Three Words- 2012

For the last few years, I’ve chosen three words in January that I wanted to use to center my year.  Last year, my words were learn, pray and write.

My words for 2012 are margin, focus and mission. They’re three separate words, but they really work together. I want to do a better job this year of protecting my margin so that I can focus on my mission. I’ll unpack that a bit.

Margin

White space. Room at the edges of the page so that your words don’t fill the whole page. Time. How am I going to protect my margin this year?

• I’m going to say no to the good so that I can focus on the great.  My goal is to focus on the core of what I’m good at and on the things about which I’m passionate.  In order to have time and space to do that, I have to say no more often.
• I’m hoping to protect my physical margin by working out more frequently.  I’ve had a shaky start with this in 2012.  Please ask me how it’s going.  Helps me drag myself out of bed!  I also see working out as an investment in future physical margin.  I’m already fairly ruthless about protecting sleep.
• Protecting margin is sticky- this business of saying no.   For the next year, unless it’s a core value, I’m not going to do it.

Focus

In order to get what’s most important done, I have to make choices.  If I don’t make conscious choices, I settle for the default or for the priorities of other people. The pickle is when I have to decide if I’m going to focus on a worthy endeavor that’s core to my mission, but that threatens to spread me thin.  The tension of margin and mission.  It’s this business of choosing.

Mission

Fair Trade, Family and Friends.

Charlie and I have signed a letter of engagement with our attorney, and we’re moving forward with starting our soap business.  All I can say is that now is the time.  We were ready to start the business in the autumn, and family circumstances made it clear that the timing was wrong.  But, our lives have calmed down a bit, and we have the resources to give to this business.

Proverbs 25:14

Like billowing clouds that bring no rain is the person who talks big but never produces. 

I’ve been feeling like the billowing cloud for a while now.  Charlie and I have to try this business and see if it will go.  Right now, it feels like my ability to make beautiful soap, along with my administrative gifts are what I have to give in terms of doing something about poverty.  My loaves and fishes, if you will.  There are a thousand reasons why it might not work.  But, I think that the business has heart.  I’m praying that God will multiply the input of our work and resources to bring people jobs in Palestine, Kenya and Uganda.  My worst case scenario is that we’re out some money and a couple of years of hard work- I think I’m ok with that.  My best case scenario is that the business goes and we get to be involved in alleviating poverty.  That, frankly, would rock.

Then, there’s loving on the people who I care about.  Charlie and I homeschool our kids, and we need to make sure that they’re getting what they need academically and socially.  I want to love on my husband and invest in experiences with him.  I want to love on those around me.  That’s enough for one year.

Betty Ann Boeving

I wanted to share a ten-minute presentation that Betty Ann Boeving delivered at TedX in San Mateo.  Betty Ann is the Executive Director for the Bay Area Anti Trafficking Coalition.  She’s thoughtful, intelligent, and she speaks eloquently to the issue of human trafficking, both in the Bay Area and around the world.

Fair Trade Marketplace

Menlo Park Presbyterian Church has opened a temporary Fair Trade store for the holiday season, and I wanted to let you in on it.  We are located at 846 Santa Cruz Avenue in Menlo Park. The church is partnering with two Fair Trade organizations: Trade as One and Heavenly Treasures. Our primary goals include the alleviation of poverty for the poorest for the poor and the prevention of human trafficking. If you live in the Bay Area and still have holiday gifts to buy, we would love to see you! You can read about the store here.

Advent Conspiracy

I want to invite you to consider the possibilities this Christmas season. I love Advent Conspiracy because I get to image a different Christmas with them. Would you join me in imagining something richer and some something truly good this Christmas? Imagine a Christmas that is rich in giving that truly matters. Imagine Christmas as a time to knit your family together with service. Imagine Christmas as a time when you could make a difference in bringing clean water or dignified employment. Imagine less stuff. Imagine more community. Imagine less debt. Imagine more meaning. Imagine more peace.

Holy Moly- That’s a Lot of Soap

I’ve been in a holding pattern with soap making for a while. We’ve had some competing family commitments that have made me hold off with the business for a bit. But, my heart is still in it. Poverty and human trafficking are still giving me a gnawing gut ache. I have to do something to be able to stay in my own skin. I still want to make soap. We’re just waiting to have a bit of space open up in our lives so that we can give the business the time and focus that it will take to get it going.

That being said, I went ahead and ordered a bigger mold so that I could make bigger batches. Meet my new ten-pound mold. You can see the two-pound mold I’ve been using up until now right in front of it.

Making soap with the ten-pound mold was intimidating. I was a lot more nervous this time working with the larger quantity of lye. In 18 months of soap making, I haven’t lost my healthy fear of lye. I’ve read horror stories about people being burned, so I’m extremely careful. Long sleeves. Long pants. Thick rubber gloves and goggles. The equipment for soap-making is fairly simple. Stainless steel bowls. Rubber scrapers. A few measuring spoons. A good scale. Safety gear and a stick blender. I mixed the ten pound batch in my dutch oven.

The basic recipe is pretty simple. Melt solid oils (coconut oil and shea butter). Add to olive oil. Add lye solution to oil mixture. Use stick blender to mix it until it traces (comes to a pudding-like texture). Add essential oils. Today, I made lime leaf and lavender soap.

Melting coconut oil and shea butter

Olive Oil

Essential oils mixed with orris root (to help the essential oils stick around) and french green clay

The soap is beginning to trace.

Floating lavender on top of the soap

Next I put a recycled plastic bag on top, then put a towel on top to aid in saponification. Saponification is the process of adding a strong base (lye) to oils in order to transform them into soap.   The soap batter heats up, and the towel helps to hold in the heat.

We’ll see how everything goes tomorrow when I cut the soap.

39 Slaves

Check out this new website which helps calculate your slavery footprint. Think of your carbon footprint, but instead of greenhouse gases, you’ll be looking at how many slaves contributed to your lifestyle.

Due in large part to our techie gadgets, we have 39 slaves working for our household. Ouch! When I first heard about human trafficking, I was drawn into the issue by the prospect of doing something about the sex trafficking of women and children. I was indignant that people could treat others this way. As I’ve learned more, I’ve seen that I’m a big part of the problem. Slavery is supported by my consumption patterns. My clothes. My electronics. My chocolate. My sugar. My shrimp.

I’m sober and moving forward- I want to bring my number down. I would encourage you to stop in at slaveryfootprint.org and take the survey to determine your slavery footprint. I found it to be interesting and informative. I hope you will, too

A Truly Horrifying Halloween

I’ve written about chocolate before. But, I wanted to mention it again today because Halloween is coming up. Chocolate is such a morally dirty food. Most of the chocolate in your local grocery store is paid for, in part, by unpaid child labor. You can make sure that your chocolate is slave-free by buying either organic or Fair-trade chocolate.

I’ve had Equal Exchange chocolate, and it’s very good. You can order it by clicking here. Note that if you live somewhere warm, you might do better to visit Whole Foods due to the fact that chocolate will melt in transit.

Not My Life

CNN’s Freedom Project highlighted the documentary Not My Life yesterday. Here’s the trailer:

Joshua Becker on Rest

Loving Joshua Becker’s blog post on rest today. I’m finding life with smart phones to be troublesome. My concern is that they’re just too easy (which is why I don’t have one). It’s too easy to take up every spare bit of blank time in our days with checking to see what’s going on. Facebook. Twitter. E-mail. Those bits of time in line at Peet’s or waiting on the elevator. Dead time at our kids’ soccer games or at the park. Time just to be and to let our minds wander. We’re losing all those bits of time in our days where we just are.  White space.

Another concern (at least where we live in Silicon Valley) is that we don’t take unplugged vacations any more. We’re expected to be available even on vacations. Which means that we don’t get true rest. We don’t get time away. Which means that we don’t come back from vacations rested and rejuvenated. Frankly, this seems counter productive to me from a business standpoint. If we took true vacations- vacations that were unplugged from the office, we would come back from our vacations rested and refreshed. Which would mean that we would be fresh to get back in the game. Rested. With our creativity refreshed and renewed. Time and space away from problems and challenges can give us perspective.

I’ll stop my rant and point you toward Joshua Becker’s blog post. I hope you enjoy it.

Bag from Trade as One

 

I was doing some grocery shopping on the Trade as One website this morning, and I ran into this darling bag.  Love it!  So cute and funky that I thought I’d share it with you.  Love the bright colors.  Love that it’s Fair Trade.  Love that it’s hand-made from recycled materials. If I weren’t in the midst of 36/365, I’d be all over this!