Please Mind the Insanity

Last year, I learned about GISHWHES.  Apparently, it's the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen, which is a pretty terrible acronym but a pretty fabulous idea.  I was obsessed with it's insanity and creativity.  I loved watching it from afar via Twitter - there were some crazy things that certain celebrities had to RT on Twitter which made it easy to watch.  I even followed a few "Orlando Jones" just because I knew it was part of GISHWHES and I secretly wanted to help out so I could feel a little part of the madness.

At the time, I thought I would even give it a shot this year even though it's far, far, far - we're talking light years here - out of my comfort zone.  However, then I planned a trip to England, which unfortunately coincided with the very week GISHWHES was happening so being a part of it was out.  I'm sort of relieved about this and sort of bummed.  

However, getting to see the fun start day has been pretty exciting!  Even though I can't be a part of it, it's been awesome to see those that are.  They're already hard at work on a few of their challenges - I'm assuming they're working on more than the the Twitter-centric ones, but those are all I can see.  What's even cooler to see are the celebrities that have decided to support the craziness and play along.  For an entire hour, Osric Chau retweeted photos of him in My Little Pony form.  Seriously! That's dedication right there.  

My only wish for next year - in lieu of actually participating, which may still be on the table, though this year's challenges have made participating way less likely (they're crazy insane!) - is that posting challenges during the hunt becomes legal.  I completely understand why it's not - unfair advantage and all - but honestly, we non-hunters would love to see the craziness first hand.  It's just too cool not to!  We like to feel a part of the crazy, even if we're too wimpy to participate ourselves : )

Go Crazy!

Do you ever just get the urge to do something crazy?  Something ridiculous that you know is dumb, and you know is dangerous but you kind of want to do it anyway?  That's sort of where I am right now.  Now, I know what you're thinking.  Tattoo?  Weird body piercing? Jumping out of an airplane?  Nope none of the above.  The tattoo might someday happen in the future, but those other things are WAY too crazy for me.  I'm in the mood to be crazy but not that crazy...

What I kind of want to do is this -

That's rappelling 17 stories down the side of a building.  And the best part?  It's for charity! Now I hate heights - not in airplanes mind you - but I'm not crazy about them when I'm not encased in a big metal tube flying at 500 mph.  And I happen to think people who jump off a tall things such a buildings, or rocks are pretty insane, when it's just as easy to stay on them where it's nice and safe.  But like I said, this is about being out there. And hey, there are all sorts of wires attached to you.  That means it's safe, right?

Of course, before hand, I'd actually have to find a building in Baltimore that allows this.  I feel like that's maybe a big barrier to the whole - go crazy and climb a building plan.  Maybe I'll start smaller - rock climbing wall, perhaps?  How does one even find one of them?  As you can see, I don't usually go crazy - there's apparently a lot of work to it : )

Remarkable for All the Right Reasons

I'm trying very hard to be eloquent right now, but for the most part I can only think to say: This. Is. Awesome. - with about a thousand exclamation points. (Editors Note: Read the story below the Tee.  The shirt is fairly awful but the message and love are truly fantastic!) It's amazing what some people decide to do with fame and fortune.  Some "celebrities" decide to party all night and abuse those beneath them.  While others decide to raise awareness and funding for little talked about causes such as mental illness, suicide and depression.  Seriously?  How can you not love them?               

When Jared started his campaign last month, he managed to reach his goal in about a day and surpassed it by thousands upon thousands of dollars by the end date.  I was more than impressed by his idea and his passion for the project, but I sort of thought that would be it.  I should have known better.  He's seemingly not just some celebrity itching for the limelight. He's passionate about making a difference and by joining forces with Jensen, I'm sure they're going to exceed even the highest of expectations.

If you don't believe me, just take a look at this statistic: The initial goal for this campaign was to sell 1000 shirts in 2 weeks............They managed to surpass that goal in 35 minutes!

Now tell me again, why aren't teenagers seeing the good that Jensen and Jared and Misha Collins (Co-Director of Random Acts) are doing and are instead worshiping the likes of Justin Bieber and Kim Kardashian?

Way to go boys!
                           

#E4K

Today's E4K (Endure for Kindness in case you hadn't heard : ) craft party went super well! All parties crafted and ate the day away.  After 6 hours, which was considerably puny based on other E4K'ers stats but still decent in the long run, we managed to create 30 cards to donate for St. Jude's Ranch.  Can't wait to get them in the mail! Thanks ladies for such an awesome craft day and Thanks Random Acts for spreading the love!

Friday Five

1. E4K: Endure for Kindness is a fundraiser for Random Acts and it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  You pick an activity, and you do it for a long time.  Tomorrow is the day and as opposed to others who are hiking or biking or kayaking, my friends and I are crafting. We chose to make greeting cards for St. Jude's Ranch.  If you want to donate or create cards yourselves to donate, check out how to do so here.  I'm hoping for at least 50 cards but we're all pretty much perfectionists when it comes to crafting so we may not get so lucky...

2. Getting a chance to get out and about in DC for work.  We've been crazy busy lately, and so it's always nice when you get a chance to get out of the office for a while but still continue to be paid to do so.  Today was a gorgeous day to be outside and having the chance to be that city worker walking between buildings and grabbing lunch was pretty fun.  Of course, the traffic to get there and back, continued to suck so there's always that drawback preventing me from becoming a DC jetsetter.

3. Chop't: While in DC, I tried Chop't for lunch.  I'd never heard of it but luckily the guy I was with is an even bigger foodie than I am so he hears of all sorts of fun places.  This is a specialty salad place that chops (hence the name) all the ingredients into little pieces.  I'm not sure how that makes it taste better, but it was pretty darn good, so what do I know?  They even had normal iced tea which is always a plus.

4. 31 things people with wanderlust understand: Other than the F-bomb in the article, this article is 150% true.  I'm pretty sure every one of these items have gone through my mind at least once...The funny part is that I always thought it was just me who dreamed of travel 24/7 but lately every conversation I have with people at work or friends, has revolved around travel.  Loving that everyone else is loving it too!

5. While everyone else is talking about the Walking Dead coming back, I'd like to go on record and say that The Good Wife is pretty much the best show on television right now.  Every season I say that there's no way they can top themselves, then the manage to do it right out of the gate for the next season.  Between Julianna Marguiles and Alan Cumming the acting is top notch.  As for the story lines, they're smart, often hilarious and downright intriguing.  I may sound like a little old lady but I'll take good old fashioned legalese over zombies any day!

Crafty Saturday

Aside from being called out for the #ALSIceBucketChallenge (Thanks Susan...), not much of note to report today.  I did spend most of the day, crafting which is always a good thing.  I'm still having issues remembering to use the big girl camera to take photos but at least I had my handy-dandy iPhone (which is my favorite picture taking device at the moment). 

Kinda love Special Orders!  I get to be creative and get paid at the same time : )  Luckily, I have some seriously non-crafty friends that would rather just pay someone than do it themselves.

 The beginnings of my Craft Bombing project from RandomActs.  I'd love to figure out a way to CraftBomb using my cards, but I'm not quite sure how to make that work...

Friday Five

1. #ALSIceBucketChallenge: Like I said yesterday, I don't really get it.  But that hasn't stopped me from watching a ridiculous number of videos on Twitter.  Apparently they're making tons of cash for the ALS Foundation which is fantastic - confounding, but fantastic nonetheless!  My personal fave so far is Matt Bomer's, though the video "isn't listed."  I don't understand what that means so I didn't want to post.  You can find it on Twitter though using the hashtag above.  So very, cute!  It may not be the most original way to make money for a cause, but anything used to raise awareness is wonderful!

2. Also, sort of obsessed with the new card I made this evening as a special order for a wedding.  After an inordinate number of times trying to get the stamps straight, I finally nailed it (though to the trained eye, it's still a teensy bit crooked - but not crooked enough that I couldn't handle it).

3. Random Acts has some pretty crafty and creative ideas to get people to be kind, but none so creative and awesome as the one they shared today.  I believe this week's theme is the Arts and if this idea isn't perfect to get art to the community, I don't know what is.  I'm so going to do this.  I'm thinking Naptown is the perfect place!

4. Travel Planning: I know it's a geeky thing to geek out about, but it's a means to an end.  Doing the research and seeing all the fancy pins (yes, Pinterest is how I research, deal with it) gets you all sorts of excited for the trip to come.  Of course when said trips are 5 months and 12 months out, it proves a bit hard to concentrate on anything else...

5. As a gift to myself, I promised myself, I wouldn't get overly stressed out about Christmas this year.  You heard me, Christmas. It's a little over 4 months out.  So I've already started planning and shopping.  Don't get too excited, I've only bought 2 gifts so far, but I like the idea, that some of the shopping is already off my plate.  I even have a few other ideas for people that I just haven't bought yet.  Hopefully, this will save me from the November freak-out of 2013, but that remains to be seen.

Caring Cards June: Random Acts

Last week I provided a sneak peek at the new line of Caring Cards for the month of June.  When I started my Etsy shop, I knew that I wanted to find a way to give back to some amazing organizations that continue to do good work each and every day even in troubling financial times.  That's sort of where the idea of Caring Cards came from.  I decided that each month, I would create a special design and sell only 25 of that design.  At the end of the month, 50% of the proceeds for that design would go to the charity for that month.  It's an easy concept (why it sounds confusing when I try to explain it, I'll never know). 

So without further ado, June's charity and the very first recipient of Caring Cards Cash is:

Random Acts is a charity solely focused on conquering the world one random act of kindness at a time.  Quite honestly I just learned about this charity a few months ago, but since then I've fallen for their simple concept and their creative ways.  By focusing on the motto to Be Kind always, Random Acts has managed to do some pretty extraordinary things!  Among its many different accomplishments, the most impressive has been the Children's center below.  Thanks to donations, 2 years of hard work and a group of hard workers, Random Acts built Jacmel Children's Center in Haiti. That's pretty extraordinary when you think about the amount of shear paperwork that goes into getting projects accomplished in a country like Haiti.

long with the Children's center, they also run a school reward program called Class Act to get kids active performing random acts, and Endure for Kindness - a global 24 hour pledge event.  Honestly, what's not to love?! And what better charity than to randomly start this hop into charity work than one that celebrates randomness?  

June's Caring Card is below.  Because they're just such a happy organization, I figured focusing on smiling was always a good idea.  So head on over to the Scrap Happy Traveler now to buy some super cute cards (even if I do say so myself) and help a fantastic organization do some awesome work!