to transportation, food, etc. One Mango Tree does this by providing bicycles for their staff, serving hot lunches for staff and their children everyday, providing on-site daycare for infants and toddlers. Such a brilliant concept: you're taking care of everything that might keep a woman from coming to work: you provide her the means to get there, you provide care for her children so she doesn't have to worry about them, you provide her and her children with food so they can be healthy and productive. LOVE IT.

Part of this holistic approach also involves training and community development that helps bring women together: some women who were victims of the war, and others who were perpetrators during the war. It also involves the Village Savings and Loan Association, which is completely run by the women in the program. Basically, the VSLA provides financial literacy trainings to teach women how to save, why to save, how to create a budget, etc., and provides them with a savings account. This is immensely important for women who have never had more than a day's worth of food. The concept of saving for the future is probably something that is difficult for them to grasp, especially when faced with the challenge of daily survival.

Halle and One Mango Tree have not only been successful in setting these programs up, but they've actually been able to scale up their productions by building a relationship with Global Girlfriend. This relationship allowed One Mango Tree to bring their products in to retailers such as Whole Foods and Target. Yep, the organization that started with one women now sells their stuff at TARGET! Pretty incredible.

Although Halle believes that their relationship with Global Girlfriend is one of their major accomplishments, I think it's the fact that this enterprise is run almost exclusively by local community members, not international employees. During my last trip to Haiti with All Hands Volunteers, the organization was talking about decreasing the number of international volunteers, and scaling up the number of local volunteers. I think this is extremely important. The purpose of organizations such as these is not to spoon feed individuals, but to give them the skills and experience necessary to take the reigns and take control themselves. Out of 58 staff in Gulu and Kampala, 54 of them are Ugandan women, two are Sri Lakan men who run the apparel workshop, and two are American interns. Those are impressive numbers.

So, what do these women actually make? Here are some images of the products sold by One Tree Mango (they're actually having a great sale right now...you should check it out!).

(Yes, I want each of these...)

A huge thank you to Halle Butvin for her time in answering all my questions, and congratulations on the amazing work you've accomplished so far, and are yet to accomplish!

I'll leave you all with some words from Halle:

"While I started OMT with the mission to give to others, I never expected to receive so much - I have learned so much about myself through the business, and every day I get to wake up and do what I love - design products, tell stories, and work with all of these strong, beautiful and amazing women in Uganda. There are certainly setbacks, but the reward of building something like this - two workshops, fifty staff who have lifted themselves out of poverty, a beautiful product line and a long list of happy customers in the US - I could not ask for more." --Halle Butvin

The Death of Bookstores...and Books

So originally this blog started with a reference to a prior post about my emotional breakdown at Blockbuster when they were all closing down...but then I went to look for the post and alas, I never wrote it. Sigh. In short: I was really bummed by the realization that movie stores are now a thing of the past. Sure, there's redbox and netflix and hulu, but there's something to be said for actually walking into a place, looking around aisles and aisles of movies, arguing with your husband over what you want to watch, finding nothing, and then walking out with something you're kind of ok watching. And then having to physically return it so you don't get charged late fees. Sounds less than glorious, but I kinda liked that experience. Knowing that future generations will never know what that's like is kind of sad...and scary. Things are changing so quickly these days (I wonder if that's how older generations felt also...).

Ok, now we can move on to this post. I’m having a similar emotional breakdown about Border’s closing down. One more down. It makes me wonder: how much longer until Barnes & Noble closes down? How much more after that until books are no longer published? Which just made me think back to Blockbuster…how much longer do you think DVD’s and Blue Ray’s will be around for? I wonder if it’s just a matter of time before all movies will only be available for download, online or directly through your cable provider.

There’s been talk for a while about the death of the publishing industry, and it honestly makes me sad. Indeed, the title of this blog is less than creative, since a simple google search of "death of books" or "death of bookstores" will come up with ample reading material (including this one, which is a great sentimental piece about the love and affinity of books, compared to e-books: "'I wonder if anyone has ever cried while reading an e-book'").

As great as I hear they are, the idea of reading on a Nook or Kindle just doesn’t cut it for me. I like having the actual book, I like being able to put it on my bookshelf when I’m done reading it. I like turning the pages. I like highlighting parts of it, and writing notes in the margins (yeah…I really do that). Jeff agrees with me on the sentimentality of having physical books to hold and turn pages to, but he also made a good point: in our day and age, we really shouldn’t be cutting down trees just to make books; it makes complete sense to move to electronic forms of publishing, which are cheaper and have less of a negative impact on the environment. He compared it to using gas as fuel for our cars: it’s something our society should be past already. Like one of the articles linked on this post mentioned (but I'm too lazy to find it, quote it and re-link it), I do understand the utility of e-books when traveling, or for large reference books, etc. I couldn’t agree more, but the idea of books someday being a "1984" thing of the past is scary. Kindle has actually taken all of the sentimentalities into their ad campaigns, and I think I hate them just a little bit for mocking my emotions:

As mentioned in the Huffington Post: "Electronic books may make rare texts available to the world and allow us to pack dozens of books in our carry-on bags, but they also single-handedly responsible for the decline of print publishing." The whole article is actually a good read, and in closing expresses the sentiment which has keep me away from the closing sales at Borders: "Surrounded by red and hornet-yellow markdown tags, I couldn't help but feel I wasn't witnessing the death of a bookstore, but the slow, succumbing death of the book itself." That was my exact thought when I heard of the closing of Borders. Books, in their entirety, will someday cease to exist. In someone else's words: "...the idea of reading printed books will be a tiny boutique experience, not unlike collecting vinyl."

I imagine that our kids are going to have all of their textbooks downloaded to their laptops. They won’t have to lug around heavy textbooks for French class or Algebra. They’ll just have their laptop with all their textbooks on there. Will libraries become nonexistent? I loved going to the library in elementary school and junior high. It’s sad to think that my kids will not experience that (although maybe they’ll be more normal than I was and just not like to read at that age), although I’m sure they’ll be replaced with other experiences that I didn’t have as a child. Who knows.

(Speaking of kids and reading and coolness. Jeff mentioned that he was listening to Kevin & Bean on KROQ the other day, and they were talking about the closing of Borders and how they basically couldn’t care less, because reading is stupid. For those not in the Southern California area…Kevin & Bean are morning DJ’s for an alternative radio station. They’re over forty…catering to high schoolers. Apparently there was only one guy on the show that talked about books in a positive light, and expressed his enjoyment of reading. The forty year old made fun of him for reading…and I couldn’t help but wonder if they just got stuck in the mind set of a high schooler who thinks that reading is lame, or they’re just pretending because that’s the age group that they’re catering to. Either way, I don’t think Jeff has been able to listen to them since, ha.)

Just like the era of movie stores being over…I sadly feel that the era of bookstores, and books for that matter, is quickly coming to an end. And I mourn our loss.

Doing the impossible

I went to church with my mom a couple weeks ago. The sermon was about the whole walking on water episode in the bible. The one line from the priest that really struck me, was the following:

“Wouldn’t you like to be able to do the impossible?”

Yeah, I would. I just don’t know how. Any suggestions?

Wrinkles...

I’ll start with a quick digression. I’m currently in a car, on our way to Vegas. And I’m typing on my laptop. Don’t worry, I’m glancing around periodically to make sure I don’t miss any exciting dessert hills. My point: technology is amazing.

My grandma’s birthday is this Sunday, and unfortunately I’m missing the celebration…for Vegas (don’t worry, you’re not the first to tell me my priorities are skewed). To make up for it, however, I decided to go visit my grandma, take her out to lunch and spend a few hours going around doing whatever she wanted to do. It was quite the pleasant visit: I took her to JC Penny, she needed to buy a calling card from Costco, so we hit up Costco, we bought some yarn so she can make a baby blanket for Olivia, we hit up Soupplantation (her choice), and rounded up the evening by walking around Old Town Temecula and oogling at the price of “antiques.” All in all, it was a great day.

With one exception.

Grandma got me freaking out about wrinkles!! I’ve never been one to care too much about my physical appearance, much to my detriment, I’m sure. And although I’m on the cusp of 30, I hadn’t started to freak out about the extra lines on my face. Until my grandma mentioned it. “You really need to take care of your skin! You have too many wrinkles for someone your age.” Um….ok? She immediately made me put on some anti-aging, de-wrinkling lotion that probably has more chemicals in it than the stuff I use to clean our kitchen. Then she let me have that lotion and told me to make sure I put it on generously every day. “It’s expensive, but it’s worth it, you need to start spending money on taking care of yourself.” Don’t get my grandma wrong, she’s amazing and she’s not as materialistic as this one incident probably makes her out to be. It’s more funny than anything else.

However, it brings up a subject Jeff and I have commented on several times before, when we see people on TV who have stretched their faces beyond belief, and look horrid: why can’t people just let themselves age gracefully? I wonder when this infatuation started…I mean, it’s not like people around you don’t know how old you really are. Sure, maybe your face looks like your 45, but your husband knowns you’re 55, and your hands show that you’re 55. And people can tell you’ve had plastic surgery. Or botox, or whatever. Wrinkles are part of the circle of life.

I just don’t get it. But grandma made me wonder: am I being too careless in [not] taking care of myself, in my effort to not care about aging? Should I at least do the minimum and put on magic lotions? Or do we, ahem, society, put too much emphasis on de-wrinkled faces? And why? Why does a stretchy, but still older, face seem more socially acceptable than someone who just lets themselves be?

Food for thought.

Music Corner: Gotye

Great find by Jeff on reddit. Listen towards the end when the female vocals kick in, so good!

What I learned yesterday

I should start with a quick update on what I've been up to. About a week after I got laid off, I got a message from a friend looking for a divorce attorney...then a distant family relative called to ask for help with her divorce...then a legal contact referred a client that needed help with a custody issue, and a friend from law school referred a case to me for a nonprofit incorporation and nonprofit status application. I guess what the universe is trying to tell me...is to man up. So, I guess I'm now working for myself...kind of. It's kind of exciting...and a little nerve racking.

Anyhow, yesterday was my first day at the family courthouse; my client had an interview and I needed to file some documents before her hearing today. While she was in her interview, I went up to the 7th floor at Lamoreaux Justice Center, where I found out the filing of documents occurred (after going to the wrong place only once, go me!). I had to check in, and let the clerk-God know what I was filing, so he could print out a ticket number for me. I got my ticket and walked in, looking around and seeing all the chairs in the room filed by people...with similar tickets in their hand. Well, my next step when chairs are unavailable is to look for a wall or table or something to lean against...but those were also in high demand. So...it was a busy day on the 7th floor.

My ticket was C365 (or something like that)...the current numbers up were A025 and C342 (or something like that). Well, 23 people ahead of me...not tooooo bad, right? Well....when C-tickets aren't getting called up at ALL for about 45 minutes to an hour....it apparently can take over 2 hours for you to reach the filing window. What's this business with A and C tickets, you ask? Well, at that point all I knew was that there was a rotation of some sort between numbers that started with letters from A through F. Little did I know....

After about an hour and a half, I finally sat next to an older lady who seemed to be getting anxious after waiting for over two hours. Her ticket started with F, and she expressed her concern that she hadn't seen an F ticket called in a long time. I took her ticket to the clerk-God and asked him if he could give me any information as to why the F numbers hadn't been called in so long.

"Well, there's a priority system and the numbers get called in order of priority. So A numbers go first, they're for ex parte's, then B's are for attorneys then..."

Wait, B's are for attorneys? I'm an attorney. I've seen B's come and go while I've been here. Are you saying that I could have been out of here already if I just told you I was an attorney?!

"D's are for process servers..."

"Wait, are you saying that I could have gotten priority if I told you I was an attorney?"

"You're an attorney?! Of course you can! Here." And he handed me the golden B ticket. "Next time just make sure you tell me [the clerk-God] that you're an attorney to make sure you get priority."

At this point, I felt a little guilty going back to my neighbor, knowing that her F ticket meant she'd just have to keep waiting...while I got a B ticket...and I'd be out of there way before I was originally scheduled to.

But I guess now I can say these law school loans aren't completely worthless: shoot son, they allow me to cut in line!

In unrelated news...I went to check my PO Box today, even though I wasn't expecting to have any mail there. There wasn't, but I still put in the code and opened it...just because it's cool to do it :)

But yeah, in case you forgot to send me something:

Alexandra M. Armstrong

PO Box 2096

Laguna Hills, CA 92654

Music Corner: Imaginary Cities

I've been looking for something new (at least to me) to post on here, and finally someone made me stumble upon this. Love it. Hear it out, it picks up.

Much more mellow, but it was filmed in a bathroom, so it's all good in my book:

Introducing: My PO Box!

I didn't think I would be this excited about getting a PO Box, but after you see it, I think you'll understand why. I was expecting a standard gray box with a key...and instead...I got THIS:

It's beautiful, isn't it?! It looks antique-ish, and has a combination lock rather than a key. I was going to protest this when it was being assigned to me, but I'm glad I didn't. I also feel like I'm on the right track as far as setting things up for my personal and joint business ventures. I've felt uncomfortable about using my home address for a lot of things, and being that we're not quite sure where we will be living for the next 6-9 months, I thought this would be a good solution.

Feel free to send me mail (preferably with a donation made out to Haiti Scholarships ;) )!

Alexandra M. Armstrong

PO Box 2096

Laguna Hills, CA 92654

Yay!

July Charity of the Month: The Compton Initiative

Holy cow, July flew by. I think this might only be the first or second time that I fail in submitting my Charity of the Month on time :(

I was also having some trouble picking a charity, but then I went to a neighborhood clean up on Saturday, and the decision seemed obvious.

When we went to the beach in Haiti, we talked about how we wish we had more time there to organize a beach clean up: there was trash EVERYWHERE. It really detracted from the beauty of the place. The thing that we all thought about, was how easy it would be to clean it up if we just got a few dozen people to help out, and how much of a difference that would make. GOALS Haiti actually did a trash pick up in Leogane not too long ago, and I hope they keep doing it!

Flash forward to the present, minus three days: my cousin told me about an event in Compton, where they gathered volunteers every few Saturdays to help clean up the neighborhood, mostly by painting houses, fences, schools, etc. Being the sucker for volunteer work that I am, I signed up and got my friend Sarah to sign up as well. I believe if the wake up time was not 5:30am on a Saturday morning, more friends would have joined us ;)

Anyhow, we got there promptly at 7am for registration, and to figure out what group we'd be working with. There were SO MANY people. I honestly thought there would be about 20 of us...but nope, I'm pretty sure the body count was over a thousand. They were mostly from various churches and youth groups...and by "mostly" I mean "almost all." People kept asking Sarah and I what church we were with...I had no witty response. I have no complaints though, aside from one girl really pushing us to attend the Compton After Party at her church, everyone was super nice and not preachy at all.

So what did we do? Once we found our group, everyone broke off to separate work sites: various neighborhood blocks, a high school (painting walls and murals), elementary school, and a few houses. Our work site was a neighborhood block, where we pained the fences of maybe 5-6 houses. These fences are made of tiny individual metal bars...I was honestly quite sick of them by the time we finished, haha. BUT, seeing the before and after, it really amazes me what one little coat of paint can do to really revive a place.

With that said, we plan on going to the next one in October. Check them out, and see if you can attend one of their events, or help them financially so they can keep improving the city of Compton.