Philippe was back in LA, thanks to the Artists and Athletes Alliance , to talk about his recent sojourn to the Arctic with CNN, and report on the…Read Full Article on Celsias

Me being Happy

I disappeared for a bit. Lo siento. In truth this little muse needed some inspiration herself. So I jumped a flight to Europe. I had tea at Harrods in London. Stopped by Oxford to do some talking and grabbed a Ben’s Cookie and Moo Moo’s Milkshake in the Covered Market. I barely made it to Paris on the EuroStar during the “storm of the century.” I took a class on cakes at Le Cordon Bleu, wrote at the infamous Shakespeare & Co., and slept in a bed there that looked like a train birth. I drove cross country to Aix en Provence, ate nothing but cheese and chocolate for 2 weeks, and dropped 7 lbs. I made wonderful new friends and saw crazy old ones. I spent my last few glorious days in Paris hunting for the finest hot chocolate at Les Deux Magot, Laduree, and Angelina. I am currently looking for mules to smuggle me back hot chocolate from Angelina, tea from Mariage Freres or Macaroons from Laduree. Or maybe I’ll just order them online.

In a word, I’m back. Time to get back to work. In no particular order here are some pictures for you amusement…

Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Orleans five years ago flooding 80% of the city, destroying homes, stores, schools, churches, and lives. When the levees broke the Lower Nine, one of the poorest areas of the city, found itself under 15 feet of water. The predominately African American community was almost wiped off the map. Even today only one fifth of the original residents have returned and the infrastructure is almost non-existent.

Maybe New Yorker Nat Turner saw an empty canvas instead of abandoned lots when he arrived in the Ninth Ward with $12 in his pocket. A schoolteacher by trade, he first…Read Full Article on Celsias

Fast forward to this, somewhat, brilliant idea of doing a boring normal shoot and then a more fun pin up type shoot as a salute to my grandfather who served in WWII (and truth be told loved him a good pinup – though that’s creepy that I was going to duplicate that but…never mind). Robert claimed that we had to push it really far to get Reader’s to accept a somewhat normal pin up shot.  I’ve included the “push it really far” pics which were certainly not going to make the Reader’s publication, but it would have made the magazine a hell of a lot more fun if they had. I’ve included my internal commentary under each photo because I can’t shut up.

[Show as slideshow]

Cool! You want me to do a photo shoot 4 my blog! Awesome!

You want me to be a pinup. Okay. No seriously my mouth is this big normally.

Okay I'm not so keen on the costume. You want me to do what?!?

Salute! Really don't u think that's offensive since I'm dressed like a tart.

Okay now this is even more offensive if only because the jacket is 2 big & the hat is way way 2 small.

Or maybe my heads too big?

No, don't worry. I'm now sure I'm being objectified.

Alright, I'll play along but just a little...

This is fun. I'm offending 1 of my relatives for sure...

Ha ha. Reader's Digest will never publish these...

Are we done? Shall I put clothes on? That fit? Perhaps pants?

One more for the troupes but clearly, at this point, not for Reader's.

Okay guys I'm putting my jeans on. I hope we all learned something today.

Frustrated with the media’s  B-level response to the BP oil spill, Cousteau decided it was time for…Read Full Article on Celsias

I would like to thank all the groups that participated.  You should know that you all have rabid supporters and fans.  They flooded my site and as a result broke it.  Right now we are trying to resolve a technical issue, which reroutes every article to the Award blog unless you click on the title.  YOU BROKE MY FREAKIN SITE!  And honestly, no sarcasm, I’m thrilled. It warms my little heart.

Please carry the enthusiasm that you had for voting into action.  Know that all these groups deserve and need physical and financial support to survive.

Remember…  Without clean water we all die – so thanks Heal The Bay. Our greatness as a species is measured by how we treat other creatures – thanks to The Lange Foundation.  If we don’t educate then we’ll never improve – many thanks to EarthEcho International. If we don’t lift people out of poverty they can’t even consider education – thanks Kiva.  And our children (and they’re all our children) deserve so much more than what we’re leaving them right now – thank you Kidsave.

Reader’s Digest called last week to inform me that because I was featured in the “Make it Matter” section of the June/July issue I get a $1500 grant for either my non-profit or a non-profit of my choice. I don’t have a non-profit. I just help them. So I’m going to give the money to a non-profit. Problem is I can’t make up my mind. I worked with dozens upon dozens of different groups and I love them all for different reasons.

To fix the problem I sat down with a group of scientists. Okay, not scientists… People in the know… Anyway, we came up with a list of the non-profits who are efficient, badass, and most of all desperately need money. Vote please! Rock the Vote and all that jazz. Vote for you favorite. Who should get the money? Below are the 5 finalists’ mission statements and a link to each group’s webpage. I have my favorites now I want to see yours. You can vote for your top three at once, but only one time! Poll will be live from July 1st at midnight to 11:59 pm on July 15th. Have fun…

The Charities Mission Statements and Websites:

EarthEcho International – EarthEcho.org

EarthEcho International’s mission is to empower youth to take action that restores and protects our water planet. Education combined with service learning offers a tremendous opportunity to empower young minds, but there is very little ocean education and service learning available today on a national scale. EarthEcho International’s programs works to fill these voids in ways that unite the efforts of other prominent organizations. http://www.earthecho.org

Heal the Bay ­– HealtheBay.org

Heal the Bay is a nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to making Southern California coastal waters and watersheds, including Santa Monica Bay, safe, healthy and clean. We use research, education, community action and advocacy to pursue our mission. http://www.healthebay.org

Kidsave – Kidsave.org

Kidsave works to create change in policy and practice – so forgotten kids in government care can grow up in families. We help older kids in the US foster care system get adopted, help Russian orphans find families in Russia, and help orphans from Colombia, Russia and Sierra Leone find families and mentors in their own countries. http://www.kidsave.org

Kiva –Kiva.org

Kiva’s mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty. Kiva empowers individuals to lend to an entrepreneur across the globe. By combining microfinance with the Internet, Kiva is creating a global community of people connected through lending. http://www.kiva.org

The Lange Foundation – LangeFoundation.com

The Lange Foundation is dedicated to saving impounded companion animals from being destroyed, and preparing them for a journey to a new, safe, loving world. Lange Foundation is a nonprofit 501(c)(3), tax-deductible organization. http://www.langefoundation.com

On May 12th the June/July issue of Reader’s Digest hit the newsstands featuring a story about TheGoodMuse (page 51 – damn right memorized). Since that day I have been inundated by the most humbling, unbelievable response and I just wanted to take a moment to say, “Thank you.”

The purpose of TheGoodMuse and all these Volunteering Journals, besides being a tribute to my late and incredibly wonderful grandfather, was to demystify the volunteering experience and to encourage people to try something new. Ninety percent of the time I started one of these adventures with no clue what I was doing. None. I was always nervous, but I figured if I could do it, you could do it, and maybe we could share a little laugh along the way.

You have contacted me on Facebook, Twitter (@raeganpayne & @TheGoodMuse), with posts on TheGoodMuse, through email (raegan@thegoodmuse.com), and even called my mother.  I loved hearing every one of your stories about your volunteering adventures and mishaps. Please keep sending them.

It’s unbelievable to me that the story continues to spread. For example: yesterday I almost wet my pants when Deepak Chopra tweeted about me.

My intention at this point is to continue the Volunteer Journals. At this writing I’m at 55 and plan to complete 56 this weekend with a 5k run “For the Trees” on Dockweiler Beach.  If you know of any non-profits you want me to work with for goodness sake email me.

So from the bottom of my heart thank you.  You have no idea how much your support means.

“Dirt” profiles our most underappreciated and squandered natural resource – you guessed it dirt – or soil if you want a higher-class name.  I approached Producer/Director Gene Rosow after the film and when the man handed me a plant-able business card that would grow wildflowers I knew I had to interview him.

What were your biggest challenges when… Read the rest on Celsias

Doubting Toms – I have proven you wrong yet again! KIVA.org – Volunteer Journal #38 for those of you who need to read up – worked. Totally worked and was easy. I kid you not. Nothing to be scared of dear ones. No, I’m not on their payroll. Thing is… you should always give credit where credit is due and this organization is genius so they are going to get some mad props from me right now…

KIVA.org combines microfinance with the internet to enable people to lend small amounts (or large if you are so entitled) to entrepreneurs in other countries. Simply put – Kiva alleviates poverty by helping small business owners in impoverished countries.

I made a Kiva loan in October to a group of women in Uganda who wanted to sell used clothing. Very resourceful of them. Any who… they paid me and all their other lenders back in full in only a few months so I have now loaned out money again to a single woman in Lebanon who is a farmer. She has also started to pay me back and then I will lend the money out again cause it’s fun.

You can also give KIVA gift certificates as presents – if my brother read my blog he would know what he was getting as a law school graduation present. Okay. I’ll give him a break he has exams. Yes, I should probably get him something more fun since he’s been serious for 3 years straight, but if I know Austin, and I do, I think he’ll love it.

At this point I should say something profound about the 50 volunteer projects and how they changed my life. Of course they did – anything I type at this point about that would be a boring cliché.  Instead, here are some of my favorite memories from my little adventures…

Sliding down embankments in Malibu with thigh high water waiters on – trying to get to  remote creeks so I could measure bacteria levels in the streams.

The first time I read to a classroom of 1st graders I lost my place in “The Velveteen Rabbit” and ended up improv-ing pages until I found my place.

Getting into a fight with another volunteer during a school cleanup because they were dumping bleach into the LA sewers.

Showing up at exactly the right time to read my uncle’s name at a 3-day continuous reading of the deceased listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

Hurting my foot during Walk 4 Water and still having to do a 5k everyday for ten more days.

Walking into my bathroom in the morning and having a tiny herd of kittens stampede me and then crawl into my lap and fall asleep.

The homeless child in the lilac cap at the Christmas gift give-away.

Spotting birds with Audubon that I literally would have trampled a week earlier.

The people of Lake Arrowhead Rep.

Questioning my vegetarianism during the third hour of scooping sh$% at Animal Acres Farm Sanctuary.

Speaking at a city meeting in support of Marine Protection Areas and almost passing out.

How badly I wanted a loving family like the ones I met while preparing the Thanksgiving meal at the KidSave holiday party.

The simplicity of giving to KIVA.org.

Writing letters to soldiers for Operation Gratitude, telling them a few stories, and in return remembering Pa whisper his stories to me during his last weeks.

Missing Pa the whole time, every minute, and never being able to forget that I have huge shoes to fill.

[Picture: Pa tells me a story about three high strung bears and a bad blonde named Goldie Locks.]