A to Z 2024: M is for Microvolunteering

For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together. 

April 15th is International Micro-volunteering day 

I think the best way to talk about this day is to use FAQ format.  I used to do this quite a bit in the early days of my blog.  The last time I did so was  here back in 2012 when I was blogging about the A t0 Z challenge. .

The FAQS of Life: Micro-volunteering  in Frequently Asked Question Format

Q: Do you know what today is?

A: Yes. 

Q: Are you going to tell me?

A. Perhaps if you asked me, rather than  asked me if I knew.

Q: What is today?

A: It's International Micro-volunteering Day.

Q: Is Micro-volunteering a thing?

A:It must be, if it wasn't, it wouldn't have a holiday.  

Q: When did it become a thing?

A: it's been a thing for almost 20 years.  The term  was first used in the U.K. In 2006 and had migrated to Spain by 2008.

Q: What is Micro-volunteering?

A:This answer is from ot's Days of The Year Page, The idea of micro-volunteering is simple: individuals take convenient, bite-sized actions in support of a good cause and often perform their activities or service from home. 

Q:  How did the day start?

A: Well the day started a minute after 11:59 p.m.   Some people were fast asleep, some were well on their way, others were working 3rd shift jobs, still others, ...

Q: When did International Micro-volunteering Day start.

A:  10 years ago it began when the day was created and promoted by the Help from Home Foundation.

Q: Como se dice International Micro Volunteering Day en Espanol?

A: Día Internacional del Microvoluntariado.

Q: Do you have any suggestions for micro-volunteering?

A: Yes

Q: Are we back to that joke again?

A: Yes

Q: What suggestions do you have for micro-volunteering?

A: I thought you'd never ask. One suggestion is to volunteer doing task that you already know how to do, so there is little to no training involved.  Another is to keep your activities to things that can be done in thirty minute to 2 hour chunks. One examples are to volunteer to read at a school, or day care center, or nursing home.  When my daughter was homeschooled, she would volunteer on a weekly basis for about an hour and a half a week, working at the P.B.I.S (Personal Behavior Incentive System) store at my wife's school.  Children would earn a kind of currency for following the code of the school and then would be able to trade that currency in for prizes.  As a full time substitute teacher, I would imagine there are boundless opportunities for micro-volunteering?

Q: What are some suggestions that could be done from home?

A: My daughters both crochet.  One is in a crochet club.  Some members of her club crochet hats at home  for premature  babies or people having chemo.  People can have baking parties on the holidays and find organizations to donate their creations to.  

 

Q: Do you know why IMVD (International Micro-Volunteering Day) is on April 15th.

A: No, but it is the same day as Tax day here in the U.S. and if I were choosing the day, I would choose April 15th because micro-volunteering is not meant to be taxing.

Q: Did you think of that yourself?

A: Yes, Yes I did. And before you ask yes, that is a Phineas and Ferb referemce.

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I didn't plan this, of course,  but today's song of the day is a frequently asked question of sorts.  The Song is Man or Muppet from The Muppets (2011)

 

M is the 13th letter of the alphabet so my spotify playlist is now half full

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Today was a lot of fun, no question about it.  Micro-volunteering can be fun as well.  In the comments tell me some things that you already know how to do, that might be great as a micro-volunteering opportunity. 

To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

A tp Z: 2024 L is for Last Weekend of Cherry Blossom Festival

For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together. 

Lucy, Amy & Kermit
Smithsonian Museum 2010

April 13th 2024 is the last Saturday of the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington D.C.

The past few days at school  there has been growing excitement for the 8th grade field trip to Washington D.C. which is coming up soon.  My Nephew was over yesterday and he is also is super excited about his 8th grade field trip to Washington D.C. So, when trying to decide between all the April 13th holidays and events I chose an event and a birthday related to D.C. 




The Nationals Cherry Blossom Festival  commemorates the gift of Japanese Cherry Trees in 1912 from the Mayor of Tokyo City to the city of Washington D.C.

Washington Monument with Cherry blossoms in the foreground.

Thomas Jefferson was born April 13,1743

The Jefferson Memorial 2010

Charlie and C3P0 at the Smithsonian

L is also for Lincoln

 

These pictures were take on our family trip to Washington D.C. 2010

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Song of the day: Let's Get Married by The Proclaimers 

2 weeks into the challenge and we are up to 12 songs on the playlist

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To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

A to Z: 2024 K is for космонавт (cosmonaut)

For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together.

April 12th Yuri Gagarian is the first man in space

63 years ago today the Russians beat the U.S into space again.  This time, Yuri Gagarian became the first person in space.  This You Tube video shows some footage from the event.  

 

Just in case you don't read Russian, the text  below the video translates into English as:

 On April 12, 1961, the Vostok spacecraft launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for the first time in the world, with pilot-cosmonaut Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin on board. For this feat, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and starting from April 12, 1962, the day of Gagarin's flight into space was declared a holiday - Cosmonautics Day. On September 27, 2010, by decision of the 65th session of the UN General Assembly, April 12 was proclaimed the International Day of Human Space Flight, which will be celebrated annually at the international level.

I decided to copy a couple of the you-tube comments and show them in Russian , and then in Russian printed phonetically in English and  then finally translated by google translate into English.  

The first comment is from @elenadushyna8975 from 1 year ago

Все молодцы!! И Королев! И Гагарин! И все остальные неизвестные, кто причастны к этому великому событию!!! 

 Vse molodtsy!! I Korolev! I Gagarin! I vse ostal'nyye neizvestnyye, kto prichastny k etomu velikomu sobytiyu!!! 

 Well done everyone!! And Korolev! And Gagarin! And all the other unknowns who are involved in this great event!!! 

The second comment is from LarussaShudrova from 8 years ago

 Спасибо за воспоминания! Спасибо! Помню, какую испытала гордость за страну, когда передавали по радио сообщение о полёте человека в космос. В душе всё пело.

 Spasibo za vospominaniya! Spasibo! Pomnyu, kakuyu ispytala gordost' za stranu, kogda peredavali po radio soobshcheniye o polote cheloveka v kosmos. V dushe vso pelo. 

 Thank you for the memories! Thank you! I remember how proud I felt for the country when they broadcast a message on the radio about man’s flight into space. Everything was singing in my soul.

What strikes me about the coverage and the comments is the great sense of accomplishment.  I lived in Russia for 2 years from 1992 to 1994 right after the Soviet Union was dissolved.  It became clear to me fairly quickly is that people are very similar regardless of what country they are from and being proud of your country is certainly not something the U.S. has a monopoly on.

By Mil.ru, CC BY 4.0, Link

April 12th Yuri Gagarian is the first man in space.  

Gagarian died almost 7 years later in a routine training flight.

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The song of the day is Keep Me Running performed by Ashley Cleveland

Randy Stonehill wrote and performed the song on his 1976 album Welcome to Paradise.  The below video features a young Stonehill performing the song.

 

 Stonehill turned 72 earlier this year and I made this post to celebrate.

To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

A To Z 2024: J is for Just Married (26 Years Ago)

For The A to Z Challenge this year, I am focusing on everyday holidays. Each day there are multiple unusual things to celebrate.  Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day.  I have also made up 5 holidays to coincide with the vowel days of the challenge.  At the end of each post I will share a special song of the day for that day's letter.  At the end of the month, these songs will be assembled in a to z keepsake playlist on Spotify.  Every day is a celebration, let's unwrap today's together. 

April 11th is Dave and Amy Roller's wedding anniversary.

I was trying to justify not pulling a random holiday from the April 11th list and just writing about my wedding anniversary when I realized there is no justification needed.  The 3rd sentence in the above paragraph says it all, " Every day of the challenge I look for an event taking place that day and pair it with the letter of the day." My anniversary is an event taking place today and my titling the post Just Married (26 years ago), I have, in the words of Paul Hollywood, ticked all the boxes.

Yesterday morning my daughter was getting ready for her writing class at the same time I was getting ready for school.  She went towards the door and then came back saying, she had forgotten her glasses. Before I could stop myself I blurted out the line, "He can't see without his glasses". 

This is a line from the 1991 movie "My Girl".  My son recites this line quite a bit. A, because he like's to make fun of it and B, because it annoys his sisters.  If you've ever been  a brother or a sister you don't need me to say, not necessarily in that order.

As I was driving to work, while ruminating on that film, a memory popped in my head from almost 33 years ago when that film was in theatres.  At the time I was in a long distance relationship, and because it was the winter Holidays we were both in the Chicago area where our families both lived .  

We went to the Woodfield Mall to see the aforementioned film.  After the film I remember telling her on an escalator talking about the film and in that context  said something about wanting to grow old with her, (my girlfriend).  I don't know which direction we were on in the escalator, but things started going downhill after that. Because, shortly after I made that comment to her we were broken up, and I'm not sure but I don't think I even saw her again after that.

I remember going back to my parents house and calling up my best friend and spilling  all the  sordid details.  You ever have a friend you could tell anything, do anything with, share your secrets and keep theirs?  That's what I had with my best friend back in January of 1992.  26 years ago today I married her.

Lots has changed since I saw My Girl with someone who out turned out not to be my girl at all.  Woodfield Mall no longer has movie theatres, My parents no longer live at my boyhood home, I no longer need to use a landline to call my best friend, cause quite often we are together and when were not I just tell my phone to call her.  

But Amy and I are growing old together.  As Rowlf the Dog sang so eloquently in 1979, "The urge was righteous but the face was wrong."  But in my case something better didn't come along, she had been there all along.  

Amy and I love movies.  We watch them, re watch them, quote them, and watch them again.  One movie we enjoy is The Wedding Singer, a movie about friends who fell in love, like us.  In the final scene he confesses his love in a song he wrote called "Grow Old With You."

Songs also play a part of our friendship.  When I was living in Russia, I once wrote her a song about our friendship which is really a love song, we just didn't know it yet.  I wrote her another song and sang it for her as I proposed.  I wrote another song and a choir from our church sang it as we walked down the aisle after we had just been declared man and wife.  

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Our marriage is not perfect.  A few years ago we read a book together, called "When Sinner's say I do". The basic premise imperfect people cannot have a perfect relationship.  I certainly am not perfect.  She tells me she's not perfect, so I believe her.  She is certainly the person I want to spend the rest of my life with.  This August we will celebrate 34 years of friendship.  Each day I grow older with my dear friend Amy is worthy of a celebration. Not just a celebration, but each day with Amy is a Holiday in itself.  

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Today's song of the day is Jack and Jill Part II by the Gray Havens

I chose the songs for the A to Z playlist this February and March, and just decided today that I was going to write about Amy and Myself for J.  So I didn't really plan a connection between the holiday and the song of the day.  It turns out there is one, but it's very slight.  After Amy and I were married for a couple years, we moved into our first house and preceded to have our 2nd and third child.  During that time we were attending a church that met at Crystal Lake South High School.  I don't know if you've ever attended a church at a  school before.  I have on several occasions.  One thing that happens is all the accoutrements of the school for the most part stay right where they are even on Sunday.  So over the years we saw many homecoming posters and other things on the wall of our "church building".  One such poster was celebrating the fact that one of their seniors had just made it into the top 20 of Season 5 of American Idol.

This young man, David Radford, would later become part of the folk duo, The Gray Havens along with his wife  Licia.  Like I said it's a slight connection.  The Spotify playlist is big enough now to have a top 10.  

Yes as far as Holidays are concerned, the anniversary of the day I married my best friend is a pretty big one.  Feel free to comment and tell me about your love story if you care to.  

To go to the home of the A to Z challenge click here, to see the 2024 master list of participating blogs click here. Enjoy the 2024 A to Z challenge, and Happy Holidays!

Obligatory Eclipse Post

There was an eclipse earlier this week, maybe you heard of it. My school was able to watch it and we hit 94% totality in Algonquin, Illinois. My Son Charlie went to Sycamore, Ohio which was in 100% totality for a cubing event. They provided glasses for all their participants and took a break from the competition to experience the eclipse. 

He just came home yesterday from the event and we haven't had a lot of time to talk about it yet.  I was able to find some footage on  You Tube, maybe you've heard of it (I know I just made that joke in paragraph one), of the Eclipse as it appeared in Sycamore on Monday. 

 

Time Lapse of Eclipse

Eclipse in real time.