What a weekend!

It's Monday already and we are still catching our breath. It was a weekend that won't be forgotten for sure!

As many of you will know this weekend was the first time gay couples could get married in the UK and we made history by being the first girl-girl couple to sign our legal wedding papers papers in the Westminster Registry Office, at Mayfair Library.

The ceremony was exactly as we wanted it. Just us, simple, sweet and short. We wanted to save the celebrations and wedding vows till June and save any confusion. If Idaho let us marry, then Saturday wouldn't have happened. How strange is that?! However it turned out to be fortunate for us as we were suddenly swept into unexpected celebrations here in the UK and it certainly made the day memorable.

We shared some of our news last week but we can bring you the output of some of the fun things we did here!

Last Thursday you may have seen that we took part in a glamorous wedding photo shoot, we weren't sure exactly what it was for other than a newspaper but we were told we'd get to dress up and have hair and makeup done so we thought whatever happened we have a nice pic of us.

Here's the result:

We're upload the article later!

And no they aren't our ACTUAL wedding dresses, we picked something different!

We love it, although the article was slightly misquoted it's amazing that we made the centre pages of a national newspaper! Babies are a little further down the line than a year! But I am sure my kiss was that amazing ;)

Then there was the appearance on national TV! Again we weren't sure what was happening except we had to get to the BBC studios. From there we were moved from pillar to post. Told we were just standing as the audience, then we were in, then we weren't, then there were tuks-tuks then there weren't. Then it was live and we were waving not knowing if we were on camera and then we were ushered in to watch the show and finally we were told to run to the tuk-tuks as the presenters may want to question us. Seriously we were just going with the flow and it ended up being really fun-not at all what we expected but fun :) We will figure out a way to record our bit but in the mean time here's a screenshot our friend @foxyinwonderland took:

My manager also managed to get a screenshot!

Finally we had given a very brief interview to the Associated Press and it turns out that it featured in Canada, India and the USA, even making a headline in Laura's home state -Idaho!

Source: Associated Press

The whole article is here: Idaho Statesman

We also received the sweetest video from a fellow blogger from Germany that we were lucky enough to meet when she visited the UK - it made our Sunday!

One of my colleagues got us a lovely card and our friends Alison and Dave and Lisa joined us for dinner and treated us to champagne!

And big thanks to fellow bloggers Steph and Corrine from http://wakingupwithher.blogspot.co.uk/ and Susie and Natalie from http://stargazersusie.blogspot.co.uk/who all sent us special messages, it is amazing how much the support means!

We also spotted stonewall put celebrated too:

We will share some more photos from each experience in the coming weeks but we thought we'd show you what we have so far, we hope you had as much fun seeing the pics as we had creating them. Life is for living right and if us publicly showing our love helps one person feel more 'normal' and a little less afraid of being gay then it was worth it! Plus the BBC and The Sun tempted us with free food and diet coke! (how could we resist :))

Sarah & Laura's Wedding: Only 3 Months.

Oh. My. God.

3 months.

Obviously it's all been excitement over here with the legal ceremony and the media excitement around the first gay marriages happening (tomorrow!!), but amongst all of it, our wedding day in June is drawing ever-nearer. Ever nearer!!

This month, we had a Skype meeting with our wedding planner, where we okay'd the final (ish) design elements, and its really really feeling real. Even the fact that we are over budget - boo! We knew this time would come, it was all going to well, but now we are down to making decisions about what we can save money on and what we don't really need! We are hoping for bonuses at work so that we can sneak a little more into the budget but we are well aware that running up a huge debt for one day - however significant - won't be worth it.

So while our debates continue and our wedding planner does her best to move cost and save us a bit of money we are concentrating on our legal I do's. But we did find out this week that our invites have gone out, so we are SO EXCITED!!!!! Not only do we absolutely love the invite design by our wonderful bridesmaid Julia but we can't wait for everyone we invited to see them too. And then there's finally getting to receive RSVPs and actually secure some seating/sleeping arrangements! Our wedding planner has been very relaxed about this while we wanted invites sent out ages ago. The logic Brandi explained to us makes perfect sense - send them too early and people will forget or lose the details - but L loves to plan and I am not good when things go to the wire so planning ahead is almost a necessity for us. 3 months ahead does not seem like a long time - but we negotiated to get 3 months Brandi was happy with 2 :) We went with the reason that as we leave the country the week before the wedding to head to VEGAS we needed more time!

Planning the wedding is one thing, there are so many blogs and websites that give you check lists and planning tools but when you are planning a wedding week it's a whole different story! It makes planning a wedding (with wedding planner help :)) seem easy. With guests from 3 continents flying in at different times, having different trips and with different expectations it's a logistical challenge that only L and her Mum could manage! I mean the spreadsheets - there are lists for EVERYTHING! For food,sleeping, travel itineraries, arrival times, hotel bookings - it's like we've planned a lifetime worth of trips.

Without our Mum's it is fair to say that we wouldn't get any sleep and would be more than a little stressed. Thanks to them the moment it gets too much they step in and do what they can and we are so lucky that they take care of everything and anything! While L's Mum is choosing stamps and addressing envelopes mine is sorting our flight and hotel payments and managing appointments! We will of course give them Mother's Day off!

Oh so yeah the appointments- this month there's the dress fittings, and we have booked hairdressers, manicure & pedicure's, the Bridesmaids are debating hairstyles and shoes and accessories are being ordered.

So while we continue with the celebration for our legal ceremony I thought I would end this post on a reflective note. Love. Isn't it amazing how happy love makes people. People you have never met, people you follow online or who follow you, people you work with, friends you known forever or have only just met and family - they all love love. Seriously the happiness and joy we have experienced has been overwhelming. It turns out people like sharing love with us! THANK YOU for all the kind comments, for all the support through our dieting, for all the comments and love you have sent but most of all for sharing our journey. Even out engagement video views are astounding (for us): It's here. In the last few weeks we've cried more tears of joy that ever before - partly because we are picking songs for the legal ceremony and big day - but mainly because of the love.

Enjoy your weekends and we will be sure to keep you updated on everything that happens as equal marriage becomes a reality in the UK!
If you haven't already find us on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/sarahpluslaura
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Twitter: www.twitter.com/sarahpluslaura

Exciting Times!

In our world, every day's a gay day, but come this Saturday we will be flying our rainbow flag with pride as it's the day same-sex marriage becomes legal in England and Wales. Over the time we've had this blog we have followed the news with great anticipation watching countries and states vote for and against gay marriage and waiting for the moment we could get married - not civil partnership-ed - in our home country.

As L mentioned in our previous post, we will be among the first same-sex couples to be saying 'I do' on the 29th of March, and we couldn't be more excited. It will be a small intimate ceremony as for us this will be a legal ceremony, not our wedding - that will be in June. However the significance is not lost on us, our hope was that we could get married on our 5 year anniversary but that was two weekends ago and we would have had to have a civil partnership so we chose the next significant date. The date that same-sex marriage is legal, couldn't get more significant than that!

While we knew the day would be significant for us - after all, we will be getting legally married - but we didn't know anyone else would be interested, unless they were also getting married. How wrong could we be! As well as giving notice to a very excited Registrations Officer at Westminster Register Office, Emma, we were asked a few questions for a BBC programme about gay marriage and we were happy to share our experience. We also received champagne glasses from the council bearing their crest- amazing!

Then Emma gave our names to The Times, and well, you saw the result! (It's here if you missed it)

Then it all went quiet and we continued on with our wedding preparations, our invites are officially in but L will update everyone on that later :)

We also found out that London is throwing parties as well. G-A-Y are hosting a wedding party sponsored by Ben and Jerry's, an incentive for us to pop in me thinks :)

So an exciting weekend ahead, we can't wait to complete our legal ceremony and be part of history in the making but more than anything I am grateful that we can finally, legally, make a commitment in marriage to one another.

One question that all our interviewers asked was if we felt that legalising same-sex marriage would change people's opinions and increase acceptance and all we could say in response was that we hope it would. I think I may have even dropped this quote in on one interview - hopefully it makes it in! For me marriage is summed up in this:

I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS ALL SO REAL!!!

An Unwelcome Party Guest

This last weekend, we hosted Sarah's family in a joint housewarming/Sarah's mum's birthday party at our home. We went to the best fish and chip restaurant we've found in the UK thus far, then came back to ours for a tour, lovely prezzies, and drinks. (Lots and lots of drinks for most!) There were 12 people in the house, and it was lots of fun to catch up.

We were having fun and playing a rousing game of Apples to Apples (only the best party game ever, unless you're my Dad - somehow he doesn't love it!) at 2:30am, when suddenly the doorbell rang. To set the scene, because we have not a lot of dough at the moment we bought a doorbell from the pound shop - it plays 6 songs, obnoxiously loud, when pressed. So, instead of a polite *ding, dong* at that time in the morning it was *LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN, FALLING DOWN, FALLING DOWN, LONDON BRIDGE IS FALLING DOWN, MY FAIR LADY!!* Obnoxious, we need to change that.

I opened the door, really nervous that it was a neighbour, complaining about the noise. There stood the son of our most favourite neighbours, who take our bins out for us and keep an eye on the house. He must be 22-25, and he said 'I am supposed to come over to ask you to turn down the noise, but.... *opens his jacket to reveal a bottle of wine* I thought I'd join you. Can I come in??'

Obviously as it was a family party, my answer should have been HELL NO! But as I was still reeling from thinking we were in trouble, I awkwardly said sure, and followed him into the living room, stunned. He then proceeded to make himself at home, taking off his jacket and sitting himself right in the middle of the room, with us all staring at him.

It was the most surreal thing. It's not that he wasn't friendly, but that he was twitchy, he paused in unnatural times in his sentences, and completely took over our family party. With Sarah's mum and Aunt around, it definitely wasn't the party he'd expected, and he quickly started to creep everyone out.

He put down Sarah's Aunt's accent (we wouldn't have even thought she had much of an accent!), he asked who lived in the house two or three times and didn't remember my answer, he admitted that they couldn't hear us next door, that he'd just seen the lights on and wanted to come in. That's right, he lied to get into our house.

He also said some things that were huge alarm bells for me - knowing our schedules, and commented on our TV - the whole thing seemed really unsafe to me. So, Sarah's sister feigned falling down the stairs, and gave us an excuse to say we are going to head to bed, and get him out.

That should have been it, an unpleasant experience, but memorable end to a lovely party. However, Sarah's sister then decided they should continue to drink, with the lights off. We really just wanted everyone to go to bed at this point (nothing good ever happens after 2am, thanks HIMYM!) after being freaked out bed seemed like a safe option, but let them do their thing. Someone noticed that he was across the street watching the house. Creepy!!

After 3am, just as Sarah and I were turning off the lights in our room, the doorbell rang again. *TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR, HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU ARE, UP ABOVE THE EARTH SO HIGH, LIKE A DIAMOND IN THE SKY, TWINKLE TWINKLE LITTLE STAR, HOW I WONDER WHAT YOU ARE* - these songs seem so sinister at that time of the morning!

We all froze, and the drinking ones dropped to the floor - it must have been a funny sight, 10 adults laying on the floor of a kitchen! Nobody answered. 3 minutes later: *MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB, LITTLE LAMB, LITTLE LAMB, MARY HAD A LITTLE LAMB, WHOSE FLEECE WAS WHITE AS SNOW*

Angry that our doorbell was probably waking up our neighbours at that late time, and the sheer audacity of him coming back after he'd been kicked out, I went downstairs with Sarah as backup and opened the door - on the chain though, in case he tried to stab me/barge in (sounds dramatic, but I was very scared at this point).

He seemed surprised that I had opened the door on the chain, and got aggressive quickly. 'YOU'RE BEING REALLY LOUD!' he accused. I apologised and said that we were trying to get them to bed. He then stormed off, through our front garden, right by our bay window. *shudder*

Honestly, I was very scared - I don't remember the last time I properly felt unsafe. I started shaking - his parents have been so wonderful to us, the last thing we need is to upset them. But their son was almost definitely on something. Awkwardly, he left his coat at ours, so we went over the next morning to return it. Our neighbours were mortified that he had interrupted our party, and though we didn't tell them about his creepy return, or much of what he said to us, we felt better hearing how shocked they were - no doubt he's been in a lot of trouble since!

We're still a bit nervous about the house's safety, and will be getting alarms installed on the doors and windows ASAP - but we are pretty sure he'll remember enough to never come over to 'party' at ours again.

Lesbian Tribes? Do they exist?

Laura and I were lucky enough to have a whole hour together on the tube the other night as the car was in for its MOT and we had to get to Heathrow to get a lift. 'Lucky enough' sounded sarcastic, but it was actually nice to have some time together when we were alone, not driving somewhere, and not sleeping. In that hour we did some wedding planning and organised our next few weeks but we also came across this article: Celesbians

In summary, it brings attention to 'Celesbians' (celebrity lesbian couples) and explains that there are 4 distinctive tribes:

Sapphisticates

Flashies

MumMummies

Fuddies

It stopped us flicking further on in the paper and we thought we should check out what tribe we most closely relate to. It also sparked a discussion about how lesbian visibility really does seem to be on the rise! The fact that this article was a full spread in a mainstream paper, plus the number of femme lesbians represented in this article alone, proves that lesbian stereotypes aren't what they used to be.

Don’t get us wrong, this article does not cover all lesbians – we would be fools to say that such a wide group of wonderful women can be divided into subcultures and labelled like jam jars – however it is amazing to read an article in a non-lgbt paper that is highlighting how normal girl-girl couples are. In fact, not just normal, but in our films, on our TV sets, speaking and hosting events and generally showing that sexuality should not be a reason to not succeed.

So back to the article and the tribe we identify with – the Sapphisticates!

From standard.co.uk

Now we didn’t read this and immediately start thinking ‘OMG this is me, OMG this is us’ but these were the parts we definitely agreed with:

We challenge anyone who questions our relationship

We love pop-up restaurants and new, fun, (usually food related) things in London

We are sensible but so not boring J

We spend our disposable income (when we aren’t paying for a wedding, mortgage or paying everyone back) on travel

We are totally planning on having kids one day – bring on the Mum-Mummy-ness

We invite our families over (whenever possible) for dinner or lunch, and LOVE to host, to show off our house and mad cooking/baking skillzzz

However we both registered that the Mum-Mummies is in the future, except we’d like to avoid the competitiveness that we are sure exists and focus on raising awesome kiddies who are unique and talented in their own way while not being all business and no pleasure J

Source: lesbian-tribes

And these were the other Tribes

Source: Evening Standard

Half A Decade of Us

As you'll know if you follow us on any form of social media (because we don't seem to be able to keep our public declarations of affection to just one), it was our 5 year anniversary this past Sunday.

I had big plans for this anniversary - first, I thought it could be the day we legally tied the knot. Buuut the UK government didn't quite get the memo in time. Then, I thought we could go away and get our pre-summer wedding tans on. Then we bought a house (and had no free cash from then until ever, probably).

And then, I found it. The thing that would make my anniversary dreams come true - Lesbian Prom.

I've always said I wanted to take Sarah to prom. I went to three proms growing up, even though the first one I was a sophomore at a junior/senior prom, because I was a hottie a nice 'older guy' asked me. I should write about my proms sometime.

Anyway, I never got to go to prom with someone I really liked. Or even high-school-loved. So, I wanted to find an lgbt prom to take Sarah to, even to the point where I suggested it to a few lgbt groups, to no avail. So when I heard Missfit was putting one on, on the day before our anniversary, I roped in our friends Karen and Kirsty, convinced Sarah it would be fun (which took a lot of work!), and set about asking my lady to the dance - the proper American way.

We ordered Sarah the most badass dress from Black Milk Clothing in Oz (thanks to DWV for introducing us to them!), and I had a knee-length tutu made on Etsy, so we were going to look amazing. Sadly, so very sadly, my tutu got stuck in customs - its still there. It's been in the UK for almost two weeks. I am very angry with them.

Anyway, a last minute suggestion from Mum that I wear another Etsy dress that didn't arrive in time for Sarah & Lauren's wedding (I have a history with bad time judgement on postage), had me turning it into a skirt, and going in mint and leopard print heels. Which I think worked out well!

Excuse the messy background!

Our friends had to cancel, because one of them is really ill, and we were so sad. To be honest, we were completely nervous to go on our own. We've never been to an exclusively lesbian event before! We don't go clubbing often, and don't drink much. But we lady'd up a bit, and went anyway.

We booked a lovely hotel, and took a cab to the club, which made us feel super fancy. When we arrived, we weren't on the list we were apparently supposed to be on, and somehow ended up with VIP wristbands, meaning we had access to the champagne, cupcakes and gift bags in the VIP room! Score!!

We had a few drinks, did a lot of dancing (and some awesome seat dancing), and spoke to some absolutely lovely people. We loved watching CHARLI XCX, so talented! And it was so wonderful to see so many gorgeous ladies that play for our team.

And I mean, can we just take a moment to look at this picture of my own little hottie? Her dress made her a contender for Prom Queen, and though she didn't win (ROBBED!) she is still my Prom queen.

Just before we were about to leave, we were recognised by the lovely lady at Freedom World Ltd - she gave us these super awesome T-shirts, which we love and will totally wear around! You can get your own here!

Then we took a cab home. And at 4am passed out!

Sunday morning we woke up nice and early (at 11am) and headed out to spend the day in London. We strolled from the hotel into the West End, had a lovely crepe and some Pinkberry ice cream for breakfast.

Nom

We passed a paper shop where the guy at the till asked jokingly if we were in the paper we were looking at, and we got to say 'Actually, YES!!' - he was very surprised, and when we showed him the article he paused, said '....Are you the couple?' and then congratulated us sincerely when we told him that yes, we were, and we are engaged. He was so nice, and his reaction surprised us and completely made our day.

We then strolled to some of our favourite shops - including a stop at VicSec to pick up something for the plane across (are there any sweats better than VS sweats?)

We sat in a park and caught the sun, people watched, happened upon the St. Patty's Day celebrations at Trafalgar Square, gawked at the hundreds of gypsy children there (who totally lived up to their 'My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding' stereotypes!!), and enjoyed ourselves.

For dinner, we headed to Strada, because on the keto diet like I am, the thing I can never, ever have, is Italian! So we enjoyed their lovely food, but unfortunately had questionable service. Nothing got us down from our lovely Italian food high, though!

We ended our evening in a tiny Soho pub we'd previously happened upon which does Drag performances 7 nights per week - we loved singing along to showtunes and classics in this crammed pub, and I loved looking over at Sarah's jazz hands-ing, and thinking just how lucky I am to have her in my life.

It was the best anniversary we've had so far - here's to many, many more!

We're in The Sunday Times!

Happy Monday!

We had the absolute best weekend - from Lesbian Prom, to our anniversary celebration in London (5 years!), to being in the newspaper, it's just been incredible. We'll tell you about our weekend shortly, but for now, some big news....

A few friends and followers were probably very surprised when they opened up their Sunday Times yesterday and saw our faces!

As you all know, we are getting married in June, in Laura's home state. Well, unfortunately gay marriage is not yet legal in the great state of Idaho, so we will need to make our union legal here in the UK. We thought that if we have to have a ceremony here, we might as well be a part of history - and we managed to snag one of the last spots to get legally married in London on the 29th March 2014, or the day gay marriage becomes legal in the UK.

We'd planned on keeping our legal ceremony quiet, so as to not confuse people, or have them thinking we are having two 'weddings', but as it has gotten closer we've been contacted for a few interviews, and the true magnitude of the day, for us, and for all lgbt people in the UK, is dawning upon us. When we were asked to do the Times interview, we thought, well then it probably won't be a secret anymore, but how could we pass up having a memento from such a historic day like an article in the paper?

So, we are embracing it, as it is our reality. Idaho, a place we cherish enough to want to marry there despite it being behind times, will be where we hold our wedding - just not the legal ceremony. One day Idaho will catch up to the UK, and to other states of the USA but as it hasn't, we get the opportunity to legally commit ourselves to one another on the very first day that any same sex couples in the UK can, and be a part of that history. It's crazy to think about - currently, we, as a gay couple couldn't get married here. In less than two weeks, that will all change. We will get to wait and throw confetti to the gay couple who become married after us - and we will get to have a lovely dinner together, excited for our real wedding in June, the one we've been planning for over a year now, the one our family and friends have been amazing enough to come to, to help out at, to celebrate with us, the one we've dreamed about since we were little girls.

So without further ado, here's the little article we are pictured in, with our BFFs Ellen and Portia, celebrating the increase in profit for the wedding industry that will come with same sex weddings.

Exciting stuff!

Spring!! (is Here?)

Oh you guys, I've never been so excited for springtime in my entire life. Growing up in Idaho, with it's proper seasons, I've taken spring and summer for granted, and always thought the English grossly overreacted to warm weather. Snow, and winter, is where its at!

It's taken me six years in this country, but I've finally changed my tune. This loooong London winter has broken me. I'm aching for warm weather and sunshine. My feet are so sick of socks. I've got new sunnies, and want to BREAK THEM OUT!

Happy feet

Which is why this weekend was just the best weekend ever. I'm always conscious of how American I sound when I say things like that - Sarah said one of the things she didn't like about me (and the other Americans at work) was that we had a habit of saying 'This is the best day EVER!', and she didn't understand how every day could be the best day ever. I now say its because she didn't know what being with me was like ;D

There was sun. And warmth. And guess what? Our back yard gets the sun! Bonus! Both times we walked around our home before buying it it was grey and cloudy, so we didn't know if we had a sunny yard. But Sunday, we got out our garden chairs, our Diet Cokes, and basked in the sunlight on our deck. Sarah even wore shorts. IT WAS HEAVEN! Seriously, worth purchasing the house just for this outdoor space alone.

This weekend we also went into town to the Bullring, to go shopping - properly, for the first time since... September, maybe even earlier? Turns out you don't do much shopping when paying for a wedding and a house. We spent some Christmas money my parents had given me, and our quick one hour pop into the Bullring turned into three hours. Oops!

So we are slowly sorting some clothing options for Vegas/Boise! As we don't have a very long summer here, and we spend a good portion of those sweaty days at work, I don't really have a 'summer' wardrobe, persay - I just don't wear tights with the dresses I'd usually wear with tights in the winter. But I know, with the heat of Vegas on me, I'll need to actually invest in summer clothes. So, we got a good start on that this weekend.

We also finally put up our photos and pictures on the walls, and did some more painting! I told Sarah's Dad this proudly, and he said 'you have MORE pictures??!?' so apparently we have too many photos.

How did you enjoy this past glorious weekend? Really sorry for those of you with snow, this was kind of a douchey post haha.

You have the right to choose!

Happy International Women's Day!

I'm sure if you have used Google today that they have created another great Google Doddle in it's honour. Did you know that the world has actually been celebrating the day since 1911, amazing to think that it's mainly due to the internet that it's really come to international attention.

This years theme is Inspiring Change, in their words: 'Inspiring Change is the 2014 theme global hub and encourages advocacy for women's advancement everywhere in every way.'

A positive message that made me remember an article I read early in the week in the Metro paper. If there is anything the extra journey time is giving me right now it's the time to read the free papers from cover to cover. Admittedly I used to only read the bits that interested me and by that time i'd be at work, not now I have a whole extra 20 minutes to enjoy :)

The article was on Amnesty International's latest campaign 'My Body, My Rights!' The focus is on

'You have the right to choose who you love and what kind of family you want and to live free from rape and sexual violence," said Cho. "I hope my art can help young people start a conversation about those rights."Amnesty International is calling for better, universal access to crucial health services and sex education, as well as fighting for people's right to make their own decisions about partners and children.'

Now I know this our second charity awareness post in a row but this really struck a cord with me. I think in some ways society has come on leaps and bounds in accepting homosexuality since Laura and I came out, we can now legally get married in England (well almost - hurry up March 29th) and around the world attitudes do seem to be changing. However in other ways there are still so many parts of the world where time seems to have stood still on so many issues.

There are still 83 countries where it is illegal to be gay - punishable by death in at least 4!

On other issues Amnesty International points out:

• If present global patterns continue, around 100 million girls will be married as children
• Complications from pregnancy are the leading cause of death among adolescent girls aged 15 to 19 in developing countries
•  There were an estimated 3 million unsafe abortions carried out in developing countries among girls aged 15 to 19 in 2008
• More than 60 per cent of adolescents in four sub-Saharan African countries do not know how to prevent pregnancy
• Close to 3,000 young people are infected with HIV every day - only 34 per cent of young people in developing countries can answer the five basic questions about the disease and how to prevent it
• Assault was 64 per cent of women in the Congo's first sexual experience

The fact that stood out in the Western world was this:

• A massive 83 per cent of girls aged between 12 and 16 in US state schools have suffered sexual harassment

It really makes you think! So on this day dedicated to celebrating women I hope that more strides are made to respected everyone's rights, everywhere. After all in this world we should have the choice to life how we see fit as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else?

UNICEF Tap Project

Have you heard of the UNICEF Tap Project?

I was told about it the other day, and just think it's great.

The concept is, for every 10 minutes that you don't touch your phone, Giorgio Armani (or one of the many other sponsors) donate enough to provide one child's clean water for a day. So while you're not checking every social media under the sun (or at least not on your phone, just on your tablet/computer), you're doing good - for your sanity, for the attention of whatever you should be doing, and for the world.

I decided to try it out - I went to the website, it instructed me to set down my phone, and has a running timer telling you how long it has been. It tells you interesting facts about how many children are in need of clean water, and urges you to continue, and to not stop. Currently, my timer is at... 1 hour 51 minutes. So, that means I've helped provide 11 children with clean water today!

The only suggestion I have is that you do this on wifi and when you have a phone charger, as it does eat the battery a bit (and probably your data usage). Obviously you could also donate money to UNICEF to help, but if you'd like to feel a bit better each day while at work, or have it plugged in overnight, why not visit the site?

www.uniceftapproject.org is the place to go - check it out!