The Cradle Project Auction

The Cradle Project is a local event to help raise awareness and funds for the children of Africa. From their website:

In Spring of 2008 one thousand cradles and cribs made by artisans from around the world will fill an abandoned warehouse in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  We call this vision The Cradle Project. 

The Cradle Project is a fundraising art installation designed to represent the plight of the estimated 48 million children who have been orphaned by disease and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa.

Our Mission is to promote awareness and raise financial support to help feed, shelter, and educate these children.

The Cradle Project’s vision is to utilize the symbolism of empty cradles and falling sand to represent the lost potential of these orphaned children.  Our goal is to amass a minimum of 1,000 cradles, all made out of scrap material.  We believe that if we can see enough potential in a piece of scrap to make a structure which cradles a child, why can we not see that much potential in our world’s forgotten children.  Empty cradles speak for themselves.  Juxtaposed to these cradles will be a wall of slowly falling sand, symbolizing how these lives, these cradles, this potential, will all be buried and never realized.

In an effort to raise funds, The Cradle Project is seeking sponsors for each of the cradles represented in this installation. Additionally, we will host an on-line auction where each of the cradles can be purchased.  Each cradle and artisan will be featured in our on-line gallery and auction. 

All proceeds from the sponsorship and purchase of the cradles will be donated to our partner organizations who work directly with orphans throughout sub-Saharan Africa to help alleviate the suffering caused by this dire situation.

People of all ages and from all around the world are invited to participate in this project.  If you are interested in making or sponsoring a cradle please refer to HOW TO HELP.

If you would like to propose or sponsor an exhibit please CONTACT US.

So the auction has started (on June 7th actually) and will run until June 17th. Unfortunatly, from what I can tell there aren’t a huge amount of bids on many of the cradles. Please take a look at the auction and bid if you can. There are some very interesting and beautiful pieces. And please pass the information on. Thank you!

Finding Balance in My Diet

With starting the process of loosing weight and at the same trying to get off of soda, its been a bit of a challenge with my diet add on the desire to quite intaking fake sugars I can’t even really talk about that. I don’t say diet as in – I am cutting this and that out to loose weight. I mean diet – as in what I am eating throughout the day. My first step was to stop drinking Diet Dr. Pepper. Now, I didn’t head straight to the Dr. Pepper rack but I did start buying Green Tea in a bottle. Bad choice – so much sugar in those its insane. So, trying to cut back on calories has been difficult because I have been loosing calories that I could use to eat healthier and the right amount to one single drink a day. And they are empty calories/carbs not good carbs like brown rice or natural sugars from fruit. Just icky sugar. And it was frustrating that at the end of the day I was going over the limit I set for myself because of a drink.

So, yesturday I started drinking (again) Cranergyfrom Oceanspray. While not completely giving up caffeine, which I can now go most of the day without, I am also drinking something much healthier for me. With a lot more natural sugars and less calories. I give myself 3 glass of juice a day before and now substituted some of that juice with this during the work day. Unfortunately it used Sucralose in it… which is a step back in that department but its hard to get everything. At least its a step forward in the calorie department.

Now, I am a full support of keeping carbs in your diet for mental/physical health reasons. Especially for women. Cutting all carbs out of your diet is insane. There is a reason why carbs are the largest food groups on the food pryamid even if we really don’t need that many breads in our daily diet. But like many things in life – its all about moderation. I was finding, after tracking each days food intake for the past few weeks that over 60% of my diet had been cards. I had decreased my caloric intake in many meals but my carbs were still really high. So, next step – decrease the portion sizes of my carbs. No more just spagetti for dinner – unless I am running a marathon the next day, which isn’t going to happen for more then a year from now – but make a larger salad and have a smaller plate of spagetti. I guess that means no more large bowl dinners of Spagetti and sausage. And also eating healthier carbs. Again spagetti – try to buy whole wheat instead of white flour based spagetti. And buy food with less preservatives.

So, is it working? I haven’t a clue but I will let you know. But on top of everything else my body is slowly showing change after 3 weeks of workouts. I have been focusing a little much on toning and not aerobic so this week I am upping the aerobic and balancing it with the strenght/toning. This morning I woke up for the first time, early enough to workout in the morning. I did the 10 minute Boot Camp DVD which allows you to choose between 5 different 10 minute sections to make your own workout or just do a single one. I did the Arm & Upper Body workout and then a Fat Blaster – which just about kicked my ass. But I will say, I am liking what I see in the mirror each morning and my clothes are fitting a slight better. I am just glad I haven’t lost the body that responds quickly to excercise yet. I was scared it had gone away. And the cherry on top – I am loving my life so much better now and just liking myself a little more. Its been a difficult few weeks but each day just gets better and better. Now to just loose those LBS.