Your Turn - What's Working?

I was going to write something scratchy-violin-ish about raising siblings, but I don't want to do that any more.  I want to write something positive. I want to read something positive. In fact, I want to read LOTS of somethings positive.  So, who's in the mood for another link up? I would love you to write a blog post to tell us - what's working well in your house or your life? 

This is the kind of stuff that's working in my house at the moment: I'm in love with my kitchen timer. I might write about that.  Or maybe I'll write about how I still bottle-feed my nearly-three year olds every morning. Or perhaps I'll just tell you about the flash of genius I had recently that inspired me to invent the caramel popcorn smoothie last weekend. (Please don't tell me if someone else has already invented this. I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, it's miiiiiiiiiiine).   So much for my life - I want to know: what's working in yours? How are you managing your kids? How are you managing not having any kids? Have you given away your car? Have you decided to shower only once a week?  Are you using guilt about your messed-up childhood to trap your mother into babysitting more often? 

What can we learn from what you are doing? Kids, no kids, work, food, friendships, relationships, schooling.... no matter how overwhelming life feels, we're all doing something right... right?  Let's pool our smarts. If you want a slightly more specific prompt, you can answer the question: "If I could give other women one piece of advice, it would be......" (and you are NOT allowed to say 'just relax and find your own path and don't worry about other women judging you' because that's kind of annoying. Also, people who say that always make me feel judged because apparently I'm not relaxed enough). If you really can't think of anything, give us your favourite easy week night recipe. Or maybe what's working for you is that you've given up cooking altogether. In which case give us the telephone number of your favourite pizza guy. You get the picture.

Here's the linky - I would love it if you could write a post about what's working well right now in your life and add it by Wednesday 12 April. Inspire me!  Who's in? 

(Remember - please link to the post you write, not your whole blog otherwise Mr Linky gets confused).

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And speaking of inspiration, I am hugely inspired by this lady. Have you seen this beautiful quilt that she made? She made this lovely thing with a daughter in mind: 

and embroidered it by hand: 

and now she's selling it to raise money for donations for her forthcoming trip to Ethiopia to meet her precious son! She asked a few of us how much she should charge for raffle tickets, and our first response was 'don't sell it! It's too beautiful!'  But she said no, she really wants to use the quilt to raise money. And then we all said she should charge at least $10 for a ticket (because, hey, it's beautiful).  But luck is on your side, people, because she's only charging $5. So now you can buy twice as many. 

Did I mention that all the money she raises is going to be used to buy supplies for her son's first orphanage and a few other equally worthy projects? And that she's going to buy everything in-country so she can support local suppliers? And that tickets are only $5? You should buy lots of tickets, and then you should get your friends to buy lots of tickets too. (But not too may because I want to win). Click on the link below and find out how. 

In short: Beautiful quilt. Beautiful family. Really good cause. Also, some embroidery of an elephant's butt, but you'll have to click over and read the full story, together with details of how to buy tickets to see that.

This is such a beautiful thing. I love that she's using it to raise money. Let's make sure she raises a lot!