Presents!

Decided to buy myself a present today with my Zazzle earnings. Since there’s free shipping today, I bought myself a calendar and an embroidered sweatshirt. I needed another sweatshirt and I just love this.

In these days of stress and uncertainty, you can be reasonably certain that grass will grow and flowers will bloom. So we say to you: Keep calm and garden on. The country needs your marigolds, pitcher plants and squash.

As a present to you, I’ve marked this shirt down by 10%! (I would have marked it down further, but Zazzle wouldn’t let me.)

Shine Project: Shana Tucker

We first saw Shana Tucker perform at a restaurant down in Raleigh this year. She was totally fabulous and I joined her email list, something I rarely do. A few weeks ago, I got an email about her Shine Project. It’s an attempt to get an independent CD recorded and produced. Like NPR, if you donated at a certain level, you’d get various prizes. One of those was a house concert and I thought, How awesome would it be to support this project *and* have an amazing artist play at my after-the-fact reception in April? So that’s what I did! And hopefully if enough people fund it, she’ll have CDs available for my guests who I hope will be as blown away as I was.

Another part of this that I think is awesome and worth supporting is this bit:

If we reach the $5000 goal, I will donate TEN PERCENT (10%) of album sales for an entire year to 3 arts organizations that are dear to my heart: Project MAP, an outstanding arts-in-education initiative in Durham, NC; the Salim Hylton Memorial Scholarship Fund, which sends young visual artists to college to pursue their dreams; and Community Music School, a program where low-income families can receive private music lessons for their rising stars…practically free.

So if you can, kick a bit into the kitty. It’ll be well worth it.