Author Archives: Adora Mae

NTC Day 1

Yesterday was the first official day of NTEN’s Non Profit Technology Conference (NTC). We woke up to full on snow and walked to breakfast and back in it, then we had a few classes that they call break out sessions later in the morning and afternoon. These classes are really what make our trip out here worth it. The session presenters have so much knowledge and passion about helping 501(c)3’s and then the discussion times that follow are an amazing time to hear what other people who do your job at other non profits are succeeding at, struggling with or looking for help about. In the evening, after dinner we went to what NTEN calls a Science Fair, which is basically a trade show. Talked to a company we are starting a data project with next week and I kept my eye out for other org’s that specialize in Drupal planning ahead for our next website redesign and platform switch that might start as early as 2014. Here are some pics from the day.

we woke up to everything being covered in snow so we ventured out in it to find coffee

Starbucks is our reward for walking through the cold snow!

We decided to walk back to our hotel through the skywalk as far as it would go

#13NTCmvmt my first break out session of the day

coffee after our conference lunch

after another break out session it was back to the room to catch up on the work I had to do on our sites

dinner: Briana, Nell and I will find good Pad Thai in any city

view from the table at dinner

Science Fair

NTEN NTC

ended the night with a wine named after my husband watching lights on the building next door

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Friday, the 12th of April, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

Seeds for Smiles

On Tuesday morning at work I had an idea…while I was on the toilet, but that’s not the point. We had just started this new campaign that is actually kind of brilliant. We had a bunch of seeds donated that we can ship for about $5 per set to our projects so people living in poverty can start their own robust and varied fruit and vegetable garden. We were all so excited about this campaign, but because all campaigns that have a video to go along with it do about 1,000,000,000 times better than campaigns that don’t, I was trying to figure out how to make a video about gardens in the third world while garden-less in south Florida, USA.

I came up with what I thought was a short video we could make in office, but it was all dependent on being able to find video clips on our servers where there are hundreds of random clips, most of them unusable, that our project officers have brought back from their trips. God is so good though. I found every clip I thought I needed in an hour and recorded the rest on my iPhone mounted to a tripod, we also found audio from a one of our projects of Zambian children singing. My amazing husband even brought my laptop to work on his lunch break so that I could make the video in iMovie before I left for my business trip. This is no way an amazing video, I am not even close to being a half way decent video editor, but I have seen time and time again short videos of our projects inspire people to give generously in a way nothing else can. Inspiring people to help people, that is my goal. So, without further ado. Oh, and go to www.crossinternational.org/seeds to learn more and give a garden.

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Thursday, the 11th of April, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

NTC or Bust

Ridiculously early this morning, our whole web department left for our annual Non-profit Technology Conference which, this year, is in Minneapolis. So, we borrowed or thrift-ed winter clothes, which I’ve never owned before and we were on our way. We got into town pretty early and did a little exploring…here are some highlights.

At 5 in the morning there was a train just stopped on the tracks while we were trying to get to the airport… this is 20+ cars all backing up on a street trying to turn around

We made it on to the plane at 6:30am and ready to go!

View from the plane

Coffee and Kindle in the air

brie

nell

starbucks in the airport

coffee coffee coffee

no words

winter clothes on and freezing in the cab

snow!!!

i loved the paint on the side of this building

lunch

used books

basement of the bookshop

City directory it’s like this whole city is a mall

Part of huge wall timeline

A super cute candy shop off of marquette st.

We all tried a chocolate covered potato chip…it was pretty good

Blogging away back at the hotel. Conference starts tomorrow morning.

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Wednesday, the 10th of April, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

Volleyball

volleyball

Last night was the start of what will (hopefully) become a regular occurrence of sand Volleyball in my friend Miranda’s neighborhood. I’m hoping to grow this into a social type of life group. The key to this kind volleyball is for everyone to know that when I invited them, they all replied with the same message “Oh, I’m SO bad at volleyball”, we all are; I know I am. It’s free and it’s as fun as you make it. I loved it, however, I can’t believe I’m sore from mostly standing in one place and occasionally being hit with a ball – It’s time to step up my fitness.

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Tuesday, the 9th of April, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

What a load of crock

Crock Pot Chicken, Baby!

I love crock pots. I mean, I have successfully used one and that’s pretty much all it takes for someone to love crockpots. I think it probably speaks to my lazy nature that I am naturally drawn to a form of cooking that’s literally just put it in a bucket and leave it there. However, if you’ve ever struggled to shred chicken for tacos, bbq’s, enchiladas, literally any other food ever (because shredded chicken can be used in anything) you should look into taking up the art of the crock.

Also, please be advised that they make little trashbag looking liners for crockpots that make it so you don’t even have crockpot clean up. It’s spectacular.

There’s really no end to what you can accomplish with one of these, and unless you have a blackout at home while you’re at work, and the food can’t cook (which actually happened to me a few weeks ago) your dinner will be ready and hot and not microwaved when you get home. Who could ask for more? Anyway, back to the chicken.

When you make chicken in the crockpot, you don’t really have to “shred” at as much as just…sort of look at it or maybe move it around ever so slightly with a fork and it shreds itself. I wouldn’t believe it unless I had seen it with my own eyes. And I did. And it was pure magic.

This particular batch of chicken is going to go into some Enchiladas that my friend Briana taught me how to make. I’ll post that recipe later. She usually uses a rotisserie chicken from the store, but I have a thing about bones in food, so I am calling upon the pot.

Today I’m cooking the chicken in water and universal seasonings (which is code for the blackening spice I mixed up and use in differing amounts on everything I cook). Plopped the chicken down, sprinkled some seasoning, added a tea cup of water turned the crock pot on high. Six hours later, this magical wonderland of tender chicken.

Do you cook with crock? Are you gonna start?

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Monday, the 8th of April, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

Proud Giraffes

Proud little giraffe

Meet my little Giraffes. These buddies have been sitting on both ends of the top of our entertainment center since Christmas. I had bought them to make them into weird bookends for a friends Christmas present, but I waited too long to start. So, in the grand tradition of gift giving, I bought that friend something impersonal, and unimpressive at the last minute.

So they sat, for a long time. One day in a cleaning rage I decided on top of the entertainment center was a better storage place than the corner of the dining room where most of my ‘crafty Christmas’ supplies had been piled high and left to die as I was out buying last minute gifts.

Giraffe Make Over

Well boredom and free time have collided and today, they are getting a makeover. I will take these boys from “Why do you have toy giraffes on top of your tv?” to “What are those creepy white statues? Is that a Giraffe?” so fast your head will spin! All with the help of my little friend spray paint. Now, the color was such a tough choice. I had both white and bright purple spray paint in my craft drawers and because I’m poor, spending $3 on a can of another color was simply out of the question…so I went with white.

Look at them now. Handsome little guys. Still so proud. A little less blatant about their origins of the Target Dollar Spot. I like them. Welcome home, gentlemen.

What do you think?

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Sunday, the 7th of April, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae

History

Our Blue French Horn

I remember the first time I saw this thing. Sitting on my friend (now husband) Josh’s desk in his room at his parent’s house. I placed it immediately and thought (not for the first time) that he really over committed when it came to tv & movies. I’m sure at some point I’ll broach the subject of the life size storm trooper displaying on a mannequin that has found a permanent home in our guest bedroom, but not today.

I too was a faithful ‘How I Met Your Mother’ viewer, so I understood the reference, just not the reasoning behind having a blue french horn.

I also remember months and months later when he showed up at my apartment to give me my birthday presents with the horn in hand, filled to the brim with sunflowers. I knew this had symbolism to him and as was my habit at that age, I panicked and forced my friend Devin to keep it at her house.

It went from her house, to Josh’s apartment when he moved, back to his parents house, to my next apartment, and finally to the place we made our home in. There is absolutely no easy way to display a french horn so after nearly a year of it sitting in a closet or at the top of our bookshelf, I tied it up with some string and decided that was good enough.

It’s not the most beautiful wall hanging I’ve ever seen, but it has something that very few things in our house (besides ourselves) have; it has history.

A few months ago, after I had hung the horn on the wall, I found out something that I never knew. He bought it for me. He met me, and he knew. He liked the reference to the show and as he has a tendency to do, he dove right it.

Josh went online and bought the only french horn he could afford, bought it, and painted it blue. Then he waited. He waited for me, it waited for me. Now it’s in our home. How beautiful.

xoxo,
Adora

| Posted on Saturday, the 6th of April, in the year 2013 by Adora Mae