26 + 1

I had a birthday this year, and I've only said the number out loud maybe 4 times so far and I try really hard to not think about it. And I just found out from another friend in marketing that I fall into the age bracket targeted for premature aging products. Wah.

But, Karla sent me some pictures from my bday dinner at La Jolla Groves and it gave me a new perspective. Every birthday means another year that I have been lucky enough to be friends with these girls. And that is something for which to be grateful. Also, anyone know a good anti-wrinkle cream?

uh uh baby eggs

A few years ago when we hiked Havasupai, Karla made up a little song about my favorite animal: baby horses (also known as ponies...) but it went something like this: "uh uh baby horse". And we sang this song all the way down the trail as we passed all the baby horses. Which weren't really horses at all, but mules. But no matter. Every once in a while this little diddy pops into my head at the most random time and I am sure anyone within the range of my voice thinks I'm a nut.

ANYWAY!

I woke up to the best news via gmail ever this week! After a painful, complicated and expensive ordeal Jackie and I dealt with over the Buwala chicken coop, we received word that the chickens finally laid some freaking eggs!

Read this in a cute little Ugandan accent. From Paul: It is true that two eggs were found in the coup on Friday, then on Saturday, four eggs and Sunday five eggs, and i was told that the birds will be adding on eggs slowly by slowly until they are completely grown up.

So laying there in my bed reading my blackberry I did a little dance and sang a little song: Uh uh baby eggs! Uh uh baby eggs! (Also known as chicks). And I sang that all day. And I'm so happy. And then my heart hurt because I miss my friends and the kids. But I am so happy that they are starting this new chapter of what I hope and pray will be financial self-reliance.

And then I ate eggs for breakfast, even though they'll technically be selling theirs to pay for the kids school fees, but still, what an amazing day.

Fahad blowing bubbles.

With the kids in the garden.

{librarians} know how to party

A lot of people seem to aspire to plan events. I didn't. But as it turns out, I'm kind of good at it. Just kidding. But really. My latest escapade was a user group party for our customers at a conference in Phoenix. I was excited to get a chance to go home, and it didn't hurt that April is the PERFECT month to visit Arizona. I headed down a couple of days early to spend the weekend with my sister and we spent the day shopping at Scottsdale Fashion Square. Did I mention AZ is perfect in April? It was a good thing I spent a couple of days relaxing though because the rest of the week was just plain nuts. I bought myself an official pair of "conference shoes" (black glitter TOMS) and checked into the Sheraton Sunday night, and spent the rest of the week literally running around.

Have I mentioned our customers our librarians? If you don't know a librarian of your very own, they are honestly the most random slice of the population you could ever imagine. Do they love books? Yes. Do they love to drink? A lot. Do they party like it's 1999? Hells yeah.

Enter Club BLUE. Hands down the highlight of the conference and week, our event was quite possibly the funnest party I've ever been to, let alone thrown. Have you ever hula hooped on a glowing dance floor with your librarian? Yep. And one of the best parts about not drinking is remembering exactly what everyone else acted like the morning after. So when I get bored/stressed/frustrated at work now I just look at our corporate Facebook page and watch the video footage and photos of this bizarrely epic evening. Oh, and remember how my boss jumped into the DJ booth wearing a jersey, fake tattoos and face paint.

And as if the week couldn't have gotten any better, to cap it off I celebrated Earth Day with the Reynas at Cibo Pizzeria. Heaven.

View of PHX from the Sheraton

Shops across the street-Sam's Cafe-I recomend it!

Someone took a picture of me taking pictures of the set up.



Pretty lounge furniture I never sat on.




The food I didn't have time to try.



The bar I could not partake of.

The dance floor I definitely did break it down on.

Things really got going when the Macarena started.

And they're still going.

The ever-lovely Erin {and me}, post-party, fresh as peppermints, so happy it's over.

soundtrack of 2010.

SPIN posted their Top 40 Albums, Top 20 Songs, and 10 downloadable tracks you might have missed for 2010.

I won't spoil the countdown, but I will say that I agree with a lot of the albums on their list. My top picks would have to be:

1. Arcade Fire The Suburbs

2. Sufjan Stevens Age of Adz

3. Robyn Body Talk

4. The Roots How I Got Over

5. Yeasayer  Odd Blood

6. The Black Keys: Brothers

I guess that makes for a Top 6. Who does a top 6? No one.

Number 1 disappointment? Interpol. Although I still may go see them at the Venue in February.

Next year's already off to an amazing start with planned releases from The Decemberists (Jan 18), Iron & Wine (Jan 25), Cold War Kids (Jan 25), Lykke Li (Mar 8), The Strokes (TBD) and one that gets me practically giddy, Cut Copy (Feb 8). If you need a little something to tide you over for all this new music, check out a documentary of the making of Cut Copy's new album Zonoscope.

What albums and songs did you wear out on replay this year? What got you through? What made you excited about life? What are you looking forward to in 2011?

a little diddy.

Why does {puff daddy} I mean {p diddy} I mean {diddy dirty money} have to change his name so much?

I feel like this is a tendency of celebrities I would categorize as weirdies.

Prince kicked off his Welcome 2 America tour last night in New Jersey. Spin said of the first tour in four years, "it felt more like an exotic outpost on whatever distant and mysterious planet Prince calls home." Indeed.

Yet the puff master (I'm going to trademark that before he steals it) seems to be doing alright. Probably because Kanye will always be one step ahead of him stirring up enough controversy and ridicule for the entire hip hop genre.

Here they are together with the real prince. Not the symbol.

Why on earth am I thinking about this you ask? Because I can't get "Coming Home" out of my head, and not because I find the song annoying. Because I kind of like it. Which I guess does kind of annoy me.




So I guess he can change his name as much as he wants because fools like me listen to his music. And Kanye's for that matter...



If you haven't already checked out the Runaway video, start with the nod to Bon Iver's Woods at 27:00.

And for the record, in all fairness to Taylor Swift, I do think she deserved her Grammy. And I actually like her music too. She's like the yin to Kanye's yang. And all is right in the world.

chiclets.

Periodic Uganda Update: This is the first of hopefully many reassuring and heart-warming follow-ups from this summer. But I am so excited/proud to announce that the chicks arrived to Rose & Paul's finally...November 18th to be exact. I just received this message from Paul:

Hey-Lauren,
   Am so happy to inform you that we received the chicks on 18/11/2010, but Unfortunately, due to he long Journey from Kampala to Buwala,we lost two chicks on arrival at the site.
So we thank you very much to gather with the team of Help-international for the great work you are doing to help this orphanage, we really appreciate so much and we hope for better results in the future.
GOD bless you!.

lovely,

PAUL and ROSE.

This is a promising step toward sustainability and true self-reliance. When we left this summer, the project wasn't technically "done." We placed the order for the chicks, but orders take anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months to fill. Even with every detail carefully planned, there is always the chance that something, or someone, could go wrong. There were a lot of somethings and someones we had to depend on to ensure this project sailed smoothly into sustainability, so we've had our fingers crossed for weeks. We left money to pay for the chicks behind with a dear friend, Godfrey, from the Youth Outreach Mission. He worked with us to build the coop and developed a relationship with Paul and the kids. He agreed to help with the finances of finishing our commitments to the process, and provided a healthy "check and balance" to the contract. He emailed me a few weeks ago to update me that things were on track. Paul has emailed as well with periodic updates and to express gratitude and excitement. I have not been worried per se, but just anxious to see them make this significant step toward getting this chicken coop well underway!

Now that they have the chicks, they still have a long way to go. The brooding process is temperamental and they will have to carefully monitor the chicks until they are ready to lay eggs, and then carefully budget their income so that they can increase their brood, another critical step to ensure sustainability and financial growth. But each step they take in fulfillment of the plan we created together, which they committed to, is a step they take toward lifting themselves out of poverty and dependency. I firmly believe that they have every ability to be completely self-reliant, and as they work though this process, they begin to see that too, and that is the only thing of real value we helped give them. It's even better than the old "teach a man to fish" concept. These people already know how to fish, raise chickens, grow corn, etc. They do it better than we do in many cases. It's unlocking the mentality that these skills, their skills are the very keys to their own success. It's shifting perceptions away from the mentality that someone else knows how to do any given thing better than they can. With some planning, organization, sacrifice and hard work, they can be the means to their own success. We expedited the process a little, but ultimately, this was Paul's dream and he, along with some good friends and really cute kids, will be the one to make it come true.

Something to be thankful for. And on that note, now I'm legitimately hungry for fresh farm eggs.

where to start

So many good things to share.  First off, this is a little old, but it needs to get posted. My friend Steven Squire (an aspiring film/design student at UVU) helped get our team video all together for the HELP International reunion a couple of weeks ago. He probably didn't know what he was getting himself into when he agreed to help, but I am forever grateful to him for putting together this: our team video that does about as good a job as can be done capturing our experience. For anyone who has asked about my summer and hasn't had the time to hear me really tell you about it, this is about as good as it gets. Take a few minutes and watch the video. And thanks again Steven.

Next, the documentary for the Eye Camp we did in Uganda finished up as well! So many beautiful cinematic reminders of the summer, but this one in particular is incredible. A couple of BYU film students did an amazing job of capturing Eye Camp...and you can view a clip of their documentary or watch the full thing here.

It's impossible to even think about Eye Camp without thinking of Tipping Bucket. Tipping Bucket is an organization that helps connect people who want to give with really amazing and worthy projects, like Eye Camp. They helped us raise $3000 without which we wouldn't have been able to restore sight to more than 200 people, and literally change the lives of everyone involved, including my volunteers. Tipping Bucket won the BYU Social Venture competition in 2009 and is a fresh approach to fund-raising and non-profits in general. They use social media, fresh branding and grassroots communications to connect anyone who wants to give with projects worth giving to. They embody the mindset that a drop in the bucket does indeed make a difference, and that anyone with a dollar to spare and a desire to give can in fact change the world.

So where is all of this going you ask? Well here is the beauty of this whole story and life in general. (Another silver lining). Jackie Skinner (my old roommate) connected me with HELP International who hired me to go to Africa this summer, and it changed my life. My experience there was empowered and enhanced by Tipping Bucket, who helped me and our team raise money to successfully restore sight to people in Uganda. SaraJoy Pond who founded Tipping Bucket actually moved into my old neighborhood in Provo while I was gone and has been working tirelessly to bring the Tipping Bucket platform and vision to anyone who wants to be involved. SaraJoy hired my good friend Moroni to lead Tipping Bucket's marketing efforts. Moroni invited me to brunch the other day to help with an effort to raise $250k for Tipping Bucket through the PepsiRefresh contest so they can continue to fund projects, like mine, and change even more lives.

This is so simple and awesome. Pepsi took the money they would have spent on a Superbowl commercial and decided to give it away. Hundreds of good causes are competing for the money each month, and all you have to do is vote for the one you believe in. If you like what Tipping Bucket is doing (if you don't by now, I can go on...) then just text 104182 to PEPSI (73774) every day this month. If you have another minute to spare, go to Tipping Bucket's facebook page, Like it and vote there too. If you have ANOTHER minute, go to the PepsiRefresh site and vote there as well. That's it.

Last piece of good news, and another highlight of my life as of late. My dear friend Wilson, president and founder of The Youth Outreach Mission in Lugazi, Uganda, and one of our most loyal local volunteers for Eye Camp this summer was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints this last Sunday. My heart is still bursting with joy about this. This really warrants more than a paragraph, but very long story short, Wilson is truly one of the most inspiring individuals I've ever been privileged to meet. He founded TYOM to empower youth in Uganda to fight HIV/AIDS by living morally upright lives and giving back to their communities. He works night and day to serve his community, he attends a local university and he is 20 years old. Wilson is basically my hero. Over the past 3 years of HELP serving in Lugazi, LDS volunteers have apparently left a similar impression on Wilson, leading him to the missionaries, and eventually baptism. I'm so proud of Wilson, I'm in awe of the power that comes when people just live Christ-like lives, and I'm grateful that I could even know about this story, let alone experience it first hand.

The world is small and beautiful, karma is real, things always come full circle, most often in ways you could never have imagined, there are so many good people in this world, and truth and light will always win out.

peace & love ya'all.

*Oh yeah, and text 104182 to PEPSI (73774)