It's a Leap Year

I found Fat Mum Slim's blog through instagram and have been checking it out periodically since I started the photo-a-day challenge. I really liked her take on Leap Year. Check out her post here.

It has me thinking about what I would do if given an extra day and I kind of feel like treating today like a "free" day.

So what would I do with a free day? My mind started spinning as I thought of all the possibilities. Then I started wondering why I don't think of every day as a free day.

I mean, really. Each day is a gift and should be celebrated. I don't know how many days I have on this Earth so I better make the most of each one God has blessed me with.

I wanted to do something extra special today to celebrate Leap Day here on the blog so I'm offering free shipping on every "LOVE" print ordered from my etsy shop today.

Why the Love print? Well, I chose it because a portion of every sale will be donated to LOVE146 and that's something to celebrate.

Free shipping is only today so go order your print and use the code: FREELOVE for free shipping, then come back and let me know how you plan to celebrate your free day!

The Big News

***UPDATE: giveaway is now closed***

First off, you guys cracked me up on Friday with your guesses. I better clear some things up before I get to the news.

I may or may not be having a girl - we still don't know. Could be a girl. Could be a boy. In about 7 weeks, give or take a few days, we'll know!!!

Also, we are not having twins. I had a Dr. appointment last week and there's still only one little peanut in there.

So, if I'm not announcing the sex, name or the fact that I'm carrying an extra little one around, what is this big news?

I'm opening an Etsy store!





If you follow me on instagram, you saw the "joy" print already. Or, if you were really paying attention, you saw the pic on the January in photos post - hence the very small clue of JOY :)

I have been wanting to do this for quite sometime and finally committed to it. I know this isn't as exciting news as some of you expected so I hope to still make it a little exciting by doing a giveaway!

I have three poster designs in the store right now so there will be three, yes three, winners in this week's giveaway - one winner per poster, chosen at random.



Do you want to enter the giveaway for your chance to win one of my posters?

Yes!?

Oh that's so exciting!

Just leave me a comment letting me know which design you would want if you were chosen.

If you want to increase your chances of winning, you can get another entry if you share this giveaway on twitter and come back and let me know about it.

Want another entry? Share it on your blog and come back and leave me a comment with the link.

If that doesn't make you feel good about your chances, you can share a link to the giveaway and leave me a comment.

If my math is right, that's a max of four entries.

I will accept entries until 11:59pm, Thursday night, Oklahoma time (so you can space your comments out over the next few days, if you so choose). The three winners will be chosen at random using the random number generator and I will announce the winners Friday! Each winner will get an 11"x17" printed poster.

I also want to let you know how excited I am to announce that part of the proceeds of every sale of the "love" poster will be donated to Love146, an organization that is close to my heart.

So go check out my store already and let me know what you think.

Thanks and good luck!!!

Human Trafficking Awareness Day

Today is National Human Trafficking Awareness Day. This is an issue that breaks my heart and I want to do my part to abolish modern day slavery and the first step is awareness.

Here are some facts copied directly from StopChildTraffickingNow.com

• Child/Human Trafficking is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world. Child/ human trafficking is the world’s second largest criminal enterprise, after drugs. U.S. State Department
• The global market of child trafficking at over $12 billion a year with over 1.2 million child victims. UNICEF
• 300,000 children in the U.S. are at risk every year for commercial sexual exploitation. U.S. Department of Justice
• 600,000 – 800,000 people are bought and sold across international borders each year; 50% are children, most are female. The majority of these victims are forced into the commercial sex trade.  U.S. Department of State, 2004, Trafficking in Persons Report, Washington, D.C.
• An estimated 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States each year. The number of U.S. citizens trafficked within the country is even higher, with an estimated 200,000 American children at risk for trafficking into the sex industry. U.S. Department of Justice Report to Congress from Attorney General John Ashcroft on U.S. Government Efforts to Combat Trafficking in Persons

Pretty jaw-dropping. You can get more statistics here.

I really want to encourage you to learn more about this issue today and increase your awareness. FreeTheSlaves.net has some really good educational resources. If anything, check out Slavery in the 21st Century.

"whoever you are
whatever you do
you have something to offer"
- not for sale website

Thanks for you time!

crazy joy, instagram and Love146

How's that for a title!? I decided the topics all kind of relate so I'll just pull it all together in one post and get on with it.

First things first: the crazyjoy challenge. You may (or may not) have noticed the lack of posts regarding the crazyjoy challenge. Over Christmas break and then New Year's, Anna and I decided to take a little break from it. She was good and let her readers know about the break where I just didn't even mention it! Anyway, we both enjoyed the weekly challenge but also enjoyed the time off so with a lot of thought, we have decided to end the challenge.

I struggled with ending it because we committed ourselves to doing it for 52 weeks and had only made it about 30 so that would mean we failed. But to be honest, that's not a very good reason to keep doing something. Sure, it's not great to be a quitter but if you have the right reasons, I think it's just fine. I want to be more intentional about my time this year, including my blog and the challenge was just not a high priority. I don't feel bad about giving up on it but I have also replaced it with a new challenge.

Which brings me to the second topic: instagram. I love having a phone on my camera. I usually have my camera on me at all times and take random pictures of just about anything. I found instagram quite a while ago and love it. Although I have tried doing project365 twice before and failed, I'm giving it another attempt this year.

I think this time around will be more successful because I'm only using instagram photos for the challenge. That means I don't have to worry about uploading them to my computer, editing, or anything else. All I have to do is snap a picture with my phone each day (no problem there) and add it to instagram. I'm 8 days in and doing good.




Oh, and if you're on instagram, let me know, you can find me by searching recipeforcrazy.

Sorry, this post is super long, but I'm almost done.

If you haven't read any of this post yet, start now!

So, back to being intentional.

One of the more personal posts I've shared was this one on Love146. Just to remind you, Love146 is an organization with this mission:

"Abolition and Restoration! We combat child sex slavery & exploitation with the unexpected and restore survivors with excellence."

So, in an effort to raise awareness, did you know that the month of January is Human Trafficking Awareness month and January 11 is Human Trafficking Awareness Day?

You can click here to view a PDF with quick facts on child trafficking.

Want to learn more? Here are some great links:
HumanTrafficking.org
Love146
Love146 blog
Not For Sale
Oklahomans Against Trafficking of Humans
Stop Child Trafficking Now

Those are just a few but I hope you take some time this week to learn more about this issue.

Alright. That's all for today! Thanks for taking the time to read this today.

Oh, also, thank you for all the comments regarding the Star Wars poster! You guys made my day!

Ok, have a great week!