One Mom’s Lifesong

In the time it takes me to write this blog post, 6 children will die of a disease that is completely preventable and treatable. Does that make you MAD or what? It’s a disease that has been eradicated in the U.S. but that claims the lives of 3,000 children each day. That, to me, is UNACCEPTABLE.

Compassion International has launched a campaign called Bite Back to help end this terrible disease in Africa. The BITE BACK campaign wants to provide 300,000 nets to children across Africa through Compassion International. In addition to the nets, Compassion works with communities to provide insecticide spraying, education and other malaria prevention strategies.

For $10 a bed net will help protect a child from malaria for 3 years. Considering that many African families have multiple people sleeping in a bed your $10 donation may actually be helping save more lives than that.

So here’s your chance to do something that doesn’t cost a lot but has a big impact. To donate, click here then come back and leave a comment that says “I did it”. I’m posting this over on my adoption blog too. My goal is to get 25 nets donated. (If you donate for more than one let me know.)

I “put my money where my mad is” and donated 5 nets (not counting toward my goal).

I don’t think it was premeditated but a few weeks ago it seems hubby stumbled upon a winner of an idea.

When the kids (8 and 5) have wronged one another in some way we always insist on an apology – a complete one “I’m sorry for (fill in the blank).” The other one offers forgiveness.

Last week he added the post-apology hug. This sent my 8 year old son into fits (while sissy is just holding out her arms) but dad stood his ground. After a minute he finally relented and gave his sister a hug.

It started out half-hearted but he couldn’t resist picking her up off the ground and then they got silly. It totally defused the situation, got them laughing and all the anger was forgotten.

I tried it again tonight (when they were both at fault) and it happened again. I think we may have a winner.

Back to Shannon’s for more great WFMW ideas.

It’s 9:10 p.m. and I’m drinking coffee that is NOT decaf. That is a sign of how desperate I am. I have SOOOO much freelance work going on right now and I seriously need to hammer some stuff out tonight. So it was either coffee or no-doze. And I was afraid the no-doze might be a little too long-lasting. I’m not pulling an all nighter, just want to make it til midnight or so.

Of course I should be working and not blogging. It’s the ADD I tell you. Ok, turning up the Barlow Girls and getting some work done.

Well since Shannon’s WFMW has to do with downloading free fonts I thought I’d give y’all some other font-related tips.

First, how to install fonts. Usually a site like urban fonts or dafont.com will give you a link to download a zip file. I always save the file to my desktop.  Next, unzip the folder. If you’re a PC user, right click and go to “Extract All”. If you’re a Mac user…well I don’t know. Just keep clicking next on the Wizard that pops up and you’ll end up with another folder on your desktop by the same name that will have one or more font files in it.

Hit your Start Menu (lower left of screen), go to Control Panel. Push that to one side of your screen with your new folder of fonts on the other. Now select the new font files and drag them over to the “Font” folder in your control panel. It will install the fonts lickety split.  FYI. Sometimes if you have a program already open when you install new fonts you will need to quit it and reopen to get the font choices to show up.

If you become a font addict then you may want to look into a font management program. I use one called “The Font Thing” that is FREE. It lets you quickly look at all your fonts, even break them up into categories so you can say, see all the “handwriting” fonts.

For over a year now I’ve been following the story of little Ethan who has been battling Leukemia since he was 2 months old. Yesterday morning he passed away. Please be in prayer for his parents Ben and Becky. They have been an incredible witness with their faith in God.

It’s the greatest hits edition of WFMW and this one still gets lots of hits in Google.

If you’re like me you rarely use buttermilk, so it’s never on hand. And usually when I need it I’m making something spur of the moment like banana bread or a quick cake and so it wasn’t on my grocery list. Well my mom taught me this one…it’s also in the good ‘ol Betty Crocker notebook:

1 tablespoon vinegar or lemon juice + enough milk to make 1 c. – voila = BUTTERMILK

(I haven’t done a taste test so I don’t know how close it tastes to real buttermilk (EW!) but the end product turns out great). I use vinegar because I always have a huge jug around since I also use it for cleaning.