List of 8s

So, apparently my alphabet post didn't inspire much of anything blog-wise. Just the same, Kim tagged me for this and I figured... why not?

8 Things I Am Looking Forward To

1) Ocean City's Spring Block Party next weekend.
2) My week off of work in June.
3) First Phillies game of the season!
4) Starting Piper's obedience classes.
5) My next scone at Fourth and First.
6) Returning to healthy eating and exercise. (Really, I'm looking forward to this.)
7) Florida.
8) Going to Culinary School (Someday...)

8 Things I Did Yesterday

1) Purchased over 100 WWE action figures and accessories for $15 at a yard sale.
2) Purchased a food processor for $3 at a yard sale.
3) Ate lunch at Kessel's Korner with Stef and Shawnda.
4) Ate dinner at Brio with John and company.
5) Spilled my coffee all over the place at Fourth and First.
6) Walked Piper with my dad.
7) Crafted some mini clay cupcakes.
8) Took photos at Bayfest with Pam and Anthony.

8 Things I Wish I Could Do

1) Go to Culinary School.
2) Get Piper to stop barking.
3) See John more often.
4) Win the lottery.
5) Live on the west coast.
6) Lose weight.
7) Open an Etsy shop.
8) Blog more consistently again :)

8 Shows I Watch
This is a stretch - some shows are via DVD and few I watch regularly

1) Grey's Anatomy
2) Friends
3) Top Chef
4) Gilmore Girls
5) Wheel of Fortune
6) Food Network Challenge
7) It's Me or the Dog
8) King of Queens

8 People I Tag

I don't have eight people to tag, and I don't think anyone I tag will probably do this anyway... maybe Ryan. So I'll tag Ryan, Felicia and Eric via blogs, and John, Jess, Ian, and Stef via Facebook. (Seven is better than none!) Have fun, guys.

Me - A to Z

My blog's been suffering as of late. While I was cruising around the internet tonight reading various sites and blogs I enjoy, I came across this meme on Roaring Through My Twenties... (great blog - I highly recommend it). Now, I don't do very many of these, but I was partial to this one. Maybe it will jump start a series of entertaining posts!

Anyway, here it is. My life in an A to Z fashion.

A - Age: 25

B - Bed size: Full... I wish it were a king.

C - Chore You Hate: Folding and putting away laundry.

D – Dad’s Name: Let's ask John, shall we?

E - Essential Start Your Day Item: Cuddling with the Pipester. (I'm serious. Sad, right?)

F - Favorite Actor: Hm. I don't know that I have one.

G - Gold or Silver: Silver, although I've started throwing in the odd gold piece more recently. But most definitely silver.

H - Height: I'm 5'7 3/4" and yes, those three quarters are very important to me

I - Instrument (s) you play: The piano, rather poorly.

J - Job Title: I have many. I guess you could just go with Editor.

K - Kid(s): Desperately want one. My clock is ticking, isn't that what they say?

L - Like: Right now, I'd really like a vacation.

M - Mom’s Name: Mary Frances

N - Nickname: Kris ... KR ... Grumpy Button ... Hun

O - Overnight Hospital Stay Other Than Birth: Nada

P - Pet Peeves: Loud, open-mouth eating. Ugh. Dishonesty, laziness and superiority complexes top the list, too.

Q - Quote that you like: "We do not know the true value of our moments until they have undergone the test of memory." - G. Duhamel

R - Righty or Lefty: Just a righty. I've always been sad about that. Both of my siblings are lefties.

S - Siblings: Two brothers, one older and one younger.

T - Time You Wake Up: I should get up at 7. I generally wake up at 8 - and then I rush, rush, rush!

U - Useful tool: Scissors?

V - Vegetable that you dislike: I thought I disliked cauliflower, but Pam disproved that. Maybe beets, unless they are in cake form.

W - Why you run late: Well, because I oversleep.

X - X-rays You’ve Had: Plenty of my teeth. Then there were some for a broken ankle, broken hand, broken finger and busted knees (left and right). I think that's it.

Y - Yummy Foods You Make: I love to bake and cook, so I imagine (and hope) there are many. I'll go with my chocolate chip banana nut muffins, though.

Z - Zodiac: Libra, which seems to suit me.

P.S. Happy 26th Birthday, Pam!

Starbucks + Crafting = Happy Me :)

I found two of my worlds colliding today - it was the inaugural monthly craft day at my local Starbucks. Now, we all know how I love my coffee, and if you check out my craftster account you can find the threads I started to try to get a crafting group together in South Jersey (to no avail). So, today was quite perfect!

I worked all weekend (our extra huge, important spring edition of the newspaper comes out this Thursday), so I didn't feel guilty about a little two-hour break this afternoon. Felicia and Ryan came with, and we all painted two planters and filled them with soil and marigold seeds. We got to bring one home, and the other we left there to be distributed on Earth Day to local nursing homes. The "planter" was actually a Starbucks cup, and I love how the logo can be seen through the paint. It added another dimension to the whole project.

This was definitely a more kid-oriented craft (we were, in fact, the only adults painting), but the Starbucks manager organizing the events, Jeanette, said that the monthly craft-a-long is going to tend to be more for adults. It's going to be the first Sunday of the month at the Somers Point Starbucks, so if anyone is near there, they should stop in! Every craft is going to be a community outreach project, too.

I guess that makes three of my worlds colliding - crafting, Starbucks and charity work! It doesn't get better than that. (Well, maybe if there were some puppies and kittens running around, but that wouldn't be sanitary in an eatery.)

Easter Egging

I went over to Stef and Bill's tonight to dye Easter eggs. I haven't dyed eggs in a few years, so it was a lot of fun. Even though Salem is only 2, he did a great job and we only suffered one egg casualty (turns out no matter how tiny the hands, the squeezing of eggs is always a bad idea).

As long as we reminded him pretty incessantly to be careful and move slowly, Sam concentrated really hard and took his time, without too many splashes of dyes and messes. Here he is finishing up a blue egg (with some help from Stef, of course).


By next year Sam's going to be a little pro, and we'll be able to get Finn in on the action - with lots of guidance from his parents and me, of course. And hey, who knows - maybe he'll get some help from his big brother, too.



Happy early Easter!

Too busy for blogging...

...I also haven't had much to say.

There's been a handful of posts I've started, but then decided not to publish because they were a little too full of doom and gloom. Things have been... mediocre, as of late, and while I'm powering through just fine, it makes it a little hard to write about happy things at day's end.

I haven't crafted much, but I did manage to finish two more button coasters over the past week. I'm really pleased with them and have already picked up the embroidery floss for another set. I just need to get some more buttons - I want to find some off-white, pearly ones for this next set. It's for someone in particular.

After next week, work will be a bit calmer (although I don't expect life to follow suit). I hope the weather starts warming up and the flowers start blooming. It's been dreary and foggy here and, while I'm not necessarily against grey weather, it certainly hasn't been helping my mindset right now. I need some sun.

I think if I asked my 15-year-old self where I would be at 25, it wouldn't be where I am. It seems most all aspects of my life are rather muddled, and I'm having a lot of trouble sifting through the bad to concentrate on the good. I know I'm just a bit down right now, but some major spring life cleaning seems to be in order.

You only live once. (Unless reincarnation turns out to be real, in which case I hope I come back as a dolphin.)

Tuesday breakfast

Skim latte and raspberry scone from Fourth on First... a very good start to my morning.

Button Coaster

I thought this looked like the cutest craft when I saw it posted at craftstylish earlier this month. I was totally amped and envisioning dozens of beautiful, rainbow colored button coasters. I get like this with new crafty ideas and projects, only to be brought back down to earth by the sheer frustration of it all once I get started.

That's what happened with this coaster.

It took me over a week to finish, partly because I've been very busy and partly because I needed to take many breaks from the stitching. It wasn't terribly difficult, just tedious. One too-tight thread would throw an entire row of buttons off. And - being a perfectionist - it was killing me when I finished a row and there was an extra loose button or one stitch that looped too large. I plugged away, though, and finally finished tonight while watching the season four finale of "Jon and Kate Plus 8." (Will there be a season five? We don't know!)

All the griping aside, I'm actually really pleased with how it turned out. It's far from perfect, but I learned along the way and now can start and end my rows much sharper and neater than from following the tutorial alone. I guess I would say it was worth the effort. I'll at least be making three more of them, because I want a full set of four. (That's what I had in mind before I began.) They will probably be a gift for a very special friend, since I don't use coasters much myself.

Of course, there are still a few other color combinations I'd like to see come to fruition. There may be plenty more button coasters in my future ... or at least two or three more sets.

That also depends if I can find some cheaper buttons somewhere. Any suggestions?

Glasses

When I was in the third grade, I wanted glasses. My two best friends wore glasses, and for some reason I thought it would be cool to wear them. I remember thinking I would look grown up and sophisticated. Of course, there was a problem.

I had perfect vision - better than perfect, in fact. It was 20/10, meaning I could read a letter from 20 feet away, whereas a person with the perfect 20/20 vision would need to be 10 feet away. This caused a snag in my getting-glasses plan. So I did what any 9-year-old would do.

I lied.

When I went to the nurse's office that year for my annual physical, I remember making up my mind just as I was sitting on the short green stool in front of the eye exam machine. I was going to throw the test. I was going to just make everything up. The nurse was alarmed and at first asked me to repeat a few things. I read off the lines of letters with about 50 percent accuracy. I saw the red ball above, on and below the table with about the same success.

The problems with this plan didn't occur to me - that if I was prescribed glasses with this eyesight, I wouldn't be able to see a thing. I just wanted glasses, plain and simple. This was before it was trendy to sell non-prescription glasses just for this purpose, so I saw this as my only alternative.

I went to the eye doctor that afternoon. The nurse was alarmed and called my mom, and she brought me right after school. At this point, I panicked. I was a good kid - I didn't lie about anything - and now I thought I was going to get caught and, consequently, get into huge trouble.

By the time I was sitting in my eye doctor's office, I totally chickened out. I flew through the eye exam without a single mistake, right back to my 20/10 vision. He told my mom there were no problems. I told her I had no idea what happened and that my eyes were just fine. (I think she thought my nurse was a moron for the rest of elementary school.)

Fast forward 16 years.

Aside from the third grade misstep, I always loved having perfect eyesight. With such good vision, I also stopped going to the eye doctor. I honestly didn't realize I should make a trip at least every few years. Until recently, I felt like there was no need. My vision was perfect - until it wasn't. When I noticed the decline, I decided it was time to go to the eye doctor. I had an appointment two Saturdays ago after my 10-year hiatus.

And guess what?


Yep. I got my glasses.

Me & John

This is a photo Felicia took of John and me on New Year's Eve. I really like it, although we look a little pasty, don't we? The summer can't come soon enough. Sometimes it's sad living at the beach when it's snowing.

Winter Wonderland...

Snow... and peanut butter pie!

They said it was supposed to snow. A lot.

Guess what? It's actually snowing. A lot.

I'm excited, I guess, because I love snow, but I was pretty set on not having any more for the winter. I will still have work tomorrow (the news doesn't sleep!). Actually, Pam and I are trying to figure out how we'll be able to get our cars out of the alley in the morning. There's only one exit and we're pretty sure the city isn't going to plow a pathway for us. Oh, and yes. I said Pam and I. Ryan just got the phone call that her district is closed tomorrow. I knew I should have stayed an education major...

So, yesterday I made a peanut butter pie to bring to Jess and Matt's for game night. It was delicious, and fortunately the recipe makes two pies and we kept the second one. Tonight Ryan, Felicia and I indulged in another piece.



Doesn't it look great? I never made one before, but it was insanely easy. I followed the recipe I found on The Swell Life. Thanks, Alexa! (And by the way her blog is great, you should check it out.)

Be nice to reporters.

Yesterday I interviewed a man attending an event I had to cover for work. When I'm at events, I'm pretty super-pleasant to deal with. You sort of need to be in this line of work - at least, it gets you better interviews when you are. Who wants to talk to a rude, grumpy reporter?

Which kind of brings me to my point. I'm not being rude, so how about the people I interview not be rude, either?

So, I talk to this guy - he's a senior citizen, real nice, a bit hard of hearing - and then I ask if I can take his photo with his friends. This really pleases him, so he and his friends get together and I snap a couple shots. Then I say that I'm with my newspaper, and they say that's great, they will pick up copies this week.

I walk away (about 10 feet?) to get my bag and belongings together, and I hear the guy loudly proclaim, "I wish it was (the other local weekly newspaper), because that one is free!"

Now, come on. I'm standing right there - couldn't he have at least waited until I was out of the room? Plus the fact that my newspaper costs 50 cents. I know the economy is rough right now, but why not splurge a little if you're going to get your picture in the paper and have some fleeting fame?

Things like this happen more often than I'd like to admit, and it's just as disheartening every time. So, if you ever need to deal with a newspaper, for whatever reason - you're interviewed, you need to place an ad, you want to run a birth announcement - be courteous and act like you care about the publication.

If you care about me, I'll care about you. It's that simple.

Etsy Love

If you haven't visited Etsy before, stop reading and go there immediately. Peruse, enjoy and take it all in, and then come back and check out some of my favorite sellers and latest finds. Agreed? Good.

I joined Etsy (as a buyer) a couple of years ago, and I've gotten plenty of quality gifts (some for myself!) from independent crafters all over the country. There are plenty of international sellers, too. Unless you're living in some dream town, you'd be hard pressed to find the specialty, one-of-a-kind items that people create and put up for sale on Etsy. I have a few favorite stores locally that I frequent for this same reason (The Flying Carp and The Maple Tree are two of my favorites), but I've come to buy more and more from Etsy, too, especially if it means I can forgo the big chain stores and mall trips for something more unique.

I decided to throw together a list of some of my favorite Etsy sellers and a look at items I'd love to buy, but really don't have the money for right now. There are thousands of sellers on Etsy, so even if the following don't tickle your fancy, I'm willing to bet you can find someone who does.

Untamed Menagerie

This mother daughter duo from Tennessee creates wonderous, whimsical acrylic jewelry. Their work is absolutely inspiring, and I think everyone should sport their creations. I myself have had my eye on these little numbers for months and months now:



Does it get any better than a strand of pearls with a tight-rope walking elephant? And look at the bows! Absolutely charming. And, come on, the earrings? They are chandelier earrings that look like chandeliers.

It's only a matter of time before I break down and order one. Untamed Menagerie also has fabulous prices (which the majority of Etsy world does). The elephant necklace is $22 and the chandelier earrings are $18. I think I can spare that much of my next paycheck...

picapicadesign

I have a soft spot for all things recycled, and picapicadesign is the perfect place to shop for those who love your three R's. Liz Grotyohann is a graphic designer in New Jersey who is also a self-proclaimed "crafter/collage artist by night." Her Etsy shop is full of beautiful jewelry, repurposed object art, vases and bowls out of recycled papers and maps (!), and tons more.

I'm buying these earrings for my friend, Amy, at some point. It's not a question of if I will, but more so when I will.


The world is Amy's home, and what better way to express that than with earrings depicting teeny maps of two of her most-loved places? This is something lots of Etsy sellers feature - custom made crafts. You're not going to find that at most stores, for sure. These earrings run $18.

I also adore Liz's map bowls:


These ones are made out of Boston metro maps, and I love the black and white quality. The bowl is $18, too.

shaNickers

I never painted the walls of my bedroom, and at this point I'm not going to. What that means is I need some very cool, decorative art to take up the vast whiteness. My problem is solved with shaNickers!

Shanon is an interior designer in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and her shop is full of her unique wall decals and self-adhesive wall murals. They don't damage the surface and are easy to apply, but then take down and take with you if you're a renter (like myself).

Here's my favorites:



The birdie perched is $46. The stylized flowers is $57. I want to cover my room in Shanon's artwork, but I have a feeling, as cool as it is, it wouldn't look so good all mashed together on four tiny walls. ;)

Paloma's Nest

Caroline Colom Vasquez, an Austin, Texas, based artist, creates with all natural materials including fine clays, wood, paper and cloth. She says her pieces are "for the heart," and once you look through her shop it's impossible not to agree with her. What initially caught my eye at Caroline's shop were her snowy white ceramic pieces. She hand stamps words and phrases onto a myriad of things, including tiny textured dishes and bowls, and I love the simplicity of it all.

It's hard to pick a favorite, and if I order anything I may go with a custom pick, but I do love this:


The 3.5 inch in diameter bowl is $18. It would be perfect just sitting on a desk or dresser, whether to look at or to catch life's tiniest treasures that you need a quick temporary home for.

And I love the quirkiness of this:


Caroline has these in her shop to mark spring, a season of "regeneration, rebirth, prosperity and hope." An egg is a pretty perfect symbol for all that, no? Plus, imagine the conversation a little ceramic egg would spark.

***

A few other sellers I could never pass up would be:
The Black Apple
Ashley G and Drew
OhKayK
KirstenLovesDinner

And there's about a hundred more. I love Etsy.

Post Valentine's Day Post

I had a lovely, low key Valentine's Day this year.

The highlight? Aside from just getting to spend it with John, I'd say the top honors would have to go with the necklace John gave me. The pink sapphire and diamond white gold pendant is pictured above. I love it because it's unusual without looking over-the-top. Pretty, no? I'm a very basic jewelry kind of person, and John always does a great job in getting me beautiful, thoughtful things that I will definitely enjoy wearing.

The ball was dropped a bit on reservations. (Did anyone guess how quickly fine dining establishments would book up on a Valentine's Day that fell on Saturday? Well, obviously we didn't.) However, we got a reprieve with an unused reservation of my brother's, so we found ourselves at the Tuckahoe Inn for dinner. (If you're not from here and haven't heard of this restaurant before, I can assure you - those jokes are not new to me.)

It was a nice dinner, and we followed it up with some gambling in Atlantic City - not romantic, at all, really, but it was okay. (Our original plan was to eat dinner in A.C. and gamble anyway, so we decided to still go.) What was not okay, however, was us both losing money. John lost $20. I lost ... more than $20.

Our reservation for dinner was early, so even after our quick jaunt to A.C., we were home by 9:30. So what did we do?

Well, played Scrabble, of course!

Happy Birthday, Finn!

Cake for Finn's first birthday party was finished at 11 a.m. and left on the kitchen counter.

Now fast forward to 12:45 p.m. I am in the bathroom blowdrying my hair. My roommates are upstairs. My dog walks into the kitchen, no doubt pulled forward by the overwhelmingly sweet smell of sugar. (A pound of powdered sugar in the icing alone, to be exact.)

You can guess what happened, right?


In all fairness to myself, though, Piper knows not to do things like that. Has she done similar things before? Well, yes. But in general, I can leave plates of food in front of her black little nose with a stern warning as I go pour a glass of water in the kitchen, and while she'll soak the carpet at her feet from salivating, she won't even take a lick.

And since we were leaving momentarily - and since Piper hadn't touched the cake in the hour and a half it sat taunting her from a couple of feet above her head - I wasn't paying much attention. But then I noticed Piper wasn't staked out on the sixth stair on the staircase by the bathroom, which is where she always sits sentry while I am blowdrying my hair. (What can I say? She's a strange dog.)

That's when I turned off the blowdryer and called her name. Then I peeked around the corner into the kitchen to find a very happy dog licking the icing off of what was a very cute cake in record time. Her little tongue was going a mile a minute, and she didn't jump down until I was a foot from her, screaming like a banshee. And what did Piper do?

She slowly wagged her tail, licking orange frosting from her whiskers and staring at me in a stupor. I think the sugar coma was already setting in, and my yelling had no effect whatsoever.

Did I cry? Surprisingly, no. I almost did, especially when I called Stef and Bill to relay the news of their son's first birthday cake, and the response I got from both of them was laughter. It was not funny. At least not at that time. Fortunately, Stef just told me to cut off the Piper-piece and bring the cake anyway. (That's the photo above, actually - Piper certainly isn't that neat in her cake thievery.)

Oh, and then the jokes kept coming. I know of at least two who posed like this with the cake (this one is Stef):


And while everyone kept telling me how great the cake was, I couldn't help but inject dripping sarcasm into all of their compliments. I mean, seriously - when a cake is supposed to read "Happy 1st Birthday, Finn. Have a ball!" and it ends up reading "Happy 1st Birthday, Finn. Have a rall!" ... well, "rall" isn't even a word! How great could the cake be?

But when it was time for cake, we all sang, and Finn smiled and blew the candle out with Stef. He eyed up his piece of orange-iced cake and took a hesitant nibble before realizing that, yes, this tasted mighty good, and trying to shove the entire thing into his mouth at once.

It was Finn who changed my mind about the whole disaster. I mean, look at him.


Piper eating the cake? It really didn't matter, after all.

Grande skim latte, hold the coffee.

I haven't been to Starbucks in a while, so I treated myself today and ordered my usual - a grande skim latte.

I typically wait to start drinking for a few minutes because I can't take scalding hot coffee, so by the time I was back in my car and pulling away I took a sip and thought, "Hm. Tastes... wrong."

I took a bigger gulp at the red light around the corner and decided that, yes, they definitely forgot to put the espresso in my drink. What I had was a nice medium-sized cup of steamed milk with a packet of Sweet 'n Low mixed in. At this point, I wasn't turning around, but what a bummer.

It snowed tonight.

The flakes were so fine, they sparkled through the air. It didn't look like the snow was just falling from the sky. It looked like it was coming from all directions - from above, below, in front, behind... it looked like the air was full of a hundred million glittering specks. It looked like magic.

I stopped and stared for a few moments before I kept walking.

I could use a little magic.

So long, Mr. Mouse.

On Sunday, when my roommates and I cleaned out the kitchen closet, we discovered an unwanted little visitor was keeping house among our canned goods and cereals. A mouse. Lovely.

On Monday, I set two no-kill traps with crackers and peanut butter.

On Tuesday morning, the cracker was gone, but there was no mouse. I reloaded the trap.

On Tuesday evening, the cracker was gone again, but once more, no mouse. I realized the trap door wasn't shutting correctly, so I swapped it out with the other trap. I also told Piper I was going to swap her for a cat.

On Wednesday morning, the trap was shut, moved more than a foot across the floor, on its side, chewed and ... no mouse. At this point I'm wondering if it could be a super mouse, or maybe a rat. I set the trap again.

On Wednesday afternoon, trap was shut, chewed, with no mouse. I set it once more, resigning myself to the fact that my roommate was going to get to set killing traps since this, obviously, wasn't working, and the mouse was still eating our food and pooping everywhere. I reminded Piper that she was being rather useless with the mouse-catching.

On Wednesday night, around midnight, while John and I were watching "Top Chef" and Piper was sleeping on the couch beside me, she suddenly jumped up and ran into the kitchen. She whined at the closet door and looking at me alarmingly. Suddenly, I realized, the mouse! I ran over, opened the door, and - tah dah! - before he could escape, we caught him. The sneaky thing.

John cleaned out the bucket we had been using for our leaking shower (our house isn't falling apart, I swear), and we plopped the mouse inside with a few crackers. (He was huge for a mouse.) I closed the lid, but was going to open it so John could take a photo. He said the mouse would jump. I said no way. For the next 10 minutes we watched him slam his head into the lid of the bucket trying to escape.

Piper was quite displeased with this little creature, so we couldn't watch the rest of "Top Chef" and instead drove the mouse to the beach and let it out near the pavilion, so it would have a little shelter in the cold. I barely saw him scamper away when I tilted the bucket. A police officer drove by very slowly (of course), but surprisingly didn't stop. I guess a girl in snowflake pajamas, pink slippers and a big blue bucket isn't very suspicious.

When we got home, we finished watching "Top Chef" and I, of course, gave Piper a lot of treats and a lot of praise. She did a great job. I didn't need a cat after all.

It's melting! It's melting!

The snow is melting.

Right now it's turning into a sad, slushy mess. Some very cold, fat raindrops are falling from the sky and ruining the pristine white that covered the ground just a few short hours ago. I bet we had over an inch of snow last night. An inch!

Can't it stay around just a little longer? Maybe next time.

Charity for charity's sake

In the newspaper business - or any media outlet, I imagine - you come across a lot of attention hogs.

There's quite a variety. There's the "pusher" parents of star athletes or students, letting you know of every little teeny tiny accomplishment of their kid. Then there are the town know-it-alls, who, as you might have guessed, think they know everything and should therefore be included in every article ever written. You've also got the ones who had their five minutes of fame for whatever reason (maybe was an extra in a movie or wrote a book) and are still trying to stretch that out 10 years later.

The attention hogs I hate the most, though, are the charity ones.

I think the things that really gets me is the slight irony of it all - the selfless goodwill of volunteering or running a non-profit venture, mirrored with the insatiable need to have your actions broadcasted for all the community to see every step of the way. Is it still selfless? Not really. Is it still helpful volunteerism? Well, sure. But it doesn't hold the same weight for me, personally, if someone volunteering so desperately needs credit for doing so.

I volunteer with the local animal shelter. I wish I could do more - I want to do more - but my schedule really keeps me from it. But from volunteering for different venues since middle school, it never occurred to me to get media attention for it. I volunteer because I want to help make a difference in my community. I want to help people (and animals) who need it. If people know I do it, that's great. If they don't, still fine.

This is not to say there shouldn't be coverage of non-profits or volunteer efforts - that's far from what I'm saying. Non-profits definitely need coverage. It spreads awareness for their cause and, hopefully, will spur others to donate time, money or items. I love covering non-profits, whether it's the cookie drive for troops by the local American Legion or the programming at the local cancer support network, Gilda's Club. These are awesome things that deserve attention.

So are people who volunteer. If a local brownie troop cleans up Kennedy Park, they should get the perk of seeing their smiling faces in the newspaper or on television. If the high schoolers bake dog treats during their study halls to hand out to local animal organizations, it's right to highlight their efforts. This is good news. It's happy news. It's news that will get others thinking they can do something like this, too.

The people I'm talking about - the charity attention hogs - are the ones who seem to be conducting the charity work just as much for the publicity as they're doing it for the charity, or perhaps even more so. They must have their names/company's name tied prominently with the organization. They must get credit for what they're doing first and foremost, as opposed to wanting to spread the word of how the charity venture works and how others can help. It's all about them-them-them - and oh yeah, the charity, too.

It's sort of hard to explain, and unless you've come across these types of people, you might not understand what I'm saying. But while I've only been in the business full time for a few years, I've seen this happen countless times. As a huge advocate of volunteerism, it boggles my mind. It's such a skewed motive.

This is definitely the minority, but it goes along with that idea of just a few spoiling it for the whole bunch. When I get five pleasant phone calls in a day, it's that one screamer that leaves the biggest impression. So when you have a ton of amazing people working with non-profits, it's the couple doing it for the wrong reasons that stick out, unfortunately.

Wrong reasons or not, if they're volunteering and helping out others, I guess they can do what they need to do. Of course, I'm going to do what I need to do, too.

And that's not write about them - at least not until they get their priorities in order.