Misc. News from the Palace of Sasha

So much news that I want to report here has been accumulated, so I thought I should finally squeeze in a post to get it out there!

1) I am once again in my town's newspaper! They did a follow-up article on my delivery of the pajamas. Unfortunately, the story wasn't big enough to post on the website, so I can't put a link to it here, but basically, it described my experience dropping off the pajamas and my goal to do much more for AHOPE through subsequent drives in the future. And speaking of AHOPE, I haven't forgotten about letting in here how that went. It's just that I have so much to write about it that it'll take me more than a few minutes to type out. I'll try my best to get to it over the weekend.

2) Melissa Faye Green, author of "There is No Me Without You", who I have been corresponding with personally through e-mail since before our referral, is coming to a town near us!!!! She'll be stopping by the library at a neighboring town on Wednesday, Sept. 26th. I'm pretty sure I'll be pulled out of school to see her- I mean, it's not every day you get to meet someone that huge in the Ethiopian adoption world (or a bigger world!) and she has after all been communicating with me...she knows all about Sasha at this point! She'll be there for an hour, and since I have my free period for part of it I'd only be missing math, which, according to me, is completely worth skipping ;-). In any case, my mom will for sure take Sasha, but I'm pretty sure I'll go too. I can't believe I'm finally going to meet her! (For those of you who don't know about MFG, she wrote the very famous- at least in the adoption world- book called "There Is No Me Without You" about a woman in Ethiopia who took in orphans and ended up opening an orphanage. It follows the stories of families in the U.S. and other countries who adopted those children, and it's all very heartwarming and heartbreaking. It also talks a lot about Ethiopia as well as the history of AIDS. The website is http://www.thereisnomewithoutyou.org .)

3) I was tagged by Staci (http://www.journey2sarah.blogspot.com/ ) for a "middle name" meme. Like Staci did, I'm going to do Sasha's middle name, Eraye- for one thing, this blog is mostly about her, and for another, I don't have a middle name ;-).

E- Energetic. She's like the Energizer Bunny (sorry to refer to such an oft-used synonym)- she keeps going, and going, and going...until she crashes.
R- Resourceful. Language so far has been a bit of a struggle for her, but she almost always manages to get her point across in a variety of (often hilarious!) ways!
A- Attention-hogging. She's on a constant quest for attention and most often gets it.
Y- Young- she has her whole, exciting life ahead of her! She's only 19 months old, but she has so much personality. With such character, one may ask, "Where will she be in 20 years?" The answer? Wherever the heck she wants! (With some limitations, of course...)
E- Effervescent. When I come home from school, the glowing expression of pure joy on her face could light up the room!

Since "Eraye" has five letters in it, I will now "tag" five people: Nikki (http://www.dreamasifyouwillliveforever.blogspot.com/), Erin (http://www.erins-ethiopia-trip.blogspot.com/), Marissa (http://marissalynn13.blogspot.com/), Ally (http://lifewithlillyjayde.blogspot.com/) and Kelsey (http://www.afamilyoften.blogspot.com/ .)

If you've been tagged for this already, just ignore it- or do someone else you write about (like a sibling.) Thanks for tagging me, Staci! This is fun!

*Oh, to give you an idea of how tired I've been and how occupied I have been with hard classes: Going through my next day's schedule last night before bed, I told myself I had AP Band (it doesn't exist) and honors lunch. Hmmm.