I can't save the world so I will help the world instead

Today I went to a talk on Fair Trade where a lady from the World Village Trade Market explained what the initiative was and what we can do to support it. Well, it is buying products from companies that offer a fair wage for what is created, use sustainable methods, have acceptable health and safety conditions and do not have any child laborers. I fully support all of those aspects because there are millions of people overseas that make two bucks a day and that is not even close to being enough to live. I just got paid today and I make well more than $2 a day and I still am overly frugal and can barely support my lifestyle. However, I choose to live on one of the most expensive islands in the nation, so this is my own fault. I have choices though, these people do not.

So, today I went to hear what fair trade is all about and then I bought a few little trinkets from their table of goods. One thing was a turkey finger puppet that I plan on giving to Kaitlyn as a Thanksgiving gift and the other is an ornament from Thailand that is a symbol of courtship and marriage. A whole story came along with it. Those are the things I love to buy, so the World Trade Market has a great customer in me. I love arts & crafts and I love to purchase unique items that you can't buy just anywhere and I am supporting a group of women or men in a foreign country who create these things to make ends meet. Well send me a catalog because even though I won't be spending enough to send their kids to college, I do have some Christmas shopping to do...

Missing Her Still

Planning a wedding is fun and stressful, and sometimes even triumphant, but for right now, all I feel is sadness. Not because I don't love my TK, I do, more than magazines and Disney World, so that is a lot. I am sad because I feel like I should be doing all this with my grandmother present. She should be chirping in my ear, "Don't do that!" or "That's not how we did it in the olden days!" or "Yellow, who likes yellow?"

I just really miss her now more than ever. When I was a little girl I thought she would be there on my big day. That she would be walking down the aisle before me and sitting in the left pew sobbing through a smile because she was so happy for me. I always thought there would be an invitation with her name on it that I would make sure was perfect because she would save it on her refrigerator for months. I would have to take her dress shopping and have her pick something shiny and beautiful because she didn't want to look old, she wanted to look beautiful. Then she would start throwing money around because anything my mother would not agree to, she would just buy for me like she always had.

When she passed in 2003, I knew she would miss things in my life that I wanted her to be there for, such as my graduation from grad school in 2006, my wedding this year and in the future, the birth of my children. I can still hear her voice in my head and feel her in my heart, I just wish I could see her and touch her to know she is here for me now. I guess I will just have to settle with knowing she surrounds me and protects me everyday from afar, and that is more than a lot of people have.