January flew right over my head and I couldn’t even catch up. Well, I haven’t even caught up with everything since my vacation. One of my two luggages is still in one corner of our room — untouched, unpacked. I’ll have to deal with it this weekend. I keep telling that to myself.

Do I sound whiny? Far from it. In fact, I am happy to achieve a few goals in January that I intended to accomplish for 2008, and it’s not even related to cleaning and OCD. [A major plus since I have always been bogged down by the details of cleaning...irked me to no end! But I feel...that I am free from those shackles!] I’m giddy, and it’s not just from the caffeine.

Tell me — What are you grateful for today? Hold that thought.

Remember me talking about The Secret Gratitude Book a few weeks back? I’ve been writing on it daily since the day after I bought it. I’ve always had a paper journal and written lists of “Things I’m Thankful for Today”, but it was never a consistent habit and I only do it when I remember it. I have to admit that having a separate journal and a gratitude journal has been something short of life altering. Writing things I am grateful for is one of the best things about my morning — a few minutes of quiet time where I concentrate all my thoughts on positive things — Good things! Happy Things!

There are two pages for each day on the Gratitude Book: the page on the left is for the things you are grateful for in your life at the moment, and the page across is for the things you are grateful for in the future (i.e. things you want to come into your life). I am an open-minded skeptic, have always been, and I am also a ‘tester’ and an ‘experimenter’. I’ll try things at least once before deeming it unfit for me [but I have my limits, too--no drugs, thanks.]. When I picked up The Secret about a year ago and watched the DVD thanks to my then roommate, I wasn’t totally bought into it, even if I realized that I have been doing these suggestions for years now. When I got the Gratitude Book, I had the same attitude, but I’ll try it…we’ll see, I said to myself.

Aside from being a little skeptical, at the beginning I was also worried of running out of things to be thankful for right now. How long can I do this before I run dry? I fill out every line for each page, no exceptions — there are no more written lines of gratitude for the future than I have for today’s. So that scared me. It’s never happened, though…the river keeps flowing.

Here I am, Joy the Skeptic, telling you now that I am left speechless. Why? The things that I have been lately thanking for the current day, were the same gratitude intentions I wrote days before. I’m as surprised and humbled and just well, insanely quieted from all these. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve already accomplished some of my goals for the year after the first month. Some of these goals are part of what I’ve written down as a “future” gratitudes. The other future gratitudes were just plain wishful thinking really, and I treated them just like I was catalog shopping for wonderful what-ifs: I’ll take one of that, one of that… All absolutely positively wishful thinking, from the dreamer in me.

So here goes. A three good things I’ll share with you. They were part of my written ‘intentions’ in the middle of January:

• Driving. The word itself send shivers up my spine, but you better believe it I am slowly getting into driving again after over half a decade off driving school, and after being rear ended by a drunk driver. I’m driving! Little by little. It’s crazy and lovely at the same time.
• Gourmeted.com, me and Dan’s foodcrazytastic blog — a couple of weeks shy of two months old — has seen many thousands of new visitors and almost 5 digits of page loads. I’m floored.
• AAAANNNNNDDDD…

As I write this on my lunch break, we received an email informing us that we have been nominated for a food blogger contest — a real contest to be judged by well-known chefs and other culinary experts. Stay with me here. A few days ago, I fancied our blog being nominated for something at some point in time..someday — doesn’t matter for what — and how good it feels to be recognized for what we both share and enjoy doing. I even said, “How cool would that be?!” I actually wrote something along those lines on my gratitude journal.

As I read the nomination email I let out an audible, “What the f*ck?!” Are you kidding me?

I feel like I have an empty basket for fruits, and I was told to to pick the best fruits the farm has ever seen when the fruits are out of season. Impossible! But I set out to do what I was told, cheerfully, and what have you: a field of the best harvest with more than I can fill several hundred baskets with.

It’s true, the chances of us winning the trip to Napa is remote, but it sends my heart and imagination aflutter. Our blog of more than a month old seems amateur compared to other famous food blogs out there that have been around for years. But we can dream! Nonetheless, someone out there made us smile with that nomination. So, thank you. I’m truly grateful..

What a nice welcome, February…

After all, the Girl Scouts of America is a charitable organization.

Tax Cat Sez: They are… but only if you don’t take the cookies.

Furthermore, they noted from the Girl Scouts website:

Q: Is the purchase of Girl Scout Cookies tax-deductible?

A: No and Yes.

* No, if the customer keeps the cookies. Individuals who buy Girl Scout Cookies and take the cookies home, or consume them, have purchased a product at a fair market value. For this reason, no part of the price of a box of Girl Scout Cookies used in this way is tax-deductible.

* Yes, if the customer leaves the cookies with Girl Scouts. Many Girl Scouts ask customers to pay for one or more boxes of cookies for use in their community service project, for example, collecting for a food pantry. The customers not receiving any Girl Scout Cookies do not benefit directly from paying for them. Those individuals may treat the purchase price of the donated cookies as a charitable contribution.

Oh, well. So much for dreaming about having your cake and eating it, too. It sounded too good to be true. But pray tell, what is the point of buying Girl Scout Cookies if you can’t eat them?! I think I’d rather just get my box of cookies and donate money like I usually do! That’s my win-win situation.

While we’re on the subject of tax deductions and charitable organizations, I’m curious to know if you check where your money goes to the charities you donate to? Have you ever wondered? Or are you already a savvy donor?

I worked at an auction and liquidation company before and every now and then we would host charitable events. I’ve never paid much attention to the charities we deal with, only when I have to talk to their PR person regarding their logos and fancy write-ups and they do get really picky about these because even little mistakes can break their sponsorships, so God help us! Anyway, like I said, I didn’t care who they were until one time our General Manager told me that they decided against one charity because of their high allocation to administrative spending.

I’ve never looked at charities closely before. It was easy to just whip out the check book, sign it, mail it, and wait for the next year when I get my tax receipt [and sometimes not!] and be surprised at all of them mailing me because I forgot I even donated!

I’m your typical consumer when it comes to picking charitable organizations. I guess. I ask myself:

• Which are the causes that affect me directly or indirectly (e.g. history of a disease, etc.)?
• Have I heard about them before? Am I familiar with them? [Furthermore -- Did they send me anything? Hahaha. This is more for recognition of the organization, but I must admit I'm a sucker for those stickers and pads. Shameful!]
• Have I heard of anything they’ve done, either in the newspaper, or the radio, online, etc?

I like donating as much as I can, but as you can see, I’m pretty hands off when it comes to finding out where the money goes after it leaves my pocket.

This year I plan to make my donations wisely, pick organizations carefully and be an informed donor. I know the causes that I want to donate to, it’s time to ’shop’ for organizations next.

Generally, according to BBB Wise Giving Alliance Charitable Standards, at least half of the charity’s total income should be spent on programs and at least half of public contributions should be spent on the programs described in advertisements and appeals. No more than 35 percent of the contributions should be spent on fundraising, and no more than half of the charity’s total income should go to administrative and fundraising costs. If it seems that a charity’s administrative or fundraising costs are too high, there could be extenuating circumstances. For example, it’s natural for a new charity to have higher fundraising costs than an established one. [source]

I’ve bookmarked sites I’m going to check out:

Guide to Charitable Giving

For Canada

• The Donor’s Guide to Canadian Charities

For the US & Canada

• http://www.guidestar.org/

Sites that some of you can use to search for your charities —

For the US:

• http://www.charitynavigator.org
• http://www.charitywatch.org
• http://www.charitablechoices.org/
• http://www.give.org
• http://www.networkforgood.org/
• http://nccs.urban.org/

For the UK

• http://www.philanthropycapital.org/html/research.php<

I closed the book at about 4:30 in the morning, Saturday. And I kept thinking to myself how hard it must have been to write about and share the things that you would rather forget.

Secrets. They can be a source of comfort. They can also haunt you night and day pulling you back to that time and place. It’s a cocoon that cradles and destroys you at the same time. The image of the organic art installation we saw a couple of weeks ago at the Desert Botanical Garden came to mind. It fits in a way.

The Sky Isn’t Visible from Here made me think about a lot of things, about myself and my own interesting relationship with my mother, about Felicia. I can’t remember how exactly I “met” Fel online, but I’m pretty sure it was before this book was even conceptualized. Has it been 4, 5, or 6 years ago? While reading her memoir, I got flashbacks of her posts, our online comment exchanges between our websites. Was it…? I asked myself. It was a surreal experience to read the story of someone you sort of know. From an emotional point of view, this was a whole different experience and something I wasn’t expecting. I had to put the book down the book several times because I kept reconciling in my mind that this is Felicia, the same woman I’ve known from my early days of blogging. This is her memoir. Her published hardbound book!

Here is a woman who has been through so much and came out a warrior, not a mere survivor. Through abuses, addictions, and all sorts of hardships, it wasn’t a smooth road from the past to the present, to sanity, to peace, to love, to happiness, to finding herself. I keep being at a loss for words to describe her powerful and moving memoir. Raw…honest…fearless…this is Felicia’s work like I’ve never encountered before. I knew she was capable of great things, but Sky blew me away.

I enjoyed reading the details. I twiddled them between my fingers and were mesmerized by them. I was there in every room and every closing door, every heartbreak, each tear, and through watchful eyes.

A book is a lot of different things to different people. To me, books are always about what positive thing I can get out of them. And that’s how I am with my life, too. In the end, I see Fel, so strong, so different, but still the inspiring Fel.

I have always admired this rockstar, Felicia Sullivan, for her smarts, chutzpah, and energy without knowing much about her personal life. I’ve read a lot of her work before, and in some, they left me feeling like there was something deeper there that she wasn’t letting go just yet. In her memoir, she did let go, and she has grown so much in her writing.

Felicia, dear, I’m SO proud of you! This is brilliant! Brilliant, you hear?! I’m very happy for your successes, and there will be more, I’m so sure of it. :-)

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password: