Inspiration Wednesday!

Okay all, first things first. You all better EAT YOUR HEARTS OUT tomorrow. Thanksgiving may be for thankfulness but it's also about food, so enjoy the food and forget the diets. And please, I beg you, avoid shopping on Black Friday. There are crazy car accidents, stupid mean people who have no problem hurting you just so they can save $20, and there's no reason for it at all when Cyber Monday gives you just as good of deals from the safety and comfort of your home. Getting dressed up to go shopping at 3 am or chilling in your pjs and shopping online whenever you want on Monday? I'd take the latter if I were you. ;-)

Now for the good stuff (at least in my opinion):

There are a lot of families out there who are hurting because of the economy. This holiday season is gonna be tough. When you do your last minute Thanksgiving grocery shopping (come on, we all forget something!) consider picking up a few extra things of food or toiletries and donate it to your food bank or church so they can get it out to the families who might not have the ability to fully celebrate this year. If you're planning on going to the post office sometime soon (ahem, Swap-botters!) ask the postal workers if they collect Santa letters. More often than not they have some that you can write back. How cool would it be to get a letter from Santa!? Some post offices sort through the letters and find the families that are in need so you can write back and offer a gift or two annonymously (different POs do this in different ways). Something for you all to chew on ;-)

For those looking for gifts this weekend, I've got two awesome places for you to consider.

TisBest Philanthropy (http://www.tisbest.org/Default.aspx) is just one of quite a few websites out there where you can buy a charity gift card. Perfect gift for the ones in your life who don't want anything for themselves, but you'd feel bad not getting them a gift. You purchase a gift card, give it to your loved one, and they can redeem the amount you bought the card for on the website by choosing one of the charities the website supports. So, say you buy a $50 gift card. They can give that $50 to hungry kids or shelter animals through the website.

For you eBay junkies, World of Good (http://worldofgood.ebay.com/) is an awesome place to get planet friendly products for a great price. You can choose different categories to search through such as the usual clothing, jewelry, home products, etc. Or you can look through the impact categories. If you're looking for something eco friendly you can click on the Eco Positive category and all the items that are good for the environment or made using reusable resources will come up. Don't knock it til you've looked at it. They've got some AWESOME stuff on there. A clock made out of bike chains for your biking buddy? They got it. Delicious smelling body products for your sensitive skin chica? They got it. Check it out!