Below is an invite to our party~
I am trying to figure out how to send this out via Facebook! But if you can see it here, please consider yourself invited.

Halloween Party 375 River Road Saturday. Oct 31st 2009 Laurie & Sleeve's 4-year Anniversary Party! Beer Tasting: Bring 1-6 bottles of unusual beer Potluck Dinner at 7 PM DJ set at 10 PM, live late night music from Onomatopoeia Costumes Encouraged Door Prizes

We had a wonderful trip to Virginia. It's pretty where Steve's family lives. Out in the country, rolling hills, lovely gardens, a creek and one of the coolest things is to hear all the birds that sing such sweet songs far different than ours here. We saw our family and got the chance to meet more people who have followed and supported our work in Peru. We visited North Branch School and did a slide show for the children about Sipascancha and Mandorani. And on Sunday we enjoyed a celebration of our wedding with everyone.

Now, if I were anything of a computer-blogger-facebook-y person lickety split I would post photos. This old computer of mine does not enjoy posting photos. It just takes too-too-too long and before I realize it I have shot away a day accomplishing very little besides a few photos.

Now that I think about it, I could do it to the flickr site...maybe later. It's a lovely grey as it can only be here in Oregon and I want to get outside and diddle about the yard. The heat is said to be returning next week.

May this message be like a packet of smiles for you… specially delivered from the heart of someone who wants to send so much happiness and encouragement your way…May this help to deliver a little prayer to you… a precious thought that everywhere you go, people will always lovingly know how much there is to appreciate about you......May the year you are about to enter grant you the promise of success that knows no bounds: friendship and love, blessings from above, and dreams you never imagined would come true.....May you have a truly beautiful day! And may the hopes and wishes of each new day grace your life with a special, gentle touch…Because someone so wonderful, so special and so good, is deserving of so much. You are wished a very happy day with lots of love!
(a transposed message sent to me for my birthday (and now to you) written by my friend Sharon.)

Here's something for September 1.

"What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?"
--William Henry Davies

"....souls like animals and plants , need air. Do our lives have enough space in them to nourish our spirit? Living in cities, plugged into networks of jobs, friends, and projects, we sometimes neglect our standing-and-staring needs.
They're quite specific: we need to be outside, in pleasant weather, with nothing much to do. We need to let the world go on its way without us for awhile. We need to have things pass before our eyes: clouds, or boats, or waving grass.
Blessed idleness! Blessed inattention! When we slip back into the groove, we're refreshed by our passive interlude. Let's remember the recipe and find sometime to stand aside and stare...."
(from The Promise of a New Day)

And another from Sharon:

"Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime, therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love." --Reinhold Niebuhr

It's nice to have a few days off without a whole bunch of stuff on my schedule. I was supposed to be camping but due to my girlfriend Shelley's first grandchild's birth, we postponed our trip. (Welcome to Earth Ares Alexander!)

And congratulations to Steve! He's being considered over the next month as the new pastry chef at Belly's! We celebrated over dinner at you guessed it---Belly's!

So, yeah, I've been looking forward to a sort of renewal for these particular days off. I've felt scattered and haven't accomplished much lately. Physically I feel like i'm dragging regardless of doing my hikes or other exercise. I need to get my glasses fixed. The house and yard take daily attention. Now i'm whining. It always seems there is so much piddley stuff to do, that i have difficulty tackling the bigger things that are really important also. What I am talking about here is organizing slides for a presentation at North Branch School and doing a six hour on-line pain seminar. Finding board members and thinking about the future of our non-profit. Taking better care of my things. Is it because i just need more time or is it a question of my commitment? Does it matter? Or is it just what one chooses to make their day about?

So, anyway, nothing was really scheduled as i was supposed to be away. Given the above, it's feeling just perfect to have this time for me and my priorities! and with just yesterday and today, i already feel better focusing on what's been dangling incomplete. Better yet i've had an "aha" moment or two, when i realize, ah...that's what been missing---that feeling of completing something a bit beyond my usual activities of daily living. so its six glorious days of focusing on other important things beside my paid work, or keeping up with the housework or yardwork. (except for picking our bounty, that is!) admittedly i did waste some time right in front of my computer updating my facebook page. Yikes, what's up with that? i joined to see photos and now i have entered my life on my wall! I wonder what folks out of my past will be brought to my attention by way of facebooks' mysterious workings? hmm.

More importantly the plan for these next few days is to work on our non-profit and to think about all we would like to include in our work in preparation for the meeting with David next week. he advised to aim high. we'll be writing the bylaws so to present at the first board meeting which is not yet scheduled. Elayne and hopefully Ellen (will) have stepped up to the plate as far as folks committed to being on our board. we could also begin with Steve and I, and may end up doing just that. Regardless, we're still looking for good folks interested in being on our board.

I have written a few folks in Peru to maintain our connections there. Carlos has been working on a blanket project in the highlands. He's found a village that would want to do a stove project. the question next is to find out where this place is and what materials they have to work with. We've written to Jorge to ask him a favor and call the phone at the Victoria's store to see where are the reports she was to have mailed us. She had told me she had trouble catching folks home, but now two reports have been delayed. I also wrote Hermana Nelly about another matter as well as keeping her eyes open for villages suitable for the types of projects we do.

now its time to write that little presentation for North Branch School i mentioned about the villages and people we work with in Peru, including a little Quechua lesson. we want to include a folk tale but geez, those quechua folks can a perverse sense of humor and we need to select a story suitable for kids!

Hello friends!

It's been a while! We have a couple of updates for you.

We are continuing on our path to get 501(c)3 status with the help of Eugene lawyer David Atkin handling the process. We are looking for people who would be interested in being on our board (quarterly meetings required, one year terms), on our advisory board (maybe one meeting a year) or voting members who in rare cases can hire or recall board members.

Obviously being a board member would be easier for people in our area, but distance is not an obstacle as we can easily arrange conference calls. We need three full board members to move along with our process at this point. The advisory board and the voting members will be needed later on. Please contact us if you have any interest in these positions.

Laurie spoke to Victoria (our contact person in C'orao) on the phone recently and even she has been having trouble catching people at home - she was quite apologetic - so it wasn't just us! Nonetheless, the people she talked to are happy and daily using the stoves. Another friend, Richard, visited Tomas and saw several of the stoves. He had opportunities to talk with a few residents that had worked with us and was impressed in regards to their conversations regarding the other aspects of our work, i.e., proper use of the stove and it's relationship to respiratory illness; home and property hygiene addressing common health problems like diarrhea; and improved waste management in the community. So our initial reports are positive!

If anybody can provide hosting space for our website that can handle a page built in Dreamweaver, let me know.

Thanks to everybody for your support on these projects.

Laurie & Steve

A while back, earlier in the month I had heard from my special Peruvian friend Carlos Gibaja Tapia. It was a quote of a caption from a Peruvian cartoon but without the cartoon. i looked it up (finally) yesterday and here it is. you can also go here: http://americaninlima.com/2009/06/02/needless-deaths-in-the-andes/ to read more in English. This is from a blog called An American in Lima, and is now on my favorites list.







Some Peruvians are outraged at the country’s indifference to the preventable deaths of children in the Andes, as this widely circulated cartoon shows. Others shrug their shoulders and say, “That’s Peru.”



Here is what Carlos sent me in regards to this cartoon: 'This year alone, 144 children under age 5 have died of respiratory disease brought on extreme cold in the high sierra, reported El Comercio. Thirty-five of the young victims were from Puno, where temperatures plummeted to -15 degrees C in the last 21 days. (Note that temperature extremes — winter getting colder, summer getting hotter and drier — are an expression of climate change, says Peru glacier expert Cesar Portocarrera.)'

And he asks: " There are many people in Peru (who) would like to do something to help and the world has plenty second use blanket and clothes that (they) would like to send them to Peru, but ironically our government doesn’t let them do that, it is just because those are second use. God, what we can do? "
Well, this is what he's doing:

Hola Laurita.
Gracias por interesarte en los niños de Perú y yo sé que tu eres una persona que le interesa mucho este tema.
Bueno ahora estamos en una nueva aventura, estamos recolectando fondos para comprar frazadas y ropas para los niños que están muriendo en las comunidades altas, esto es por el cambio de temperatura que esta pasando aquí, el frio es muy intenso.
Por favor reza por que todo salga bien, y si tú conoces a personas que estarían interesadas en este proyecto por favor contáctenos. Gracias. (in English: "Hi Laurie, Thanks for your interest in the Peruvian children. You are a person who is very interested in this topic. So good, now I am involved in a new adventure, I am collecting funds to buy blankets and clothes for the children that are dying in the high communitieis and this is because temperature changes are happening now and the cold very intense. Please pray that all will go well. I know you will be interested in this. Please contact me. Thank you.")

Blankets for the villagers, to support the cold weather.
We want to (give) gratitude to all of you for your support on rescue lives from the cold weather in the Andes. With this help we cover of warm blankets to the people of Socma. Also with the support of my spiritual sister Shannon we make hot Chocolate, to make feel them loved. But this is going to be the just beginning, we want to provide with warm blankets more villages, so we can stop the death. Please share this email with the people who would like support this project.

So today I am going to Western Union and sending some money from our las Vidas Mejoradas bank account to Carlos to help buy blankets. If you would like to contribute money to this cause please email me. (below more about the status of our 501c-3)

Other good news: Over the weekend Steve and I went to Portland to meet a fellow we became acquainted with by way of the Bioenergy list. His name is Richard and he is from Alberta, Canada. He too went to a Peruvian community (on the coast) to do a small stove project. and we had responded to an inquiry of his, hence the connection. it was great to meet him. he had just been to Mandorani to visit Tomas and he met some of our stove families! just a week or two before! it was heartwarming to hear of what Tomas had told him of us and our work there. we apparently left a foot print!

With our EIN number in hand, and name Las Vidas Mejoradas, it is now time to select board members. We want to employ Steve, one day a week to manage the paperwork and work with our attorney to set our nonprofit up correctly. So our first step is for me to write our attorney and inquire if we need the board and bylaws in existence before we can hire Steve.

Our garden grows. You can see new pictures of the progress on our flickr site.

Our foxglove! More pictures (as Ron requested) are on the flickr site here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/stovesforperu

Well, in a spurt of energy, I am finally blogging and posting pictures. We've been busy since getting back with trips to visit friends, time with my sons, a house concert, getting married, painting, hauling and planting, a new job, a trip to the coast and time with friends. I am trying and am now quite frustrated with uploading photos to the blog, so i will direct you to the flickr site here http://www.flickr.com/photos/stovesforperu .

its been a sort of overcast week here--fine with us---much cooler and not as much watering required to our many beds outside! Steve is in the basement organizing the the stuff down there. Later today he and Janice will make some loads of brush and tree branches to Lane Forest products. i plan on getting caught up with our families and friends, cleaning my room, paying bills, and weeding. it's so nice to have a day off! work has been going well. i enjoy teaching patients. I'm not sure if all the walking i do is contributing to a bit of sciatica, like i had had briefly in Peru. it's like a charlie horse down the side of my leg that just won't let go. i've been keeping it to myself there as i don't want anything to come up as far as work goes that indicates in any way i can't do this job! i went to the doctor and am on some meds and its better today. better enough that i feel like i can get outside today!

on the Peru front , i soon will be opening an account in the name of las Vidas Mejoradas! i am waiting on the EIN number. then we will be forming a board and bylaws with our lawyers' help (so to get it right!) My son told me the other day we have sold two paintings in Eureka! I had dropped the price and continued advertising them as fundraisers for our organization. so more money will be going into the account!

We heard from a young woman interested in Quiquihana after she had written ellen and ron about their trip to peru. she had located their photo site and blog on-line (which i am going to add a link to today. there are some great pictures of Peru adventures!) anyway our sites were able to assist her in an upcoming trip she'll be making there in search of her biological family!

and specifically about stoves and Mandorani, a colleague we met on-line visited Tomas and the community not to long ago to see our stoves! He had written and we gave directions and he got there in spite of a bus strike! He talked to Victoria who is waiting for us to call (!) and Tomas about the stoves. I will copy his letters here:

Great, Laurie, I finally met up with Tomas today in Corao, and going again tomorrow to see how he builds and hopefully get my hands dirty. What a nice guy Tomas is. He talked about the great debt of gratitude he feels towards you in helping them to reduce the very serious problem of smoke related lung problems.
Victoria's son brought me to Tomas's house, where I saw my first sheep against people soccer match along the way, complete with 12 to 15 little piglets in the audience! Here are Victoria's phone numbers. 780091 and 835094. I guess she hopes you will call her some day. I told her I would send you an e- mail in Spanish if she wanted (but not sure if she writes?).
So again, thanks for all your help on this journey. If you have a message for Victoria, I'd be happy to relay it, but have no printer here at the hostal in Cusco.
Ciao
Richard

Hi Laurie,
While today's experience is still fresh in my mind ... I went to Corao agan, and finding Tomas stuffing potatoes into bags, and that in fact he was not building any stoves (contrary to my belief) just made the best of it. Tomas gave me a drawing and the dimensions and we shared ideas. I think the double lipped pot orifice is a great idea (as built only single pot holders in Chincha). The chimneys are more robust than those I installed, but I think the price of 80 S will be justified in longevity (as well as extra updraft). We also discussed the idea of using adobe set around a round form for future chimneys (much cheaper and recommended by some of the advanced people on the bioenergylists chat line). We also discussed the design I learned where the pot is submerged further into the plancha to maximize heat transfer to the pot sides (you will see this in the Aprovecho design including Rocket).
- On the last 2 stoves, what I get from Tomas is that he's waiting for plata (money) from them. So thats all I know on that (I guess they are not built).
- For Victoria, she wasn't there, but her husband, no guarantees will pass it on that you will contact her.
So we had a long chat with a woman on the street with a stove in front - (forget her name) and it was gratifying to know the depth of commitment to environmental health causes they had, as we discussed everything from stoves (adobe and solar) to plastic pollution, garbage, water and politics. I do believe you made quite a dent in this community!
So I can't stick around to the next building on June 8, but we parted with talk of a reunion in future.
All for now Laurie
I'll contact you when I come through Oregon.
Ciao
Richard

it was refreshing to read Richard's letters! I will be calling Victoria soon and am waiting for our first set of evaluations to arrive in the mail from Mandorani. steve and i are getting set to write up the experience, like we have done with our other projects. and word from ellen has been in regards to possibly coming up with funds to do more between the schools.

but admittedly, i am just now reaching a point where i can get back on track with the other half of our lives, now that the job is set, bills are getting paid, and steve and i have ourselves fairly caught up here at home. so all involved, please accept my apologies for dropping out of sight for a bit.

it's funny. i am reading a book called Three Cups of Tea. While Greg Mortenson's work has far surpassed ours, there have been parts that ring true. One was how he mentioned on getting back how it all becomes like a movie you saw. you can leave with all sorts of ideas and time can slip by...and you can feel ungrounded, misplaced and lonely.

"...On the flight out of Islambad he had felt so full of purpose, scheming a dozen different ways to raise money for the school. But back in Berkeley, California, Greg Mortensen couldn't orient himself. He felt blotted out under the relentlessly sunny skies, among prosperous college students strolling happily toward their next espresso, and his promise to Haji Ali felt more like a half-remembered movie he's dozed though on one of his three interminable flights..."

here's a quote speaking to the value of making relationships:

" 'That day, Haji Ali taught me the most important lesson I learned in my life,' Mortenson says. 'We Americans think you have to accomplish everything quickly. We're the country of thirty-minute power lunches and two-minute football drills. Our leaders thought their 'shock and awe' campaign could end the war in Iraq before it even started. Haji Ali taught me to share three cups of tea, to slow down and make building relationships as important as building projects. He taught me that I had more to learn from the people I work with than I could ever hope to teach them.' "

and something that speaks to the patience that exists "on the other side":

"Mortenson told them he'd spent most of his money already on the school and he'd have to return to America and try to raise more money for the bridge. He expected the Korphe men to act as crushed as he felt. But waiting was as much a part of their make-up as breathing the thin air at 10,000 feet. They waited half of each year, in rooms choked with smoke from yak duing fires, for the weather to become hospitiable enough for them to return outdoors...The people of the Braldu had been promised schools by the distant Pakistani government for decades, and they were waiting still. Pateince was thier greatest skill."

So on to posting pictures. All our best from Laurie and Steve~

Wedding photos! Thanks Jim and Taunia!

We're married!!

We will be taking a break from all of our work painting the kitchen, refinishing the cabinets, weeding, planting, and weed eating so to GET MARRIED tomorrow 1 May at 10;30 AM!!!!

well, i got the job! many, many thanks to the person who believed in me! three days a week with plenty of time to work in the yard and house on all the projects we have planned. and we got our marriage license! today kale, broccoli, lettuce, and garlic went in. we mulched the raspberries and potatoes. it needs to rain to weed out the beds near the firepit. but as long as one just uses selective viewing it is not quite as overwhelming.

the search for work goes on. while i am reasonably sure i qualify very well for this certain job, the remainder of the tasks in investigating my application by Human Resources are not completed. and so, another previous manager has raised concern over my ability to get along with others... yikes. i am grateful that one person in this process believes in me. none the less this process has felt ruthless and i walk around with a knot in my stomach. i am told i have apparently burned some bridges when my life drastically changed some 6 years ago now...well, it seems so. i just never realized until now and it leaves me feeling afraid to trust my own opinions on just who i am or have been, or to trust others in the position to judge me. i wish i could just start my own business.