An Update...

Hello friends of all kinds!  Happy to see you again!  I just wanted to do a quick update on the state of my GoFundMe campaign.  Things have been hectic around here lately.  Maggie left for school last Saturday, so of course there was a whirlwind of activity surrounding that.  I'm back to work full time and Kerig just went back to work at St. B's, serving and protecting a great group of kids.  So it feels like the campaign took a backseat.  But things are settling in finally and it needs a shot in the arm.

Firstly, there's been some behind-the-scenes work going on!  Today I was able to lower the goal to $1000!  Kerig generously gave me a lens to sell to put towards the fund.  Yay Kerig! So that gave a big boost!  I did a senior portrait session and put that towards my goal as well.  And I just got a twice a week tutoring job, so I'm putting that money towards this as well.  So we're rolling right along!

But we're still (as of today) $800 shy of where I'm hoping to be.

The Linkie Level
So I've added a reward level.  Now, not to brag, but this little blog does get a decent amount of traffic.  I mean, you're here, right? ;)  So that's one...  But seriously, in the last year I'm averaging about 2000 unique page views a month, and with the addition of process videos being posted, that seems to be on the rise. So I've decided to leverage that viewership towards my goal.  I'm not CathyZ or AliE, sure, and I'm not even sure how well blog advertising works, BUT:

For a one-time donation of $50 to my GoFundMe campaign  I will put up a Linkie on the sidebar of my blog and leave it there until December 31, 2015.  2015 - that's SIXTEEN months of link-back for a donation to what I think is a really excellent cause.  

Think about it.  Every time someone clicks thru from Pintrest to look at a Valentine project, an organizational idea, layout or even the occasional recipe, your Linkie will be right there.  Until the goal is reached the GoFundMe will be at the top, with the Linkies just under that.  Once the goal is reached the Linkies will be at the very top.  I don't anticipate dozens of $50 donations (although I do think that $50 for 16 months is a pretty sweet deal) but in the interest of fairness, any donations greater than $50 will be at the top.

My blog has never been a business for me, and as such I'm sure there are questions that I haven't thought of and kinks that might need to be worked out.  You can ask me in the comments or feel free to email me at cnd3167atyahoo.

And no post is ever complete without some kind of image.

charcoal piece by Maggie Davis

Maggie is now studying Industrial Design at RIT, so she's not doing the same kind of straight-up art that she did in high school.  (and I love her decision to stay with something that she loves, but having the sense to tweak it into something that she'll be able to support herself with...yay, for practicality!)  But in high school there was lots and lots of drawing.  She often gravitated to images of strong females.

This one is of my grandmother, from a photo taken in the 1930's.  And she was one strong woman.  She worked as a nurse, owned a farmette (and could therefore milk a cow and kill a chicken...and then fry it up in a pan), she was a mother of six, ran a boarding house during the depression, and in her retirement drove from Baltimore to San Francisco 3 times all by herself!

Maggie did a fantastic job of making an old, small, cracked and faded snapshot into a gorgeous piece of art that really captures the essence of who Grace Noble was.

Please consider a donation (of any size) to the GoFundMe campaign to raise money for a new computer and software to help Maggie take her skills to the next level.  Your generosity will help form another generation of strong women.