Brilliant Holiday Gift Ideas!

Stumped for ideas for holiday gifts  - I have the perfect solution!

I recommend that you give a generous holiday gift to one or more of the below organizations in honor of family and/or friends. I did and it felt GREAT!

The Arc of the Capital Area provides critical services for children and adults with intellectual/developmental disabilities (autism, mental retardation, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome). One of their programs is Arc of the Arts, in which their clients create amazing works of art. Click here to check out the really cool stuff they are selling that would also make super holiday gifts. Click here to make a donation.

Austin Community Steelband teaches  "at promise" kids to play Steelpan to instill self-esteem and to preserve the cultural music of Trinidad. Need some special music for an event? These kids and their music will fill your heart with joy! This is a "shoe-string" organization that really needs your help. Click here to make a donation.

El Buen Samaritano Episcopal Mission provides medical, human and education services to working-poor Latinos in south Austin. Their comprehensive services help primarily immigrant families integrate well into our community. Click here to make a donation.

Catholic Charities of Central Texas provides health, human services and social justice advocacy in a 25 county area. I particularly like their vision of "a more just and caring society." Check them ouT and then Click Here to make a donation.

The Center for Child Protection provides protective and healing services for children who are suspected victims of sexual and physical abuse, and children who have witnessed a violent crime. Click here to make a donation.

Sustainable Food Center envisions a food secure community where all children and adults grow, share and prepare healthy, local food. These are the folks that do the Farmers' Markets, but they do much, much more. They are cultivating generations of healthy kids in Austin, and that is important. Click here to make a donation.

One Hundred Things My Mother Taught Me A Million Times – Chapter 58

#58– “Never pull the skin on your face.”

(My sisters left to right are Gloria Sidney, Dorothy Belle and Vienna Mae – all of whom are on the far side of 70 and the short side of 80! We may all need a neck job, but the skin on our faces looks dang good.)

Us Wade gals are genetically blessed when it comes to skin. I say this not in reference to my skin, but rather in reference to the skin of my mother (right up until the day she died at the age of 98) and my three older sisters, all of whom are still kicking and have complexions that look younger than their years. Or perhaps it is simply because of mom’s #58, “Never pull the skin on your face,” which she taught us a million times.

Mother knew that mean ole’ Mr. Gravity needed absolutely no help when it came to the pulling of skin. Honestly, you’d think that some genius would have solved this problem by now. Why we didn’t push our daughters into medical research seems ridiculously illogical at this point in my life!

I just got off the phone with a friend. We were contemplating the creation of a really low budget fat farm, like $10/day. A place that doesn’t mess around when it comes to “helping” you lose weight - sort of a “Super 8” of spas. Here’s how it would work. You sign an irrevocable contract stating how much weight you want to lose. Then you are locked in a bare-bones room with only water to drink, no food. Then, no matter how much you beg and cuss, they won’t let you out until you drop the weight. I honestly think there may be a market for this. I know that’s the only thing that would work for me anyway – affordable, effective, bada-boom. 

So back to #58 and our skin.  I brought up the affordable spa thing because our face, our weight, our hair, the way we dress – in a word, vanity, is such a dominant theme in most of our lives, and which also has some pretty scary religious implications! I looked up vanity and found a smorgasbord of reference, none of them good. Click on Read More Below...