Count your blessings

While she was at the library last week, Abby decided to sign herself up for their summer reading program, which, in addition to reading different types of books each week, also includes raising money for dresses for poor orphan children in Africa.

The library calls it a Count Your Blessings jar and each day you add a penny to the jar for each thing on the list, which is provided by the library, that you have. Yesterday, for example, you'd add a penny to your jar if you have a bike. Abby added one penny; Finn, since he doesn't have a bike, did not add a penny. Today, they each get to add a penny for every book that they read over the weekend (Finn will get lots of pennies because we read lots of books...it's the one thing I could do!).  Today I'm adding 50 pennies to each of their jars because I'm feeling 100% blessed that my back is feeling better (after 1 week, 3 visits to the chiropractor, 1 set of x-rays and the most glorious adjustment this afternoon.)!  The program through the library goes for a month and a half and at the end of the program, the kids can bring their jars in and add their pennies to all the other kids pennies and feel good about making a difference in someone else's life.

I plan to have our jars continue after the library's program is over and use the money we save up - loose change mostly - to purchase books for underprivileged kids this Christmas or at least to donate to a worthy cause.