KIVA and cleaning out

Dear Good Manners Devotee',

My apologies for not posting sooner. The Good Manners Family has been cleaning up its act over the last two weeks. (I didn't have a good enough excuse to stop cleaning and start posting -- as much as I wanted to!)

Dear Devotees', it pains me to write that not only does the Good Manners Family have a tendency to be pack rats but we seem to be pathologically unable to pick up after ourselves.

There isn't a homework assignment, poem, painting, invitation, coupon, magazine, recipe, book, cat toy, outgrown sweater, hair band, marker, single sock, shopping list, etc., that we haven't kept. I even found many (and I mean many) old plastic baby bottles that I had stored in case we had another Good Manners Baby. That was 9 years ago (and, no, we didn't).

Ironically, I just changed the channel and came upon Clean House. (I miss Niecey Nash.)

Anyway, about the Good Manners Family's newly Clean House -- there's definitely something real about clutter sucking the life and energy out of things. I already feel invigorated.

Plus we've been able to have some Good Manners Friends over without embarrassment. And I'm not yelling all the time for someone to ignore me when I ask someone to pick something up. It's been a long process (and there are still a couple of piles on the dining room table and in the garage that need our attention), but it's just about over. Phew.

All this trash got me thinking about how lucky we are when there are so many people in the world who have so little -- while we have so much excess and waste.

We did donate a lot of our stuff to Good Will and Purple Heart. But I wanted to tell you about this great non profit organization called KIVA, because it's another way we could use our abundance to help others.

The Good Manners Daughters and I recently took some of our proceeds from our site http://www.goodmannerskidsstuff.com/ and made a donation. Here's how KIVA works: they register people from all over the world who are looking for help to make their lives better. The people ask for a loan for their business and you can help them by lending them a portion (or all) of their loan amount. The loan is repayed over a pre-determined time frame.

It was great to involve the Good Manners Daughters in reading all of the stories and making our decision over who would get our first loan. It showed them, too, how many people working together, even just by donating a little money, can really make a difference.

Sort of like how a family, members working together, each doing a little bit of work (i.e., putting that candy wrapper in the trash can) makes light work for the whole entire family.

Is that a stretch to make a point, Devoted Fans? My apologies. It's time for bed -- and a dreamless sleep in our clutter-free bedroom.

Until I post again,

Leslie
http://www.goodmannerskidsstuff.com/