Fining people who go out and feed the homeless is not the answer to ending homelessness. More and more cities are passing laws or cracking down on people and groups who take the effort and do what humans are suppose to do - take care of each other. The reasons that cities are so called "cracking down" is because they say that if you feed the homeless, you encourage them to stay homeless.
Where all of a sudden has this come from? Some states/cities have adopted this idea that since the overall population of homelessness has been decreasing since 2007, that we (our nation) can do away with homelessness altogether. The reality is we can't until some other criteria is met: more drug rehab places, more VA hospitals and more help for those with disabilities. Most families that were displaced during the recession now have some type of housing due to groups like HUD and Habitat for Humanity but there are still a significant number of homeless people on the streets or in shelters any given night.
Cities should reach out to these people that go out and feed the homeless and use them to find out what the homeless need and how to meet those needs. Then we can start getting the rest of the homeless off the streets. The majority that are still homeless are lost and need someone else to help them find their way. Saying NO to feeding them and gaining their friendship and trust is not the answer.
We will never wipe out homelessness totally but we can bring the numbers way down if we embrace those that are willing to help the homeless instead of slapping them on the wrists.
Some Facts as of January 2014:
About 15 percent of the homeless population – 84,291 - are considered "chronically homeless” individuals (A person who has been on street at least a year or more, or has been homeless at least four times within three years and has a disability.)
About 9 percent of homeless people- 49,933 - are veterans
As of January 2014, nearly a quarter of all homeless people were children under the age of 18.
Cited Research:
http://b.3cdn.net/naeh/d1b106237807ab260f_qam6ydz02.pdf
http://www.endhomelessness.org/pages/snapshot_of_homelessness
https://www.hudexchange.info/resources/documents/2014-AHAR-Part1.pdf
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Wednesday, April 22, 2015
Girl Scout Mystery Swap Pins
The Girl Scouts, my daughter included and me, are going camping this coming week and the Girl Scouts are famous for their "swap pins."
Last year I joined Girl Scouts and went on my first camp out. The girls have this fun ritual of making and exchanging pins. This is called a pin swap. The pins can either be about the theme for the campout or something they decide on. You make 12 or more of the pins in the style your troop decides on and then you take them with you and swap with other girls from other troops. It ends up being a lot of fun for all the girls.
This year our camp theme is MYSTERY so I went looking on line to see what I could find and I found a few mystery themed swap pins and decided to make this one. There is a kit you are suppose to be able to buy to make this but I couldn't find it on the site so I had to come up with my own.
Here is what you need.
I drew up and printed out the cards. They are 2 inches by 1.5 inches. I used cardstock and had the girls glue the green to the white so they would be extra strong. The yarn was cut about 5 inches long.
You'll need scissors to cut out the front and backs and glue to glue them together, some type of ink pad and a small hole puncher if available.
Write your troop number on the back side of the card and use an ink pad to put your fingerprint on the side that says CLUES.
Glue the front and back together and use the small hole punch or something sharp to punch a hole through the upper right hand corner of the side that says CLUES. Push your yarn through like above.
Lay the magnifying glass on top of the fingerprint and start wrapping the yarn back and forth around the smallest part of the handle, about three or four times.
Pull the yarn taut and tie in a double knot on the back side of the card.
Attach your safety pin through the hole in the top of the magnifying glass and you're done.
Last year I joined Girl Scouts and went on my first camp out. The girls have this fun ritual of making and exchanging pins. This is called a pin swap. The pins can either be about the theme for the campout or something they decide on. You make 12 or more of the pins in the style your troop decides on and then you take them with you and swap with other girls from other troops. It ends up being a lot of fun for all the girls.
This year our camp theme is MYSTERY so I went looking on line to see what I could find and I found a few mystery themed swap pins and decided to make this one. There is a kit you are suppose to be able to buy to make this but I couldn't find it on the site so I had to come up with my own.
Here is what you need.
You'll need scissors to cut out the front and backs and glue to glue them together, some type of ink pad and a small hole puncher if available.
Attach your safety pin through the hole in the top of the magnifying glass and you're done.
Monday, April 6, 2015
Just an Easter Card
I did it again. I made cards to send out for another holiday and then never got around to sending them out. That seems to be the story of my life. I thought I would go ahead and share them with you just the same. I guess sharing them here is like sending them out but without the stamped and addressed envelope and walk to and from the mailbox. Gee, I'm lazy. :)
This card doesn't open up. You write your message on the back. The bottom folds up when you cut it out and it's the grass at the bottom of the card. I wanted a card with my own touch but also easy to put together and still cute. I think this works but that's my humble opinion.
Have a wonderful Monday!
This card doesn't open up. You write your message on the back. The bottom folds up when you cut it out and it's the grass at the bottom of the card. I wanted a card with my own touch but also easy to put together and still cute. I think this works but that's my humble opinion.
Have a wonderful Monday!
Sunday, April 5, 2015
The Lamb
I want to start by wishing everyone a blessed Easter! Amen. Amen. He has risen. Amen.
When I was a child I would see what were called "Lamb cakes" in magazines and I always wanted to make one. A few years back I stumbled across a lamb cake mold at Good Will and I decided that the time so four years later I dug the pan out of my cupboard Easter eve and set to work.
Before I go into my tale, let me enlighten you with some background surrounding this cake. The lamb cake is an eastern european tradition. The lamb is the official symbol of Easter for Poland due to Christ being called the Lamb of God. The lamb cake is a dessert which is called agnuszek or baranek wielkanocny in Polish.
Now on to my tale...I wanted my lamb cake to be as traditional as possible so I headed to You Tube to watch videos. I realized everyone makes it differently: one lady used store bought pound cake mixes, another used just a yellow cake recipe and the other said to just use a pound cake recipe.
I went to my dear friend Betty Crocker and asked her what to use and she had the recipe I needed - a pound cake. I have never made a pound cake before and couldn't believe how much butter and eggs you use in the recipe hence the name "pound cake" right?. I oiled and floured my lamb halves and started pouring. I realized after awhile that not all the batter was going to fit in one half the lamb and you're not suppose to put it in the other side so we got an extra small pound cake.
I figured since I was only using 2/3 of the batter that I should leave my cake in about 50 to 60 minutes instead of the 60 to 80 minutes. I took it out after about 70 minutes and inserted a toothpick in the steam release hole and the toothpick came out clean so I took off the top of the lamp. The body, which is denser, didn't look done so I inserted the toothpick in that part and it wasn't done so back in the oven for another 20 minutes.
I opened the oven after the timer went off and my cake was missing! That's when I realized I had placed the cake back into the wrong oven. I placed the cake back into the right oven and continued to bake it another 20 minutes. I figured this would be the failure part but to my pleasant surprise the cake came out and had finished baking through and through.
I was all proud of myself and so excited that I didn't follow You Tube directions of waiting five minutes before dumping the cake on a cooling rack. Since the cake was still hot, I basically decapitated my lamb.
The cake tastes yummy even if my lamb is in pieces so at least the recipe worked. I'll try it again - next year.
Have a wonderful Easter day.
Jearise :)
When I was a child I would see what were called "Lamb cakes" in magazines and I always wanted to make one. A few years back I stumbled across a lamb cake mold at Good Will and I decided that the time so four years later I dug the pan out of my cupboard Easter eve and set to work.
Before I go into my tale, let me enlighten you with some background surrounding this cake. The lamb cake is an eastern european tradition. The lamb is the official symbol of Easter for Poland due to Christ being called the Lamb of God. The lamb cake is a dessert which is called agnuszek or baranek wielkanocny in Polish.
Now on to my tale...I wanted my lamb cake to be as traditional as possible so I headed to You Tube to watch videos. I realized everyone makes it differently: one lady used store bought pound cake mixes, another used just a yellow cake recipe and the other said to just use a pound cake recipe.
I went to my dear friend Betty Crocker and asked her what to use and she had the recipe I needed - a pound cake. I have never made a pound cake before and couldn't believe how much butter and eggs you use in the recipe hence the name "pound cake" right?. I oiled and floured my lamb halves and started pouring. I realized after awhile that not all the batter was going to fit in one half the lamb and you're not suppose to put it in the other side so we got an extra small pound cake.
I figured since I was only using 2/3 of the batter that I should leave my cake in about 50 to 60 minutes instead of the 60 to 80 minutes. I took it out after about 70 minutes and inserted a toothpick in the steam release hole and the toothpick came out clean so I took off the top of the lamp. The body, which is denser, didn't look done so I inserted the toothpick in that part and it wasn't done so back in the oven for another 20 minutes.
I opened the oven after the timer went off and my cake was missing! That's when I realized I had placed the cake back into the wrong oven. I placed the cake back into the right oven and continued to bake it another 20 minutes. I figured this would be the failure part but to my pleasant surprise the cake came out and had finished baking through and through.
I was all proud of myself and so excited that I didn't follow You Tube directions of waiting five minutes before dumping the cake on a cooling rack. Since the cake was still hot, I basically decapitated my lamb.
The cake tastes yummy even if my lamb is in pieces so at least the recipe worked. I'll try it again - next year.
Have a wonderful Easter day.
Jearise :)
Thursday, April 2, 2015
APRIL CHALK CHALLENGE
I belong to the design team of Chalk N Stock and have been on it a few years now. My job, besides making cards and using different chalk mediums on them, is to keep the blog up and running (smoothly). I put smoothly in parentheses because I've been dropping the ball lately. I missed our March post altogether.
I've been dropping the ball on a lot of things not just lately but throughout my whole life. It all comes from the confrontation standpoint. I hate confrontation or waiting or just dealing with something I know is not going to go smoothly.
I love people who are "in your face" and "get the job" done but alas I am not one of them. I like things to run smoothly and when they don't, I would rather ignore the problem than deal with it. It drives my husband nuts. It drives me nuts but that's who I am.
I have to get change of address and some other stuff done to our house back in Tucson that we are selling. I have called all the companies I need to call once
The first company I called things seemed to run smoothly until the end when I was informed I needed to put something simple in writing and email it to them. I still need to do the email part.
The second company I called said because my name wasn't on the bill I couldn't do anything and they refused to tell me anything except that the person whose name was on the bill, my husband, needed to call them by Friday. When I asked why by Friday, I was told repeatedly that the person couldn't tell me. I was told what I needed to do to make things right including my name being put on the bill and that I could type it all up in a letter and let my husband sign it and fax it back to them and all would be well. I did follow through on that because of the "need to get ahold of us by Friday" thing.
Finally, the third company had me pressing buttons for about 10 minutes trying to get hold of an actual person and then once I made it that far, I was put on hold for over 20 minutes. I finally did their call back option thinking it would be an hour or two before they called back. I made another phone call upon immediately hanging up with them only to have them immediately call me back and I missed the call. This was a week ago and I guess it's time I tried again but the urge to procrastinate some more is very overwhelming. If I didn't realize the consequences were very important, I probably would let it go another week or two or three.
I find things like Facebook and games on my phone help me procrastinate also because I find myself visiting friends or playing games instead of doing what I am suppose to do. I guess you would call them crutches but as I said before, this is me and this is a big flaw that I need to overcome but find it very hard too. I like wearing rose color glasses and being happy in my own world. Hence the name Lorby's World. (Just some trivia I thought I would throw in.)
Now that you know about my procrastination disease, let me show you my month late card I did for the challenge at Chalk N Stock.
The digital stamp comes from Bugaboo Digital Stamps. I used chalk in for the background and cream chalk for the dirt. The rest of the picture was colored using my alcohol markers.
If you use chalk in your art work, please join our monthly challenge at Chalk N Stock.
Thanks and God bless,
Jearise
I've been dropping the ball on a lot of things not just lately but throughout my whole life. It all comes from the confrontation standpoint. I hate confrontation or waiting or just dealing with something I know is not going to go smoothly.
I love people who are "in your face" and "get the job" done but alas I am not one of them. I like things to run smoothly and when they don't, I would rather ignore the problem than deal with it. It drives my husband nuts. It drives me nuts but that's who I am.
I have to get change of address and some other stuff done to our house back in Tucson that we are selling. I have called all the companies I need to call once
The first company I called things seemed to run smoothly until the end when I was informed I needed to put something simple in writing and email it to them. I still need to do the email part.
The second company I called said because my name wasn't on the bill I couldn't do anything and they refused to tell me anything except that the person whose name was on the bill, my husband, needed to call them by Friday. When I asked why by Friday, I was told repeatedly that the person couldn't tell me. I was told what I needed to do to make things right including my name being put on the bill and that I could type it all up in a letter and let my husband sign it and fax it back to them and all would be well. I did follow through on that because of the "need to get ahold of us by Friday" thing.
Finally, the third company had me pressing buttons for about 10 minutes trying to get hold of an actual person and then once I made it that far, I was put on hold for over 20 minutes. I finally did their call back option thinking it would be an hour or two before they called back. I made another phone call upon immediately hanging up with them only to have them immediately call me back and I missed the call. This was a week ago and I guess it's time I tried again but the urge to procrastinate some more is very overwhelming. If I didn't realize the consequences were very important, I probably would let it go another week or two or three.
I find things like Facebook and games on my phone help me procrastinate also because I find myself visiting friends or playing games instead of doing what I am suppose to do. I guess you would call them crutches but as I said before, this is me and this is a big flaw that I need to overcome but find it very hard too. I like wearing rose color glasses and being happy in my own world. Hence the name Lorby's World. (Just some trivia I thought I would throw in.)
Now that you know about my procrastination disease, let me show you my month late card I did for the challenge at Chalk N Stock.
The digital stamp comes from Bugaboo Digital Stamps. I used chalk in for the background and cream chalk for the dirt. The rest of the picture was colored using my alcohol markers.
If you use chalk in your art work, please join our monthly challenge at Chalk N Stock.
Thanks and God bless,
Jearise
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