My Christmas Gift to you - KIVA

Earlier this year I came across KIVA.ORG, and thought it was such an easy way for me to try and make a difference in someone else's life that was less fortunate. Basically KIVA allows you to lend a person of your choosing $25 to help fund a loan which they can use to grow their business, or pay for equipment, or use for personal expenses etc. You are given the estimated time that it will take for them to repay the loan and how often they will make the re-payments. You are then sent updates on how the loan is progressing and when you have received payments, and then when the loan is fully re-paid you have the option to either re-invest your money in another loan or withdraw your money. Here is a video from KIVA which explains it in a bit more detail.


How Kiva Works from Kiva on Vimeo.



How cool is that? The thing that I love about KIVA is that the profile of the loan recipients are so thorough and all have photos and personal details, so I can choose someone who may have similarities to me like have 4 children, or be my age or have similar hobbies. To think that my little $25 is having an impact on someone on the other side of the world is really wonderful and somewhat empowering.

These are my two current KIVA loans:

Souhad Samer is a 32 year old Tailor from Iraq and she has 3 children. Myself and 66 other lenders have funded her to purchase a generator and other inventory so she can continue to build her tailoring business where she makes and repairs women's clothing.

Janviere is a 36 year old General Store Owner from Rwanda. She has 4 children aged between 4 and 12 years. She has owned her shop for 1 year and sells Cassava Flour, Sugar and Salt etc and she is open every day from 7am till 6pm. Myself and 20 lenders have funded her to purchase more of her goods for re-saleand she intends to re-invest in her business and save for her family's future.

I am also going to make another loan this Christmas, to spread the love just a little bit further, and because I know how great it feels to do this, I am giving you, one of my lovely readers a KIVA GIFT CARD so that you too can bring some joy to someone less fortunate.

If you would like to be in the running to win this gift card, (and no this is not a sponsored post, I am buying the gift card out of my own money), simply leave a comment below, telling me what brings you joy at this time of the year. So it is not hard, I can think of a million things that brings a smile to my face at this time of the year, so really there is no excuse to not enter.  Also, I would love it if you were a follower of my blog as I would love you to come back another time and see what I am up to. And if you are lucky enough to be the winner I would love to know who you decide to give your loan to.

Competition is open to anyone in the world, and I will be drawing the winner on Christmas Eve at 9pm, (or sometime around then!)

Don't forget you can always just go and make your own loan too, there are currently 6138 loans that need to be funded, follow this link which is an invitation from me to make a loan :) http://kiva.org/invitedby/megan3844

Merry Christmas and Good Luck!

Summer on a Plate

A wee while ago I entered a competition via Frills in the Hills blog to try and when a kitchenaid, you basically had to come up with a recipe that represented summer to you - at least I think that was the brief, it was a while ago! I entered my most favourite colourful salad aptly named "Summer on a Plate", and while I didn't win the Kitchenaid I did receive an email yesterday from Kleenex Mums advising that my recipe had now been published on their website. So please go and take a look and give it a go this summer, it really is very yummy!                    

Market Tomorrow

I've been very busy this week - as hubby would tell you with a roll of the eyes, I've had 3 very late nights in a row (my 'very late' is 3am) preparing lots of goodies for my stall tomorrow.

I think the subject of a future post will be "the only time I get for myself starts after midnight..." *sighs*

Tomorrow I'm doing the Mummy Tree Markets in Adelaide - come and stop by the Adelaide Showgrounds (Stirling Angas Pavilion) and see all the lovely things for mummies, babies and everything in between.

You can see some of the best buys from all stall holders in the Best & Beautiful Buys brochure

And here is a sneak peak of some of my wares...

Designer Fabrics.

My world famous Lunch Sacks - with three new colours

Necklaces

Adorable hand made cot quilts.

Patterns

    

And lots lots more...

Looking forward to seeing you at  

I must thank Katie from The Resin Room for putting me onto these markets!

From bad always comes good - Guest Blogger Post

Hello Readers

I have the privilege of being the husband of the owner of this great Blog and she is letting me loose at the controls for one night...

So you're probably aware that we have four wonderful kids - I have always maintained that they give me the extremes of emotions, i.e. they make me more joyous than anything or anyone else in the world; and on the flip-side more outraged...

Today I had a few moments where these extremes of emotions manifested in close succession hence the title of this blog.

Moment 1
Megs was out for the night so it was up to me to get dinner for the kids. I attempted some pastsa and mince - the kids are fairly fussy so there was no sauce and the pastsa and meat cannot touch. At some point I must have used the wrong bowl or spoon or served the kids in the wrong order or did something that wasn't right that I had no idea about because daughter two (2 1/2 yrs) began a crying fit the likes of which I have not seen before.

I tried calmly talking to her; asking lots of questions; offering different forks and plates and options of food. When that failed I tried yelling; I tried moving her, holding her and ignoring her. So the crying continued and continued and climaxed with a vomit  - yep she cried so much she spewed. Poor little thing (what about poor little Daddy - no sympathy? Fair enough)

After clearing the area and cleaning the daughter I gave her a big cuddle; the vomit had at least stopped the crying (I was worried it wasn't a long term fix). So whilst cuddling I brought out some "round and round the garden, like a teddy bear" this started to go down very well with the occasional smile appearing.

And here is the kicker - whilst I cuddled her and did "one step, two steps, tickley under there..." big brother and big sister came over and wanted to join in to help their little sister. They each took turns doing tickling and then even started doing raspberries on her tummy. This worked an absolute treat and soon the worries of the world disappeared - 4 Happy children - 'some' dinner consumed. One relived Daddy!

So special to see my little children coming together to support each other - it really warmed my heart.

Moment 2
Moment 2 followed on almost immediately. As I mentioned above, only 'some' dinner was consumed which left me with a whole stack of mince left over. That's the bad. The good is that we had just run out of cat food for Ziggy (well that's also a bad). The real good is that the uneaten kids dinner became the eaten cats dinner. Happy Cat; Happy Daddy.

Moment 3
Once Mummy had come home we chatted about our days - generally this conversation revolves around the annoying things and amazing things the kids did in the previous 12 hours.

I told her the vomit story and she responded with an after school tantrum story after daughter one (6 yrs) said the "H" word (not what you think - possibly the subject of a future post from Megs). In any case Mummy was very angry with daughter on arriving home and confined her to her room with nothing to eat. Whilst in her room daughter did a huge clean up job (of what was a bomb site). Further 'good' came later in the evening when 2 y/o helped vacuum the freshly tidied bedroom.[this was before her vomit].

So there you have it - three times when good things came from bad: when I think about it, it really happens all the time!

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On a brief side note - please help Megs by voting for her on the Circle of Moms Top 25 Aussie Bloggers - please vote every day!!

Thanks for reading - until next time Megs gives me keyboard access, remember something good often comes straight after something bad.

PK

The week that was...

1. Was a solo parent while hubby went to Melbourne for work
2. Did 9 sessions at the gym
3. Almost cried when the strap on my watch (HRM) broke off - and it is not the replaceable kind :(
4. Went to a Kings of Leon concert
5. Had a play date at the park
6. Got sunburnt for the first and wishfully thinking only time this spring/summer
7. Wished a friend a Happy Birthday
8. Filled out School Application Forms
9. Did a little sewing
10. Did a lot of orders
11. Found a few new Apps, just to waste a bit more time
12. Managed to brush India's hair at least 3 times which is pretty much a miracle
13. Took Stella to her dancing concert rehearsals
14. Attempted to read one of the 3 unopened magazine subscriptions that I have since last month
15. Wondered in amazement at Willow and how she is growing up so fast and is the last of my babies
16. Culled my blog reader down from over 300 to less than 100, can I tell you how great it is to wake up in the morning and only have 20 or so posts to catch up on!
17. Stressed about money, christmas, life, moving home, packing up, schools, time.
18. Loved Ozzies bug drawings
19. Marvelled at the blue of the ocean on these gorgeous days
20. Had lots and lots of cuddles and smooches with my babies

What did your week involve?

Lets get physical!

In an effort to finally break into those pesky 60's, I have started a one month trial membership at a local gym. Last week was my first week and I think you could say that I have started off with a bit of a "gym junkie" type mentality. I did 9 sessions last week and really enjoyed it. I tried many new classes, some which I liked more than others. The Zumba was quite similar to the classes I had been doing previously so I have really liked getting back in there for a bit of fun, I have also liked the body pump class as I think I really need to work on my arms and abs, body combat was also a good one, don't know that I will rush back to the Spin class, although maybe every so often just to mix it up. I did miss my runs though so had to have a bit of a hit out on saturday morning. It is working out fabulously so far as they have a creche in the mornings and Oscar and India both love to go, Willow on the other hand is not quite so keen, but the ladies tell me that she is fine once I have gone and they distract her with something else. So, surely with diversifying my workouts and continuing to eat very clean I will start to see the scales starting with a 6! It will be the first time in a very long time and I am so looking forward to it, will also mean that I have said good riddance to 30kg so that will definitely be worth celebrating. Have been getting lots of compliments lately and it feels good to know that all my hard work is paying off. 

:: More Instagram Love ::

Here are some of my favourites from the last month or so. Be sure to follow me if you have Instagram yourself, I am megkay77.