This is my things I love episode! Since I have taken another 6 week break from school due to the new blackboard upgrade they did over winter break sucking big smelly balls and me not being able to deal with pages not loading or taking forever, I have decided that I will get in all that reading I've been missing out on since I started college. And whats better than reading? Reading books that are free! I have rediscovered my love of the library and visited one for the first time in almost a decade (the one in Grand Haven). I don't remember it being that small. Also although I signed up for it way back in June, I just recently posted my nine required books to www.paperbackswap.com and have since spent my three initial credits and am currently waiting for the arrival of three books and have mailed out eight of my own in the past week. What a great way to get books without paying full price. However, most of the books I would really like to read have wish lists that are miles long which is the whole reason for my trip to the library. I am currently reading Anna Karenina which should keep me busy til at least the end of the week but after that I had nothing to read and I didn't want to wait until one of my wishlisted books got mailed to me so I moseyed on over to the library and picked up Mary Queen of Scots by Margaret George and Excalibur by Bernard Cornwell (Historical Fiction being my favorite genre). What I didn't realize, stupid me, was that this was the 3rd book in the series so now I have to go back and get the other two so I'm not reading them out of order. Oh well. At least I will have plenty to read and be saving a ton of money by not buying them for full price at Barnes and Noble (which I still love but I'm really trying to cut spending this year). I even got Chris on the bandwagon so now we can order his forgotten realms books at paperbackswap instead of paying $8 a pop for them at B&N.
Also on my list of things I love is the charity that I have decided I am going to invest heavily in and that is www.kiva.org. Kiva is a non-profit that lists loans that are needed by people in poorer (almost typed "pooper" there) countries to get their businesses off the ground and help them lift themselves out of poverty. You can donate as little as $25 or fund the whole loan if you're feeling extra generous. It is not a donation. It is a loan because the person you're loaning it to pays it back gradually over time and once you get back the money you loaned them you can either loan it to someone else or draw it back out and put it back in your own piggy bank. They have a very low rate of default as most of the people pay the loans back. My goal is to give $25 every month if I can. Its not a lot considering I spend at least that much on Starbucks in any given month. So far I have helped a young woman in Samoa with her ice cake business and a man in nigeria who is selling phone accessories.
And finally the last thing I love is..........SNOW TIRES! We put them on the rear of my car before we left for NY and since we've had the blizzard from hell this past weekend and its still snowing, I can really tell the difference with them on there. I know for a fact that if I had driven through that mess this morning with regular tires I would never have made it to GR with me and my car in one piece. There were six people off the road on the way there and thanks to my spiffy new tires I was NOT one of them.
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