First Reflections - By the Numbers

Over the last 40 days, Amber and I have given all of our actual realized income to others - mostly in the form of donations to worthwhile non-profit organizations, but also in some more personal ways, such as giving out gift cards to a local grocery store, some generous birthday gifts, buying breakfasts for random people at a restaurant, and so on.

We have kept some money, as I outlined at the beginning. For example, we used the child support we receive from our oldest son's biological father to help with groceries, childcare, and other expenses. We also have a rental house which clears about $50 a month in profit, after the mortgage and other regular expenses are paid, and we put that $50 back for maintenance expenses. And we of course didn't give away money that we didn't get - so my paycheck deductions for taxes, insurance, 401(k) contributions, and so on were all done before the money was given away.

So we had two net paychecks from my day job and a monthly payment from About.com which we gave away. In addition, shortly into the project, we learned I was getting a bonus, and decided to give that as well ... but, again, taxes, 401(k) contributions, and some other things were taken out of that, and we only gave the remaining balance that made its way to us.

I say all of this to make it clear that we really focused on giving away the money that came into our lives during these 40 days, in an effort to stay true to the spirit of what we were doing. Even the $100 I received as the first payment on our sold pickup, which was given to me a few days prior to the start date, was mostly given away.

So now that it was all said and done, I was curious ... how much did it actually cost us financially?

Fortunately, I keep my financial records in Quicken Home & Business, so it's easy to check. This tracks everything - retirement accounts, business accounts, student loans, car loans, mortgages, checking accounts, savings accounts ... I even track how much I have in PayPal on this thing! So I can pull up a report which tells my net worth at the start of the project and my net worth at the end of the project, and figure out exactly how much my net worth changed over the course of giving all of our money away. (The only thing that isn't taken into account is any depreciation on our home or vehicles, or any other physical assets that we have.)

The difference in our overall financial picture, after having given away 40 days worth of income, is ....

$674.37

That's right. From February 15 to March 29, our net worth dropped by exactly $674.37.

But over the course of the project, I also taught a writing workshop which I haven't yet been paid for ... so once that's taken into account, the actual cost is less!

And that's in the immediate aftermath, not even taking into account anything else that may come along as a benefit in the coming weeks!

How is this possible?

Well, my first answer is: I'm not really sure.

I was expecting to be down about $2,000 or so dollars, to be honest, when I ran my original pre-project estimates. That was with us being incredibly frugal ... which we weren't. We normally are fairly frugal (or outright cheap), with a substantial portion of our income going toward debt repayment and savings. Once we unlocked the "emergency fund" and began living off of it, we didn't really exercise a ton of restraint. With the amount of time I was devoting to work and to the project, and Amber being in school full time, and a four month old baby, we spent much of our time fairly exhausted ... so if one of us suggested eating out, the other one typically jumped on the idea.

Since I knew it wasn't from frugal money management, I looked at the accounts to see where the increases were. They were pretty exclusively in our retirement and investment accounts, which is understandable, since these are the only accounts that can go up without putting money into them.

There was some inflow into these accounts, of course. The money that came in was from my 401(k) contributions and the company's match, on two paychecks and the bonus I received. In addition, there's a strange event I haven't been able to investigate yet, where more shares were deposited into my retirement account! I believe this is a result of my company's profit sharing plan, but I'm not sure. I'll have to investigate this further.

Still, these contributions account for a little bit over half of the increase in my retirement and investment accounts. The rest can be attributed to only one thing ... the stock market going up during this time.

Here's the curious thing about these numbers. Once I figure up the actual amount our net worth is down over these 40 days, and the amount we gave out, I notice an interesting relationship. We lost only about 10% of what we gave.

For the math challenged, let me provide an example. (These aren't the actual numbers involved, because I don't want you all knowing my exact salary.)

This would be like giving away $7,400 dollars and then finding that your net worth only dropped by about $700!

It's truly unexpected, and this almost ten percent ratio is a bit chilling. To quote my friend Annabella, "It went from serendipity to spooky." A unexpected tenfold increase in giving is not something that I expected.

I need to let it sink in a bit more to really have an opinion on this.

But your opinions, of course, are more than welcome!

Day 34: White River Watchers

Today's give is to a local organization which has done some great work helping to beautify the White River. Their name, appropriately enough, is the White River Watchers of Madison County. I was able to volunteer with their 2009 White River Fall clean-up, which had me walking up and down the White River dragging trash out of it. Just the group I was with - consisting of about a dozen people on foot who covered less than a mile of the river - found, among other bits of debris, four or five tires, a giant tractor tire, a set of bed springs, and one large, empty oil barrel that had rusted through. (Other groups - two entire school buses full, as I recall - loaded up in canoes and traveled the river that way to find and clear other trash.)

Amber didn't accompany me, because at the time she was very pregnant. But we did, later that day, take Elijah for a walk down by one of the river's tributaries and he was able to practice casting his fishing pole (with a rubber fish weight tied onto the end of it). We saw a lot of trash in that area, and talked to him about how important it was to not litter, especially in the river. We explained to him that even though someone else had left the trash there, it was our job to help clean it up, because if it was left there it would make the Earth and the fish sick.

While we do our part with our son, the White River Watchers (founded in 1997) performs outreach with local schools, as well as performing chemical tests on the White River water supply, to supplement their clean-up activities. They've received numerous awards and recognition for their work, including the 2004 Governor's Award for Excellence in Community Service and Volunteerism for the Environment. Their mission, "to protect the White River ecosystem for the present and future use of all by means of community involvement and education" is one that Amber and I can both get behind 100%.

(For those wondering about the Day 33 give - it was Sunday, so we gave a tithe to church and brought a pie, and spent the rest of the day spending time together as a family.)

Day 30: Reaching Out to At-Risk Youths

Today, Amber and I drove down to Indianapolis to interview Mary Byrne, the Executive Director of a local charity that I'd heard about through a friend who had, several years ago, volunteered there. It's the Indiana Youth Group, an organization that focuses on providing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Questioning (LGBT) youth a safe, accepting environment where they can get mentoring and interact with other kids going through some of the same issues they're having.

One reason this is so important is that LGBT youths are about 8 times more likely than heterosexual youth to commit suicide, according to Ms. Byrne. Similar increases are evident for other negative behaviors, such as smoking, alcoholism, drug addiction, and unsafe sex. In a recent episode of PBS's Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, the following disturbing statistic was also cited:

"Nationwide, 20 to 30 percent of homeless kids are LGBT. In New York City it is one in three, according to Zak Rittenhouse, who works in a homeless shelter for gay and straight youths."

While these facts are incredibly alarming, there's reason for hope. According to Byrne, a recent study showed that virtually all of this is related to the rejection these youths receive from their parents, family, schools, churches, and other social circles. When looking at LGBT youth who are rated as having high acceptance, the instances of risky behavior drop to be virtually identical to heterosexual youths. [Update 3/19/2010: The study is entitled "Family Rejection as a Predictor of Negative Health Outcomes in White and Latino Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Young Adults" by Caitlin Ryan, David Huebner, Rafael Diaz, and Jorge Sanchez, published in Pediatrics: Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics.]

This reminds me of some other evidence I've discussed before, in We Are Not Killer Apes!, where I pointed out the strong role that environment plays on our altruistic behaviors, as demonstrated by various primates who show major behavioral shifts when there is a corresponding change in their social influences.

I think it's safe to say that anyone who grows up being rejected by the people who are supposed to love, care for, and support them will be more likely to internalize that rejection and manifest it in risky behaviors. After all, they're continually being taught that they're worthless, so why not act like they're worthless.

This is very personal to me, because my father is gay.  I've never really discussed his own formative years in this regard, but for me, this created a lot of confusion while I was growing up. Was my dad a bad guy? Since he and my mom were divorced, I didn't see him that often, but he certainly didn't seem like a bad guy. Was he going to hell? Was he evil? What did that make me?  Was my very birth a mistake? Was I gay? Was that why I had trouble talking to girls? Maybe they were sensing something that I didn't know about myself. Was I going to hell?

So yes, to answer your question, I have always over thought things.

The point is that even though I'm not gay (despite my profound love of showtunes), the fact that society puts such a stigma upon being gay had a lot of bleed-over emotional impact on me during my formative years. In fact, it's really just in the last couple of years that I've had anything positive to say about any aspect of Christianity, because I associated it so strongly with incorrect and unfounded attacks upon my father's worth as an human being, and, by extension, my own.

All of this negativity is due to a social atmosphere where rejection is the dominant motif. But if you change the environment to one of acceptance, while these youth will still have many hassles to deal with, they are less likely to internalize the negativity as part of their identity. They're less likely to take the labels provided by others and hang it around their own neck, because they'll see that there are alternatives.

That is really what drove the creation of the Indiana Youth Group in 1988. A group of volunteers from an Indianapolis crisis hotline for homosexuals got together in one of their living rooms to discuss a problem: when gay teens called in, they didn't have anyplace to send them for appropriate counseling or help. There was nowhere for these children to turn with their problems.

So they created one.

Today, the Indiana Youth Group serves kids from ages 12 to 20. (They also have a transitional program, helping those ages 21 through 24, so they don't just have to kick them to the curb.) Byrne recounted a busy period last year when the IYG was averaging 85 youths hanging out at the facility each evening, many of them playing volleyball (badly) in the court in their back yard. The majority of the IYG participants are from the older end of the spectrum, because the IYG facility doesn't sit on a bus line (they're trying to find a new facility more accessible to non-driving youths), but Byrne says that even for those who don't come, she thinks that just knowing the facility is out there may provide some emotional support. The IYG also now has an outreach coordinator who works with LGBT groups at high schools across the state, so that they're supporting those who can't make it in for their activities.

The majority of Indiana Youth Group's funding comes from grants, and about 15% comes from their fundraisers - just last Saturday they held an art auction, which included both professional artists and pieces created by the youths who frequent the IYG. The remaining 25% - 30% of their funding comes from the donations of individual supporters ... which includes, after today's give, Amber and myself.

Byrne says that, for her, the major benefits from giving her time to help others have been the rich relationships that she has developed. Maybe some are paying forward a mentorship that they once received at a crucial time in their own lives. Still others, she notes, support their work as a way of trying to help the next generation avoid the same problems they had to deal with.

I can relate to this. The negativity related to homosexually left me conflicted for years, just because I might have picked up a few gay chromosomes somewhere in utero! Kids who are actually feeling these emotions must have it way worse than I did, and if any of them can be spared isolation because of it, I say it's a noble effort. We're created to live with others, as communal beings, and being forced to seal some portion of yourself off is not - can not - be a healthy lifestyle. It hinders our ability to truly connect not only with others, but also with ourselves. The teenage years are where we really begin to determine who we are going to become and that process of self-discovery is hard enough in the best situation.

Kudos to the IYG for providing these kids with an environment where they can be who they were meant to be ... themselves.

Day 29: The Gift of Time

I missed yesterday's give because Amber had the debit card that we use to access the giving fund, and she went to bed early. She went to bed early again tonight, and once again I'm hesitant to wake her up to get the card, and I don't know where she's left it.

Still, overall, today was successful on the giving front. We packaged up the books which had been requested from a Day 5, and finally got them in the mail. (Sorry for the delay on that.) Amber also set up the food drive boxes that she's getting together for the Student Leadership Academy at Ivy Tech Community College.

I am taking this week off from the day job to focus on this (and other) writing projects, so you'd think I'd be getting a lot done, but not today. At around 1:00 pm, Amber rushed home because our car, which is in need of an oil change, was making curious sounds - so I went to Sears for an oil change, taking How to Change the World along with me for company. The oil change went relatively uneventfully.

Then I got home just in time to give a family member a lift to the hospital, because he couldn't drive himself. On the way home, I got a call from Amber, asking if I could come to my mother's to help move a few things. This turns into a substantial activity that takes the majority of my afternoon, as I moved a major pile of wood from her front yard, where it had been left when a tree was removed, into the back yard.

When I went to pick Elijah up from daycare, and was on the way back to my mother's to continue moving the wood, I was fairly upset. Frustrated, my brain was firing off in its usual way, "I really should be at home working on the book. I can't believe I'm wasting my time moving wood. This is not helping me at all on the project!"

Then it hit me - this was the project. I was helping my mother with something she needed done. That, and that alone, was my project for the time being. The book, I reminded myself, will be written. Now it was time to move the wood.

Time is one of the hardest things for me to give, because I feel like I have so little of it. I work a full-time job and run my own business, which essentially includes (at any given time) two distinct part-time jobs (About.com and whatever other writing project I'm working on). But today, I felt not only willing, but glad, to be giving up my time for this task. There was a strange peace in it (except for the brief period of time where Elijah attempted to argue with me over whether or not he was allowed to play in the truck bed with an unstable mountain of firewood), and that was nice to reach.

Anyway, end of story: I got the entire pile of wood moved, and now on to the next day of giving ....

Social Entrepreneurs

Yesterday, Amber and I went to see our lawyer about the possibility of starting up a non-profit, which would focus on helping establish community gardens around Anderson ... as a means of providing fresh vegetables, beautifying the community, and building stronger community relationships.

We left with a pile of paperwork, and the inclination that maybe non-profit status wasn't the way for us to go.

What It Takes to Become a Non-Profit
Becoming a non-profit corporation is not incredibly hard, but it's also not for the faint of heart. You file your articles of incorporation, which turns you into a non-profit corporation. This requires a fair amount of paperwork and, in Indiana, a $750 filing fee - reduced to $300 if you anticipate having a relatively low income your first year. (I forget the exact cut-off, but I think it's less than $25,000 in the first year.) In addition, there are some paperwork and fees associated with securing a unique corporate name within the state.

This makes you a non-profit corporation, but doesn't make you tax exempt. To do that, you have to file separately, both at the state level and then with the federal government for 501(c)(3) status. This allows donors to deduct their gifts as charitable donations. More important for our purposes would be that it would allow the non-profit entity to apply for the many community development grants which only allow 501(c)(3) corporations as applicants.

Beyond that, there are some annual filing requirements and such. It would mean getting an accountant, because it's a bit more than I can handle myself with TurboTax. (One person we spoke to suggested always having an accountant on the board of directors, to work pro bono, which does seem like a clever idea. If accountants are aware of this gambit, I'm sure they run from invitations to join these boards.) To apply for many grants, there have to be regular audits of your organization's financial records.

Check out more on starting a nonprofit at the About.com Nonprofit website.

Fiscal Sponsorship
Through all of this, I began to wonder how much of this hassle was really needed to do good work in the community. To be sure, if you're going to need a lot of supplies (or staff), then you'll probably need access to lots of grant funding over a long term, which means an established organization with 501(c)(3) status is very helpful.

However, a community garden primarily needs start-up capital (and land); the year-after-year upkeep could be handled by membership fees from members of the community who wish to participate. You'd need at least one person at the beginning to devote themselves to getting the thing up and running, but eventually it would be run entirely be volunteers from within the specific neighborhood.

So establishing a 501(c)(3) for this particular activity may just be overkill. What if we sought out an existing 501(c)(3), whose mission was in line with community gardens, and could convince them to let us write a grant on their behalf to provide funding for this activity? In fact, if the organization is well enough established, they may have experienced grant writers on staff, or know of some who can be asked to help. And, since the organization would presumably already be one which is local to the neighborhood in question, it would have a vested interest in seeing that neighborhood thrive.

There is, in fact, a name for this type of joint activity: Fiscal Sponsorship. Though it may sound a bit shady, it's actually perfectly above board (assuming, of course, that you're actually performing the work for which you're getting the tax-exempt money). Under this scenario, a non-profit acts as the sponsor of another organization without tax-exempt status - specifically so that the non-exempt organization is able to access grants and tax-exempt funds, such as donations.

Social Entrepreneur
There's still another possibility, and one which wouldn't have occurred to either Amber or myself in relation to community gardens on our own. A social entrepreneur is someone who uses entrepreneurial methods (sometimes including a successful for-profit business) to achieve desired social outcomes. Author David Bornstein profiles many amazing social entrepreneurs in his book, How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas.

It's unclear to me how small neighborhood community gardens could really fall under the rubric of a profitable social entrepreneurial activity, but to others it must seem natural. In the last two weeks there have actually been two people who - unsolicited, mind you! - offered up that they might be interested in investing in such a business, if we could figure out how to make it profitable.

While I don't know have a vision for a community garden business, the idea of social entrepreneurship has taken a strong hold with me in other ways. I had been considering starting a non-profit of some kind eventually - more of a private foundation, which funded other activities - but in reading Bornstein's book, it became clear that this wasn't really necessary. As a for-profit business, I can still designate funds toward philanthropic activities, grants, scholarships, awards, and so on, seeking out worthy recipients on my own.

Surprisingly, the philanthropic arm of Google - called Google.org - is apparently set up as a for-profit entity, although one of its functions is to manage grant-giving, including from the tax-exempt Google Foundation. Philanthropy is so central to Google's vision that their founders made "making the world a better place" (as well as "don't be evil") part of their corporate mission when announcing the IPO of their stock back in 2004.

And now, we are in the process of establishing the Google Foundation. We intend to contribute significant resources to the foundation, including employee time and approximately 1% of Google's equity and profits in some form. We hope someday this institution may eclipse Google itself in terms of overall world impact by ambitiously applying innovation and significant resources to the largest of the world's problems. - "An Owner's Manual" for Google Shareholders

Corporations like Google are not successful despite their commitment to making the world a better place, but specifically because of this commitment. It makes good sense all around. Bornstein makes it clear that he sees social entrepreneurs as "transformative forces."

... it takes creative individuals with fixed determination and indomitable will to propel the innovation that society needs to tackle its toughest problems.... an important social change frequently begins with a single entrepreneurial author: one obsessive individual who sees a problem and envisions a new solution, who takes the initiative to act on that vision, who gathers resources and builds organizations to protect and market that vision, who provides the energy and sustained focus to overcome the inevitable resistance, and who - decade after decade - keeps improving, strengthening, and broadening that vision until what was once a marginal idea has become a new norm. - David Bornstein, How to Change the World

An ambitious goal, which many would certainly mock. But if even a few of these visionaries can make it work ... that's a world I want to live in.

Working through my emotions

The Personal Journey

If you have been keeping up with the blog it is obvious that Andrew has been the one most active in all of the blogging. And up until about three weeks ago (like I mentioned in a previous blog), I had been resisting the idea of actively participating in the writing.

Now to be completely honest with you, writing wasn't the only thing that I had reservations about. When Andrew first approached me about giving away our income for 40 days and keeping a blog about it, I had very little trouble getting on board. I had a few questions about why he wanted to do it and how we were going to balance our own monetary responsibilities and the giving, but overall it sounded good to me. This is exactly the kind of thing that I love to hear about other people doing, so why not us. I have always been a giver.

But, as soon as I said yes, the doubt and reservations began to pour through my mind and I secretly began losing my enthusiasm. Yes it was a great idea, and I love giving … but this … this was extreme and I had never been a radical giver. I’d never been a radical anything!

I thought that it would be interesting to read about this journey. And when someone would ask about what we were doing with the project I felt good in saying we were doing an experiment in giving for the next 40 days. It sounded great. Generous. Kind. Good. All things that I strive to be. But I secretly felt from generous. I felt disgustingly stingy and downright annoyed that I was giving my money away. It's my money. What if I need it? We just put in new windows!

Oh, how I thought that I was above all this kind of thinking.

This was a huge wake up call for me. Giving away 10% wasn't a stretch anymore, but giving it all away had me fearful of being broke. Literally. I haven’t missed the 10% of my income that we regularly gave away because it had become a habit to me. We would write a check to a good cause and forget about it until the next payday came around and then do it all over again.

What is so radically different about this project is that we aren't just giving out of our plenty but that we are giving everything. We are paying our bills out of our savings and taking away from our safety net in a time in which we have a growing family and bills to pay. Honestly, it scared me.

It scared me for a myriad of reasons. What if Andrew loses his job? What if something breaks down? What if he gets the urge to sell it all and wants us to eat locusts!

I can remember from Sunday school hearing about Jesus telling the rich man to sell everything and to follow after him, but I never thought about that in the context of my own life. I’d always been taught that Jesus’ teachings were to be taken in a very personal, life-changing way, but I never thought about what he said to that rich man in the context of my own life. What does it mean for me to give away everything and to live in the moment … even just for 40 days?

There have been so many questions that have been running through my mind since we started this journey. The questions about self. Like who am I really? What truly matters to me? Then there are the selfish questions, the truly ridiculous ones like, "Well if he does want to sell it all and eat locusts, who will take care of us?” Yes, a more spiritual person might say that God will care for you, that He will provide for all of your needs, but honestly I imagine that is tough leap of faith to make.

And then I had to take a deep breath and relax. It will all be ok. And I have some things to work out. But I will be fine.

Since my semi-crisis, Andrew and I have done more talking and I am still seeking answers to my own questions. But I am on board, completely and fully. I have no idea where the next few weeks will take us or what the next months or years will have in store for us. But I know that now, the moment that I am in right now, is all that I have. And in this moment I will do all that I can, for my family and for others.

The Gift of Touch

Early on in the experiment I had my mom over for the afternoon. We spent the day as usual, talking about nonsense, watching Elijah play, and cooing over the baby. There was nothing particularly different about the day until the end of it.

That evening I was making baked potato soup and Mom was helping me with this and that. One of the great things about my relationship with my mom is that we are able to share time around the house. It doesn't matter whether it is mine or hers, we can just be "at home" wherever we are when we are together. I have to say it is particularly nice when she comes to my house though, as she quite often helps me with the kids which gives me some free time to catch up on much-overdue chores. In return for her help, I usually make a meal that she can share with our family that evening. It is an unspoken trade, one that I think we both benefit from. (For me both Quality Time and Acts of Service, as I'll get to later.)

Anyway, to get to the point of the story, that night while I was cooking dinner the urge hit me to give mom a hug and tell her that I love her. It went something like this: "You know that I love you right? *hug* I know that I don't always show you in the ways that you like, but I do." I went on to admit that at times I can be somewhat of a pain in the ass and can be abrasive, but truly stressed to mom how much I love her.

You see, the thing is that I tell my mom that I love her all the time. Everyday I call her, sometimes twice a day, and always end each call with a meaningful, "I love you." But I don't touch her. Not often, at least. I don't really touch anyone besides my husband and sons.

Touching people doesn't do much for me. There isn't a warm fuzzy feeling that comes over me when I hug people. It's more of a nauseated kind of feeling. I honestly don't know why I don't like it. I just don't. When I go in for the hug I feel awkward, when I am hugging I feel anxious and and a bit creeped out by it, and when it is over I feel much better (and not in an "ah that was wonderful" kind of way but a "thank god that's over with" kind of way).

But for some unknown reason, on that particular day, I chose to hug Mom.

In the midst of cooking, I had left the kitchen to talk to Andrew. When I came back, my mom wasn't there. She was in the restroom and had been in there a while.

"Mom?" I ask. "What are you doing?"

She took a few minutes and then came out all red-eyed. I'm thinking, "Oh shit! What did I do now?" When I ask her what is wrong I get some dismissive remark, but I won't let her alone until I get the truth. She was crying in the bathroom for Pete's sake. Then she said, "Thats the first time in years that I have felt like you love me."

I was blown away. "What do you mean the first time in years? I tell you all the time!"

And she replied, "But you never show me. You never hug me."

I hugged her again, but felt awkward this time, because touch kind of bugs me but I do love her and wanted her to know it. "Of course I love you. Geeze mom!"

And back to cooking we went.

Then the next day it hit me, "AH HA! That's it, she needs touch to feel loved."

I know that this was obvious from the night before, but the night before all I could see was that she didn't think I loved her and I tell her all the time. But by the next day I had time to process things and I got to thinking about the book The Five Love Languages by Dr. Gary Chapman. In it he talks about the idea that everyone has a primary love language (and usually a secondary as well) and that they are often different from our parents, children, and spouses.

That was it! In this viewpoint, she has a different love language than I do. Dr. Chapman talks about the importance of recognizing these variants and trying to show the people in our lives the love that they recognize best.

The five love languages are as follows:

1. Words of affirmation - Unsolicited compliments can build these folks up, whereas insults can shatter them emotionally.
2. Quality Time - Full undivided attention with the TV off and chores aside is what some people need.
3. Receiving Gifts - Not to be mistaken for materialism, these people flourish when they are shown love through well thought out gifts. It doesn't matter if it is a handmade card or a much longed for gift, it is all about the thoughtfulness behind the act of giving.
4. Acts of Service - Helping with chores and taking something off of their "plate" can be received as an act of love to this person. Laziness and broken commitments can be heartbreaking for them.
5. Physical Touch - Holding hands, caressing, and pats on the back are all ways that this person gives and receives love and affection.

Note: This ties in with some other sources Andrew's been reading, such as The Generosity Factor, which indicates that two ways to give are of our Time (which relates to Quality Time and Acts of Service) and Touch (Physical Touch, obviously).

No wonder this act of affection was so important to my mom, her primary love language is Physical Touch and I haven't shown it unless I have been forced to. Because I am someone who needs Quality Time and Acts of Service, it hasn't occurred to me to touch her more often.

And for mom helping me out with chores or spending time together hanging out at my house are both things that she doesn't as willingly dish out either. We have both been missing the mark when it comes to meeting each other's emotional needs. And, in many ways, I think that we have both left each other feeling unloved.

I called her that next day to tell her what I realized and apologized again, trying to stress to her that I do love her and that I will try and show her more physical affection. I hope that she too will realize that when I ask her to hang out, or if I offer to do the dishes or bring up her trash cans, that those are my ways of telling her how much I care as well.

Needless to say, that evening taught me that while giving money to those in need is critical to improving the state of the world around us and the lives of those in it, it is also critically important that we meet the emotional needs of those we come in contact with as well. And for my mom the best gift that I could have given her was neither a meal, nor my time, nor a $100 bill, but a simple hug.

Day 19: Patron of the Arts

Today, while waiting for an oil change at Sears, I wandered through the Mounds Mall in Anderson, only to discover that local teenage artists were having an exhibition of their work. There were clay sculptures, drawings, paintings, and photographs. It occurred to me that during the 40 Days of Giving, I could devote at least a bit of this toward becoming a patron of the arts ... by giving some of the money to young artists.

There were specifically two of the artists whose pieces stood out to me. I went to the organizers, letting know that I was interested in potentially purchasing the artwork. I provided my contact info, and then left and called Amber to let her know my idea. She made the very valid observation that handing checks over to high school students is probably not a good idea ... but maybe they need gift cards to an art supply store, or perhaps could use some help in the admission fee for an art school or summer art program.

Hopefully, they'll contact us and we'll be able to find out how we can help.

Introducing Amber

Hello all! This is Amber here, Andrew's wife. After several weeks of toiling over the idea of helping Andrew keep a blog and participating in the book writing process, I have finally given in and decided that it is indeed something that I want to do. Better late than never, I suppose.

First things first.

What do I think about giving away our income for 40 days?

To be completely honest I initially thought "Are you freakin' kidding me? We just bought new windows (not to mention the new baby and 4 year old who are quite expensive to keep around)!"

I kept thinking how on earth can we afford to do this? And then it hit me, we'll never be able to "afford" this, but we are young and we are able; and no matter what happens at the end of this project I'm hoping that we will be better people for it. That was enough for me to get on board. "Yes, honey, give away all of our money for the next forty days."

As the project neared, I became more and more apprehensive about what was about to happen. I could feel myself becoming very aware of my place in our family. I am a wife, a mother, and a student, I am not the bread winner, and a lot of days that leaves me feeling less than equal and not in control.

To be clear, my not working was a choice that both I and Andrew very consciously made, so that I could go back to school full time.

Prior to knowing Andrew, I had been through a nasty divorce which left me a single mom and broke. I worked two minimum wage jobs to keep my home and food on the table. During that time I learned to be both humble and strong, both qualities that I didn't have before then. For those reasons I cherish that period in my life.

However, when I met Andrew, I was still in the struggle and that was when I shared with Andrew that I wanted to go back to school and finish my degree. He fully supported me from the start and when we were married he insisted that I get the degree that I wanted so badly. The decision to go back to school was one that effected everyone in our house hold. Andrew had now taken on the joys and burdens of a family. We chose for me to go back to school full time, which kept our son in daycare and kept me from working my regular full time day job. And because we value our family time I didn't pick up an evening job. All of the financial burden is on Andrew. This has been a huge adjustment for me, because I don't like not being in control. And if I earned the money, I would "feel" in control. Man, did I think being broke was humbling, now I am learning to share responsibility and not rule the roost!

Needless to say, these past few years with Andrew have taken us both for a ride (and for me for quite a personal journey). Learning to share responsibility, which I thought was all my own, learning to trust someone else to help make good judgement for our children and our future, trusting that no matter what comes our way that we can do it together, thats why I can do this project with Andrew. I believe that this will help us grow to become better people and parents.