She be sprinklin' sunshine from here to Texas!

I have a friend. Many actually, but this friend is very special. Not just because I have known her for almost 20 years but because she is very giving, creative and she be sprinklin' sunshine from California to Texas!

Amy is setting out on a quest to visit Texas and along her journey she plans to drop little pieces of handmade art for people to find, keep and enjoy. Why is she doing this? Amy's Facebook page, I be Sprinklin' Sunshine states that this is "a venture into spreading some miscellaneous art and love out into the globe" and that her "hope is that in turn it creates a global wave of sprinklin' sunshine".

She leaves on February 4th, in just 3 days! I encourage you to follow her along the journey and connect via the Facebook page I be Sprinklin' Sunshine. Here are a few pictures of the little gifts she will be gifting (Amy gave me permission to use these images, all three belong to her.)...

This is so delightful, I would love to find this in some random place!

 

Sprinklin' Sunshine

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I love this idea and it is not too far from a little sunshine sprinkling I did this summer. Did anyone see this hanging around town?

Yep, that was me! Some of them did not hang on too long. I hope I got at least one person to do this :)

Lance Armstrong? Way to go media, what about Algeria? *Vent*

So he finally owned up to doping. Hopefully he is opening the path for all the others to "come clean" too. Doping in professional sports is common, we all know that and we have known it for a long time. What is the big deal? Now, you may be sensing that I do not really care about Lance or his mistakes, but that is only half true. I do care about him as another human being and with the recent news he has opened up his heart and put it out there for everyone to devour. I can respect how hard it must be for him to tell the truth about his career but I just know that had he made the right decisions in the beginning he would not be a crying shame today. It is all about choices. Boo hoo Lance, bad boy, let's move on.

Now, I have to wonder...the media is all wrapped up with Lance Armstrong, what important news are they leaving out? What else is going on in the world that they do not want us to know? On the Today Show this morning, I watched Lance talk to Oprah for 20 minutes. After the commercial they talked about a current travel warning in Mali for 1 minute. There is war there, do not go...OK. Have you checked out the recent list of countries not to travel too. The list is impressive and the dates are scary new....

Mali    01/18/2013
Niger    01/16/2013
Kenya    01/14/2013
Libya    01/02/2013
Haiti    12/28/2012
Central African Republic    12/28/2012
Somalia    12/26/2012
Nigeria    12/21/2012
Israel, the West Bank and Gaza    12/20/2012
Iran    12/07/2012
Mauritania    11/30/2012
Eritrea    11/29/2012
Congo, Democratic Republic of the    11/21/2012
Chad    11/21/2012
Honduras    11/21/2012
Mexico    11/20/2012
Yemen   11/19/2012
Saudi Arabia   11/19/2012
Cote d'Ivoire   11/16/2012
Burundi    11/08/2012

This is a partial list, taken from http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_1764.html. If you go to the link you can click on each country and it gives an explanation of why Americans should be cautious traveling to that region. Most involve terrorism, murder, human trafficking...ya know all the terms and issues that we do not hear everyday in our sheltered American life.

I am most surprised to see Haiti, Americans have been doing a lot of work there since the hurricane a few years ago. Kidnapping and murder are worries there.

There was a minute update on the hostage situation in Algeria, but nothing compared to the coverage Armstrong has received. What kind of a society do we live in when the media gives a doping celebrity more coverage then a hostage situation? Vent complete. Thank you for reading, I hope your brain is working ;)

Moral of this story is that you cannot rely on the media for the real news, you have to search for it yourself. Make the time, your rights, your life might depend upon it.