Harper Kingsley blog

Locks of Love –

It’s that time of year again. My hair is getting long and once I have 12-inches I will be chopping 10-inches off and sending it away to Locks of Love.

What is Locks of Love?

Locks of Love is a public non-profit organization that provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children in the United States and Canada under age 21 suffering from long-term medical hair loss from any diagnosis. We meet a unique need for children by using donated hair to create the highest quality hair prosthetics. Most of the children helped by Locks of Love have lost their hair due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, which has no known cause or cure. The prostheses we provide help to restore their self-esteem and their confidence, enabling them to face the world and their peers.

How to donate:

• 10 inches measured tip to tip is the minimum length needed for a hairpiece.
• Hair must be in a ponytail or braid before it is cut.
• Hair must be clean and completely dry before it is mailed in.
• Place the ponytail or braid inside of a plastic bag, and then inside of a padded envelope.
• If you wish to receive an acknowledgment for your hair donation, please fill out the hair donation form, or write your name and e-mail address or mailing address on a full size separate sheet of paper and include inside the envelope. We cannot acknowledge donors who do not send their name and address according to these instructions.
• All hair donations must be mailed to Locks of Love at:
  234 Southern Blvd.
  West Palm Beach, FL 33405-2701
• **IMPORTANT** When mailing your donation, please make sure that you are sending it with adequate postage. The U.S. Postal Service has notified Locks of Love that many donations are being sent without enough postage, and these packages will be returned to sender! To ensure adequate postage, please take your donation to your local post office.

Go check out Locks of Love: http://www.locksoflove.org.

It’s a great organization that helps kids, and if you’re giving a hair donation it doesn’t cost anything more than postage. So why not help someone out?

Exercise –

I spend a lot of time on my computer, and as everyone knows, that’s a good way to become flabby around the middle and thighs. Type, type, typing for hours at a time doesn’t exactly build the muscles and get your heart pumping.

I run around the yard with my dog and I walk a lot, which goes well with my calorie counting to keep my weight in check. It’s unfortunate, but while my sister was gifted with the body of a sylph, I got a healthy dose of my grandmothers’ genes — both sides of my family had a tendency for heavyset ladies — so I know I have to keep an eye on myself or I could be looking at diabetes and heart problems in the future.

Exercise is something I need to fit into my schedule, but I’m lazy. All the walking and running are great for the legs, but I want to tone my arm muscles. So whenever I make tea I’ve started doing jumping jacks until the water boils, then I do push-ups against the kitchen counter while my tea steeps.

I can see the benefits in my arms already, which are losing the hanging flab, and I’m very pleased with my decision to start working out a little. Not too much (as I’m still very lazy) but enough that I can known I’m doing something beneficial for my health above cutting back on sweets and eating more veggies.

* For jumping jacks I alternate between the regular slap my hands over my head kind, and the kind where my arms go straight out, up, straight out, and back to my sides while my feet go out, back together, out, and back together in four jumps.

* For push-ups I do table presses against the kitchen counter, as I don’t relish my dog jumping on my back when he gets too excited. A table push-up involves pushing away from a table or chair that’s secure against the floor.

Arunachalam Muruganantham –

This guy is an amazing man. Seriously. I heard about him from Dear Author, who gave this link to the BBC article.

A school dropout from a poor family in southern India has revolutionised menstrual health for rural women in developing countries by inventing a simple machine they can use to make cheap sanitary pads.

and …

There are still many taboos around menstruation in India. Women can’t visit temples or public places, they’re not allowed to cook or touch the water supply – essentially they are considered untouchable.

TL;DR, this man loved his wife so much that he wanted to make her life better once he discovered how terrible conditions are for ladies on the rag in India. They’re not allowed in a lot of places and a lot of women have died due to the unhygienic way they have to deal with their periods since sanitary napkins are so expensive.

Being a cool guy, he came up with a framework machine that is being used in over 1300 villages in 23 different states. And instead of using his machines to make a bunch of money for himself, he teaches women how to use the machine and make their own sanitary napkins — which has led to them creating their own businesses and brands.

He keeps to a humble life and doesn’t believe in being wealthy, while at the same time he makes the lives of others better.

This man is a hero. Go read the article: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26260978

Muruganantham seemed set for fame and fortune, but he was not interested in profit. “Imagine, I got patent rights to the only machine in the world to make low-cost sanitary napkins – a hot-cake product,” he says. “Anyone with an MBA would immediately accumulate the maximum money. But I did not want to. Why? Because from childhood I know no human being died because of poverty – everything happens because of ignorance.”

He believes that big business is parasitic, like a mosquito, whereas he prefers the lighter touch, like that of a butterfly. “A butterfly can suck honey from the flower without damaging it,” he says.

I wish more people dreamed of being butterflies, versus settling on being mosquitoes.