Living the Moment Sometimes Takes You Far & Wide

I am blessed to be a part of the http://www.livingmyMoMent.com Summer Blog Tour.  As everyone is going about their summer plans my summer has started off different than usual.
As I am on the road again visiting my daughter in New Orleans I sit in her new duplex second story home looking at treetops and rooftops of neighbors wondering who lives there, what are they like, do they care about the same issues I do.  For the past three weeks I have been collecting hair.  Yes hair.  Some people collect miniature spoons, but I am collecting both dog and human hair for the relief efforts in the Gulf.  I passed out a flyer in my hometown telling about a website http://www.matteroftrust.org and what salons and pet groomers are doing to help and how to get involved in your community.  Since I was making a trip over to NOLA I thought I might hand deliver it myself.  So found out there is a woman who works at the Ritz Carlton Spa who is collecting hair and making the hair booms. Never in my wildest imagination did I think I would get involved with something like this, but it has taught me a lot of things.
1. Being better to my neighbors is making me a better neighbor.  I have met some people I might not have met had I not gotten involved with this project.
2. Collecting hair is really not as bad as it sounds.  They wash it first so it really is clean.
3. I feel like I am doing my part to help in some small way and it helps our world that God put us in charge of to take care of. Another company http://wwwomatit.com has teamed up to make the hand mats the volunteers are using to pick up the oil on the beaches. After the hair soaks up the oil it is put into compost with some worms and is made into incredible fertilizer.  It goes full circle and that is the part I love the most about it.  I as watching a Dawn dishwashing soap commercial the other day and how they use it to clean the animals.  Wondered if just dumping a whole bunch of dish soap in the Gulf would be better than the toxic chemicals they are dumping.  It would disperse, disperse, disperse and disperse until nothing was left.  Could it be that simple?
4. Space Bag, http://www.spacebag.com has offered to help me so packing it down will be a snap.  I am hoping they will partner up with me on http://www.momtv.com so I can giveaway their incredible bags.   They are familiar with helping and have different relief efforts of their own like Katrina just to name a biggy.  My daughter actually used them to pack herself up after her first year of college.
5. If everyone got involved just in their little part of the world what a difference that would make, not just in this disaster, but in general.  Getting things going usually starts on a grassroots level and takes off from there to places far and wide.  I grabbed onto a moment in time where my passion for something has now taken me to places far and wide.  It is exciting, invigorating, encouraging and uplifting to be a part of this movement.  I still want to do more.  My next thing I feel like God wants me to do is not only deliver hair, but take a fully decked Airstream kitchen I have access to and just go feed these people who are working so hard, but who also may have lost their jobs.  Mom's Kitchen to the rescue....or maybe it should be Madre's Kitchen....what do you think?
The link to my pictures about this is on Facebook  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=51592&id=1596499763&ref=pb
Since I am still on the road, am not using my computer and I don't quite have it down how to get those pictures on this blog this may be the easiest way for you to see how I packed them in.  I will be filming my drop off of hair and making hair booms and posting them on YouTube and Facebook on Madre Minutes when I return.  I hope it will inspire you to get involved in some way to help those in the Gulf who not only are working round the clock, but also who will be losing their livelihoods based on fishing, tourism not to mention the affect it is having on wildlife.  We really can make a difference. One hair at a time.
I will be giving away some Space Bags to the first 10 people who comment on this blog.