BagOfNothing.com

With the holiday season come and gone, now is the time for me to give my readers a tally of the BagOfNothing Christmas Card Experiment 2.1. 

Last year was the first year I decided to post my mailing address to see who would send me a Christmas card and I received a total of 24 cards: 10 from Texas, two from New York, and one from each of the following states: Ohio, Indiana, California, Colorado, Oregon, Florida, Michigan, and Minnesota.  I also received four from out of the U.S. – one from Germany and three from Canada.

This year I intended on creating a bit of a gimmick to get Christmas cards by offering a chance to win $50 (version 2.0), but several of you had a better idea of raising money for charity, perhaps something in honor for my mother.  So I decided to donate a dollar for each card sent to me (up to $50) and offering my readers a chance to donate either by donating funds directly to the Lupus Research Institute and having an acknowledgement sent to me or including a donation with their Christmas card (version 2.1).

This year I received a total of 23 cards: 12 cards from Texas, two cards from NY, and one from North Carolina, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Louisiana, New Mexico, Colorado, Canada, and Italy.  

Inside the cards were donations for Lupus Research which totaled $96.50.  There were also two online donations of which I do not know the amount; and I know I mentioned I would donate a dollar a card, but I’m going to donate $50 I intended to give away.  So that means BagOfNothing.com readers help raise over $146.50 for lupus research!  Heck, I’m going to chip in a little more to round it off and make it a $150 donation.

Thank you for visiting this silly website.
Thank you for the Christmas cards.
And thank you for your donations to help fight lupus.

This blogger is very humbled and thankful.

Grace and Peace,
Geeding

Women stuck 2 days in elevator

NILES, Illinois (AP) — Two cleaning women, trapped inside a broken elevator for two days, survived on two cough drops and six aspirin until they were rescued. Beata Bartoszewicz and her mother, Roma Borowski, entered an elevator in an empty building in this Chicago suburb on December 22. After the elevator doors closed, the women discovered they were stuck on the first floor of the two-story building.

There was no response from an emergency call alarm and the women couldn’t pry open the doors, Bartoszewicz said.

Neither had a cell phone or water and the building wasn’t due to open until after Christmas.

The duo became dizzy from hunger. “I was close to thinking I was going to die,” Bartoszewicz said.

The women tried to sleep on their coats and used a corner of the elevator as a bathroom.

Bartoszewicz said her mother continually reassured her.

“She kept saying, `We’re going to be OK, and we’re going to spend Christmas Eve at home,”‘ the 25-year-old said.

Two days later, on Christmas Eve, an employee of the building happened to go to work. Borowski said she heard him talking on his cell phone. The women yelled for his attention and he heard them.

Fire crews freed the women an hour later.

Bartoszewicz said the moral of the story is simple: “Always take your cell phone with you.”

Link

He will change his jersey number from 31 to 38, which he wore at Oklahoma.  Williams, a devout Christian, said the number eight represents a new beginning in the Bible.

Williams wore No. 38 during practice the past two days.  He said he chose not to change numbers sooner because he didn’t want owner Jerry Jones to lose money on jersey sales.

Source

I wonder if the number change will happen this season or next?

I was also unfamiliar with the number eight meaning a new beginning in the Bible, but this is what I found:

The number “8” in the Bible represents “new beginnings”. This is seen when God repopulated the earth after the flood by using eight people. This is also seen in the Bible when male Jewish infants were circumcised on the eighth day of their birth.  Source