Tree

It's my first day here. I found a link to this site buried in the news feed of my Facebook. That it caught my attention among the usual status updates and Farmtown requests is a minor miracle. But, here I am. This is a good site for me. I believe it'll help me focus my giving.

It's Black Friday. Anyone who knows me can tell you that I loathe this day. I loathe what it stands for. I've been called out on my stance - was even called a communist AND a nazi the other day. I dislike the rabid consumerism in this country and Black Friday is the High Holy day for such a problem. I've been told I hate my country because of my thoughts - that I would like to see it fail and flounder. All because I dislike people trampling on each other at 3am in the morning to get a nifty NERF set for $8 bucks. I'm told I want to see this country go deeper in recession just because I think we need to focus less on buying more stuff, stuff and stuff and more on giving good things...on focusing on things that are truly needed. So, my personal mission was to boycott Black Friday, not to see the economy fail, but to send my small little voice out into the universe - material stuff does not and will not define me. I decided that the only thing I would buy on this day was something charitable. I challenged my friends to give to their favorite charity on this day.

What did I do? Small things. I gave to Greenpeace, specifically to their cause of overfishing pollock. I also gave a few bucks to the local firehouse who collects donations at shopping centers and intersections during the holidays. I also gave time. My husband worked his butt off these past couple of days. He works in retail and worked yesterday and today. At home, he does the dishes and always helps me clean up the house in the evening (we have a three year old so the house is frequently a hurricane site). He came home after work with full intentions of helping me clean and doing the dishes. Nope. I told him to relax and that I'd take care of it all tonight. This may not seem like a big deal to some, but it is for us. I made him one of his favorite dinners and he was in bed by 7pm (poor guy).

And now I'm off to spread the word about this site and hopefully recruit more people.