Pet Lovers (and Others) Unite! Part Deux

For those of you who have not yet donated to Kristi Patrice Carter's GoFundMe campaign to help incorporate her nonprofit, Henry's Caring Heart Foundation, to assist needy pet families, including the first five grants of up to $500, here's the link again:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/seeking-pet-lovers-to-help-us-fund-501c3-fees&rcid=r01-156295576497-ab2e961aa34040c8&pc=ot_co_campmgmt_m 

For those of us who have more time than money, you can spread the word. Please post to your social media accounts and let others know about this opportunity to save someone's pet.

Even though I do not live in Heartland USA, where Kristi's endeavor is initially launching, I still have to give what I can to her dream. If you are local to Kristi's nonprofit you could donate time as a volunteer.

Or maybe this big dream of Kristi's nudges along your own dreams. I believe we are all here for a purpose (which is why suicides seem so doubly painful to me). So maybe this dream isn't calling to you? You can give in so many ways to make this planet a better place for all of us today, tomorrow and into the future.

What about some of these ideas below? Do any grab your heart? When you hear that Yes! in your soul, you know you've hit upon something that matters to you. So read this list, make your own, and do something TODAY to improve our world:

1.  Donate to Kiva. You only need $25. https://www.kiva.org/lend/filter
2.  Rescue a pet (or five) from your local animal shelter.
3.  Sign up at your local animal shelter to be a foster pet parent to help save a pet's life until its forever family shows up.
4.  Donate to Charity: Water. https://www.charitywater.org/donate
5.  Donate to Pencils of Promise. https://pencilsofpromise.org/donate/
6.  Plant a garden.
7.  Recycle.
8.  Go green. You don't have to be all-in, 100%. Do what you can, with what you've got, right now.
9.  Give away gently used things you are not using that someone else would love to have.
10.  Donate gently used clothing to a local women's shelter.
11.  Donate food to a local food pantry bank.
12.  Sign up to be an organ donor.
13.  Give blood.
14.  Donate a weekend to Habitat for Humanity.
15.  Bring dinner to a sick friend.
16.  Write that book that is in you.
17.  Uplift a sad friend.
18.  Pray for all of us, the humans, the animals, the trees, our lands and oceans, our air, our planet.
19.  Uplift yourself with a walk or other exercise or sport, digging a garden, playing with a pet or a child.
20.  Give generously of yourself, your time, your ideas, and, yes, your money.

I'm sure I'll think of many more examples for this list. What about you? What do you want to be known for in this life? Can you picture what your personal branding would look like, so that it captured the real essence of you? Have any other ideas for my list? Suggestions? Dreams you want to share?

Two more things come to mind: (1) It takes a village. While every donation helps, just think if we all pooled our resources to make a bigger impact on a common goal? What more could we do then? That's why my small donation will do so much more in Kristi's hands. (2) Also see this short clip that Tim Ferriss recommended on how wolves change the course of rivers. We really interact with our surroundings, without even knowing it. Take a look here https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=how+wolves+change+rivers&qpvt=how+wolves+change+rivers&FORM=VDRE :

How Wolves Change Rivers. This short video (< 5 minutes) has been viewed more than 40 million times. It’s an incredible visual portrait of how wolves can help—literally—change the course of rivers. Though highly simplified, this video showcases a beautiful, critically important, and woefully underappreciated phenomenon called trophic cascade.

Have a great weekend, y'all. Be kind to yourself as well as to others.

Welcome to My World, Where Every Day Is a Saturday

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

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Be, Do, Have

This thought has been tormenting me to become a blog post.  I'm not sure why I'm supposed to write this, only that it needs to be done for the benefit of someone out there.  So here it is.

That explanatory preface completed, I'll proceed with the actual topic of this article. 

It is not unusual for us to read how we can have want we want, do what we love and become a better person on our journey of self-improvement.  Yet look at the three verbs. 

"Have" entails buying, spending money, online, in a mall, however.  While some of our time could be involved, we could hire a personal assistant to purchase it for us, thus freeing our time and using just our funds.  After all, we can make more money, but not necessarily more time.  (Although there's that Old Testament Bible verse where a man prayed for fifteen more years and got it--so maybe we can create more time.  But I digress.)  So the "having" probably takes the least involvement by us personally.

Moving on to "do," this verb describes action that probably cannot be delegated.  Granted, "I'll do it" seems like literally that person volunteering would actually carry it out, but could still be passed on to another.  Unless it was a dentist appointment or the like.  For our purposes, when we set out to "do," it enlists us, our time, our expenditure of effort.  Whether an hour of exercise, giving a weekend to Habitat for Humanity, a Saturday for a garage sale, a Friday night of babysitting, we give ourselves for a certain part of a day or week.

Finally, "be."  This is the most demanding verb of the three.  To be a better person, a better parent, a better spouse, a better author or whatever, takes over the rest of our life once we decide this.  Talk about time-consuming.  There it is.  For it warrants our complete attention not for a short duration, like when "doing," but long-term.

Maybe we need to learn first about Have, then Do, then Be.  Maybe its a maturity-based learning curve where we graduate from one to the next.  Maybe it is simply about focus.  First money, then action, then essence.  Or dollars, time, discipline.  Could be lessons on patience mixed with engaging the law of giving and receiving, starting with an immediate exchange, progressing to the short-term exchange and finally experiencing a long-term exchange. Maybe it is all of the above and yet still more.

I don't know.  I don't have all the answers.  But maybe these questions will get us to thinking and will lead to the greater knowledge out there, hooking us into the Universal Mind and giving us insight.

Maybe I was just supposed to write this entry for myself.  If so, the reasoning is still not clear.  But it will come.  And to the person(s) in need of it.  Because that's the way the world works.  Like William James said: "Let everything you do be done as if it makes a difference."