This morning we attended one of the weekly meetings of the women in Krochet Kids’ empowerment program. The women have regular empowerment meetings that deal with daily life skills, self-esteem, skill building, goal setting, and financial independence. Most of these women entered the program because they were deemed vulnerable ... to domestic violence or poverty or other hardships. Krochet Kids assesses the baseline of each woman when she enters the program, and together they establish tangible . . .

On Thursdays I dip into the archives. This post is from June 2009. In a good drama, the protagonist of the story always has a tragic flaw - a character defect that ultimately leads to horrible things happening. For Antigone, it was excessive ambition. For Othello, it was jealousy. For Oedipus, it was pride. (And sleeping with his mother, but that's another story). My tragic flaw is that I spill things. A lot. I've been spilling things since I was a child. I blame it on an . . .

Today we spent time at the headquarters of Krochet Kids Peru to see their operations at work. I have visited here before, almost two years ago, and I was blown away by the growth that has happened in that short time. On my first visit, the operations all took place in a single room. Now, the participants have tripled and Krochet Kids encompasses several buildings. We started the day with a tour from Blake, who explained how each piece is made. When they grew so big they had to expand to two . . .

Our holiday celebration was a bit delayed this year. Well, not necessarily delayed. We celebrated in California. But we didn't leave for our celebration with my family in Florida until January 1, and it was a pretty extended trip. We had almost 2 weeks of family and friend fun in Florida before we headed back to real life and the awful, awful reality of makeup schoolwork. (New math. Shudder.) The first stop in our Florida week o' fun was to Naples. We had plans to spend a few days with some . . .