Now here is a holiday I can CELEBRATE!!!!!! Oh yum! Well...sort of.....being diabetic, I have to be careful about my sugar intake. However...I would rather have a small bite of the REAL STUFF.....organic, "Fair Trade" dark chocolate......than a bagful of the "other stuff ".
My love affair with chocolate goes back, WAY back. When I was in the 2nd or 3rd grade, a friend of mine introduced me to the candy counter at a local shop. I was hooked. So many choices! And back then, a candy bar was a NICKEL! I remember when I was older, sneaking to the drug store to buy my "stash" since chocolate & candy was forbidden in our home. Thus began my lifelong struggle & addiction to sugar. Rolos & Milky Ways had me by the throat. Their smooth creaminess tempted & seduced me. Chocolate.....my DRUG of choice. Little did I know that my guilty pleasure was most likely at the expense of children held in slavery on cocoa farms in West Africa.
It has taken me years to break that addiction. So when I do indulge in a small taste of chocolate, I make sure it is high quality, organic, "Fair Trade" chocolate...now that I have learned about the chocolate "slave trade."
Here are some resources to help you find out about it yourself:
When I was a young girl, my room was decorated in PURPLE! The walls were painted a lovely medium shade of purple. My twin beds were covered in white ruffly spreads with purple roses. I loved my room ~ it was a restful, dreamy, inspiring sanctuary! I still dream in purple.....and remember those lovely hours of daydreaming in my purple room.
Richard & Judith Lang have inspired me! I so admire their commitment to our earth & their vision of bringing BEAUTY out of mindless, thoughtless UGLY pollution.
I challenge YOU this week to go through your rubbish bin and create something BEAUTIFUL! Email me your creations & I will post them next Sunday. "I only feel angry when I see waste. When I see people throwing away things we could use."
Mother Teresa
"But our waste problem is not the fault only of producers. It is the fault of an economy that is wasteful from top to bottom — a symbiosis of an unlimited greed at the top and a lazy, passive, and self-indulgent consumptiveness at the bottom—and all of us are involved in it."
Wendell Berry
"In our eagerness to prosper, we have ravaged what was good. Using more than what was needed, taking everything we could. We have changed the gentle order you intended for the earth. Now we humbly ask the wisdom to be part of its re-birth."
Artist. Dreamer. Sweetheart. Friend. I believe in living simply, organic/fair trade, volunteering, charity, prayer. I am a self-taught artist who loves hunting for vintage treasures, timeworn objects that others have cast aside, that find their way into my heart, my home and my original art. My goal is to bring a little joy into your life ~ simple pleasures (& treasures) that remind you that "Life is Beautiful" by offering sweet, uplifting, comforting & encouraging works of art to grace your life. "Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty."
