There’s a church in my neighborhood that I pass nearly every day when I walk my dog. It’s a pretty church with long, thick white columns. The congregants seem nice enough, too, as they don’t speed out of the parking lot in my quiet neighborhood on Sundays or when the Boy Scouts are having their meetings. All in all, I like this church. This building. There is a sign out front that poses a question to all passersby:

This sign has bothered me ever since I’ve read it. But this isn’t a post about the passive-aggressive message contained within. In fact, I could very well answer the question with the fact that I’ve used my powers for good once before and was overwhelmed with the compassion of friends and regular readers of this blog. (For those who don’t know the story, I offered to donate a dollar for each comment I got on a post about three students who wouldn’t have had a Christmas and readers responded with generous hearts and selfless motives until we reached over $1,000 for which to buy gifts for them. The story still chokes me up when I think about it and it’s all I can do not to blame it on hormones.)

Are you ready for a strange segue? Here goes…

SO! My school has been in the news a lot lately and it’s nothing short of fifty shades of SUCK. It’s no secret that the media beat us up and I already work at the district step-child high school. It’s also no secret (to readers of Mocha Momma) that I adore my co-workers and students and go into work every day to the hardest, most unappreciated job in the world. Some days call for me to take the hit that I don’t deserve. Other days I am challenged by those I work with one second only to be in a position to defend them passionately in the next. Right now I refuse to even link to those stories and I never read the online comments to newspaper stories because then I feel the need to apologize on behalf of all educators who have left those people behind. WE’RE SORRY YOU DON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN “YOUR” AND “YOU’RE” OR “PRINCIPAL” AND “PRINCIPLE.”

That’s about as much as I can say about work-related stuff without getting into trouble. I have a deficiency in the area of shutting-the-heck-up-when-I-should. There’s not a pill or anything that works to make that better. 

As I walk into work each day the poverty of my schools’ students is never lost on me. Yet, I watch some of these students who come from more than difficult home lives continually come to school where they want to learn. Even more impressive is that they come to school and help with blood drives, canned food collections, and other community service events even when they themselves are in need. It is not lost on me that they are themselves inspiring to the adults who gladly work with them. In a million years I didn’t expect to have a career that I loved this much. The things I get to witness and the growing I get to watch astounds me.

Recently, because of a response to the media trashing us, we are hitting hard on some things in our school. Students have never been allowed to carry backpacks, but the issue that keeps coming up are the girls’ purses. Hey, I’m as fashion forward as the next gal so I know that big purses are here to stay. When my male students complain that girls get to even carry purses I remind them, gently, that as soon as they have to carry around tampons and Midol this won’t be an issue. 

Some of the biggest complainers have come to see me in my office or caught me in the hallway or a classroom:

Why can’t we carry big purses? I saved up $50 to buy this and it’s the only one I have! I can’t buy another one.

This is stupid! I’m a good girl. Why are we always getting punished?

Who even SELLS small purses? Everything in the stores is big. 

These girls are right. They’re also pretty whiny when they come talk to me so I decided to take something ugly and turn it in to something pretty. I asked seven girls to help me coordinate a Purse Drive for school and I’m using my blog to spread the word. 

Do you have an old, small purse you’d be willing to donate?

Can you purchase a small purse that we can use for our Purse Drive?

My intention is to take all donations and sell them for the set price of $5 for any girl who wants to come to the Purse Shop I’m setting up in school and then give the money to the school. My seven girls will help me set it up, arrange the purses for display, collect the money, and do a really good thing. A small thing, but a good thing nonetheless.

Here’s what I was wondering: can you help? More details on where to send purses coming soon. Maybe a widget! A button for your blog! But most importantly, you get that really good feeling of doing some good in the world and showing compassion to a bunch of teenage girls you don’t even know.

UPDATE on November 8, 2009: Yes, the purse drive is still going strong. Perhaps I should have mentioned that there are nearly 700 girls in my school and we’d love to see this as a sustainable project. So, if you’ve been meaning to send purses and haven’t done it yet, please consider doing so. We are grateful for any and all donations.

Sandra just awarded me a Sephora giftcard just for giving her ideas to write about. If it were that easy I’d have been writing about ideas like that long ago because that eyeshadow isn’t going to purchase itself! She’s writing over at Damsels In Success and here is a sampling of her work.

It appears that there are lots of birthdays this month as I wander aimlessly throughout the internet (it only took 45 minutes, too, that easy internet slut) and since my parents were getting jiggy with it during the summer of 1970, I am here to celebrate entering the world with a new list of Things I’d Have If I Had A Million Dollars.

This is from the over-priced but always exquisite Horchow site. I figure I will dream big. It’s bright and cheery and ON SALE. To be fair, they do have “Furniture. Accessories. Dreams.” right there on their site. DREAMS, people. They are free, but this bad boy will set you back at the low, low sale price of $480.

So let’s dream smaller. After all, I’m only going to be…EEK. IS THAT A RAT?

Pardon me. Where was I?

Smaller dreams. Aaahh yes. This Flip Video should be a real crowd pleaser in my bithday stocking this year.

It’s small, not too pricey, and pink. The most important part is that it’s pink and will record live video. I’m a slut for pink things lately.

This wouldn’t be a proper post unless I showed some outrageously high-heeled death traps that are whispering in my ear.

They are whispering, “Come. Break your neck with me. But look F-A-B doing it. I will let you sniff my goodness first and then make you long for some cushiony Dr. Scholl’s help. Remember the F-A-B. It will help you forgive me later.”

Gorgeous, no? Made by (caution: click on this link and listen to sexy shoe wearing music) Martinez Valera and named “Camila” (I would even call her by her name if she were to find her way into my closet) they are available from Piperlime for $129 and I would squeeze my size 11’s into that 10 right before I sent them back and whispered sweet nothings into Camila’s ears.

Let’s get real, though. I’ll probably only spring the 20 bucks in my pocket for this cute green tank top from Mission Playground.

Eco-conscious and adorable. I’m all over that. Mission Playground’s website reads “May we all be aware and respectful of our playground.” and that reminds me that I keep telling you that I’ll write about going green but I have to get my notes together on an interview I did.

For now, I’ll probably save my green (my money! or lack thereof!) for a little birthday dinner later this week. No birthday wishes just yet, please. I don’t want to jinx the birthday letter I’m hoping to get from that tease over at Fluid Pudding for the April NaBloPoMo theme of letter writing…

There are two things I need to write about soon or I will EXPLODE. There will be particles of my body and brain all over the floor requiring an entire cleaning crew. One of them is about being a card carrying member of Minorities R Us (and don’t, just don’t call me a Tragic Mulatto because I can tell you there will be bits of you all over the floor, too) and the other is about how I’m going green. Really. It’s always been a Thing I’ll Do Someday that I’m really embracing. I got to do an interview of someone who operates a Green site and I need to get on that.

Right after I explode and get it all cleaned up.

But first!

I thoughts about doing some serious re-design around here and since I can’t come to a consensus about how it should look or what a theme should be, I shall covet. Openly. With abandon. Here’s some stuff I would like to have.

These are outrageously expensive especially when one considers that the bottom can simply be “cut” to the desired length. If I’m paying more than $75 for pants I’d better have a personal seamstress come to my home and measure me and make it work. Still, for the tall gal, these are a happy dance waiting to happen. Made by Earth And Sky whose website is currently under construction.

Made out of potato chip wrappers (I could keep them in business – kettle chips make me drool and profess my undying love to them) this little trash basket is cute. Can be found at BTCElements. Cute and crunchy.

It’s white. Donna Karan, yes, but it’s white. WHITE. I don’t do well with white either in my career or my home life. Too many greasy potato chips and cups of coffee. No, no, no. White wouldn’t do at all unless I had several because my coffee would probably jump out of the mug and attack it for being so pretty.

This is the only thing I’ve had a picture of for so long that I can’t recall what site I saw it on first. Possibly PiperLime.com or maybe Zappos. Two places I frequent far too much. Not that I ever buy anything. But, if I had a million dollars… and maybe that minority card. In platinum.