Music: The Color of Our Love is Black and Blue by Weighty Trees (in honor of domestic violence awareness month)

The Rose - AHMIR cover to Stop Violence Against Women (The Pixel Project)

The Music For Pixels campaign is the first social media-based music campaign to exclusively collaborate with YouTube artistes to raise awareness about Violence Against Women (VAW) through music video PSAs while raising funds for the cause via digital music downloads.

YouTube musicians perform positive, uplifting and empowering songs to boost the spirits of survivors and inspire their fans and global audiences to take action to stop VAW in their communities.

Purchase this song on iTunes now to support The Pixel Project and to stop violence against women: http://bit.ly/TheRosePixel

Learn more at http://music4pixels.thepixelproject.net/

Happy International Women's Day

Some fun ideas for celebrating International Women's Day:

• call, text or email a woman who has made a difference in your life. or 2. 
• watch Saving Face tonight on HBO at 8:30pm ET. This film spotlights women in Pakistan who've faced one of the worst kinds of domestic violence - acid attacks - and the work they've done to heal and change the laws in their country. See http://savingfacefilm.com
• write your members of Congress and ask them to reauthorize VAWA (the Violence Against Women Act) - visit http://4vawa.org/ to learn more and take action. 
• Like the National Women's History Museum on facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/National-Womens-History-Museum/19072122251?ref=ts and enjoy their daily Women's History Month trivia questions. 

And most of all, have a wonderful day!!

Chocolate Tweetup for Refuge House Recap

What a great fun event we had yesterday for Refuge House! LeRoc Bistro Cafe was a great location with its funky decor and delicious food (I had the pressed Tuscan sandwich - yum - and large enough that I could save half for later). They are also very lucky to have a creative pastry chef who prepared this platter of chocolate goodies for us:

We had such an awesome group for the event - we even overflowed the section that the restaurant had set aside for us! We added extra chairs and had space for all nineteen of us.

Much of the credit for the success of the day goes to Danielle (on the left, below). Not only was having a tweetup for Refuge House her idea, but she also helped organize, and recruited lots of friends and co-workers to attend! It was great to meet some of the people she works with at the Florida Chamber.

Thanks to the generosity of author Elin Waldal, we had a signed copy of her book Tornado Warning: A Memoir of Teen Dating Violence and Its Effect on a Woman's Life as a door prize. (Danielle and I didn't take part in the drawing; I held the bag of entries while Danielle picked the winning ticket... and here she is: Jessica was our lucky winner. 

Altogether we raised $125 in cash donations for Refuge House and collected 4 towel sets, a twin sheet set, 2 pillows, 2 bean bags chairs and 2 bins full of gently-used bed linens. Amazing! Here is my attempt to fit it all in one photo:

I want to thank everyone who came out, supported Refuge House, and helped us have such fun! A special thanks to Nicole for bringing her favorite chocolates (Dove, milk and dark) to share and thanks to her and and to Tara for helping take photos. My attempt to embed Nicole's photo aren't working but you can view it at http://plixi.com/p/94553863. Though they weren't with us in person, Alicia and Jennifer helped behind the scenes and were with us in spirit. And Paula is the mother of tweeting up for a cause in Tallahassee - thank you for your support and for the great chocolate twitter icon for the event!

Related posts: http://twtvite.com/chocotally, Chocolate Tweetup preview post and my review of Tornado Warning.

Tweetup friends to follow on Twitter:
@AleciaDaNay
@biggreenpen
@bmds99
@CWRiley01
@Danielle_Gulasa
@_Living_Light_
@lyonsdigital
@MeaganDougherty
@penguintrax
@saraannhart

@RefugeHouse
@LeRocBistroHD

Chocolate Tweetup for Refuge House

Hope you'll join us Thursday April 21st at Lunch for Refuge House with a Chocolate Tweetup. We're meeting at LeRoc Bistro Cafe inside Hotel Duval, from 11:30am - 1:30pm (you can arrive as your schedule allows). The pastry chef is creating special chocolate items on the dessert menu for our event! The first 20 people to RSVP and attend will get a chocolate gift to take home! RSVP at http://twtvite.com/chocotally Everyone is welcome (whether you are on Twitter or not).

All we ask is you chip in $5 for Refuge House or bring a twin sheet set, pillow or towels to donate to Refuge House. "Refuge House, Inc. provides direct services to battered women, their children and sexual assault survivors, as well as to works to eliminate the conditions in society that allow such violence to continue." If you'd like to make your monetary donation online, you can do so here.

 

See you Thursday!!!

Tornado Warning Review and Giveaway!

I started reading Tornado Warning: A Memoir of Teen Dating Violence and its Effect on a Woman's Life as soon as it came out earlier this year. This is the true story of the author, Elin Waldal, how she came to be in a violent relationship as a teen (it's so true that it can happen to anyone), her experience in the relationship, ending it, and the long-term impact it has had on her life.

This is one of the bravest authors you will ever read. Not only does she share her story, she exposes everything she was going through by using excerpts from journals she kept at the time. Here's an example:

"What people don't seem to get is the guy doesn't haul off and hit you on the first date. First there is the falling in love, followed by the extreme need, and then there's this slow erosion of self until without noticing it, the woman becomes unrecognizable even to herself"

The other thing that sets this book apart from other similar memoirs (like Leslie Morgan Steiner's Crazy Love which I recommend here) is the way the author shares the aftermath. What happens to you in a relationship like this stays with you for a long time. Recovery is not easy; it takes time, patience, and determination.

Not only is Ms. Waldal courageous, she is also generous, and has offered a copy of her book to one of my blog readers. She'll even sign it personally to the winner! To enter (one point each)
- comment below (include your email address if you think I don't have it already)
- follow me on twitter: http://twitter.com/amy_z (comment to let me know)
- follow Elin Waldal on twitter: http://twitter.com/ElinWaldal (comment to let me know)
- tweet about the giveaway - use hashtag #teendvbook (if your profile is private, comment here to let me know)
- share this post on facebook (comment to let me know)

Winner will be drawn at random from all entries on Thursday, April 21st at noon EDT. Good luck!

Reading this book could save someone's life.

Paint It Purple Cupcake Party

Jenn and I had a really good time yesterday kicking off Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The fun started Wednesday and Thursday with baking the cupcakes. Then Friday we made frosting and took everything over to the FSU Alpha Chi Omega house at lunch time, where the collegians helped us frost and decorate about 110 cupcakes. It was a great opportunity to talk about DVA Month and Refuge House. When all the work was done, we packed up 7 trays of cupcakes and dropped them off at the Refuge House administrative offices for the staff to enjoy and share with the residents at the domestic violence shelter. We left a couple dozen cupcakes at the house for the sisters to enjoy too. We're so glad to be a part of The Pixel Project's Paint It Purple Cupcake Blog Party!

Kaitlyn making purple ribbons. She did an amazing job!

Ribbons in two colors of purple.

Purple cupcakes with purple sprinkles.

One of the smaller size tins we took to Refuge House.

Three more of the dozen or more collegians who helped - Melissa, Katherine and Amy.

Here is the recipe for my chocolate cupcakes:

Darn Good Chocolate Cupcakes

1 (2-layer) size plain devil's food or dark chocolate fudge cake mix*

1 (4-serving-size) package instant chocolate pudding mix

4 large eggs

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup warm water

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips (optional)*

Line cupcake tins with liners; set aside. Preheat oven to 350 F. 

Place cake and pudding mixes, eggs, sour cream, water and oil in a large mixing bowl. Blend with electric mixer at low speed 1 minute. Stop machine and scrape down sides of the bowl. Increase mixer speed to medium; beat 2 to 3 minutes more, scraping down again if needed. Batter should be thick and well combined. If using chips, fold them in, making sure they are distributed well. Fill cupcake liners 2/3 of the way. 

Bake 20-25 minutes, or until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger, and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan. Cool in back 10 minutes, then move cupcakes to wire rack. 

* this time I used a Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Devil's Food cake mix and left out the chips.

Recipe adapted from The Cake Doctor. 

fresh from the oven

decorated and ready to be shared!

I'll post links to the other Paint It Purple blog posts in the comments, be sure to check them out!! Jenn and I were really excited to recruit some other friends to the party!

Kitchen, Cupcakes and More

Some updates on this week's projects. First, in the kitchen, I picked up the replacement chandelier and installed it! And it looks great!! I'll return the bent one this morning.

Ta-da!

Tuesday I blogged about my plans to participate in the Paint It Purple blog party. I'm really excited that Jenn, Britain and Peyton will join the fun. Jenn, as usual, had brilliant ideas! We are going to bake on Thursday, decorate the cupcakes Friday (maybe with the help of the Alpha Chi collegians at FSU) and then deliver the cupcakes to Refuge House, our local DV shelter/agency so the staff and residents can enjoy them! Look for our blog posts on Saturday, October 2nd!

In other news, I've had a semi-famous week. Tuesday I was featured on the AXO Florida State alumnae and collegians blog - see the post here: http://axofloridastate.blogspot.com/2010/09/amy-zoldak-zeta-upsilon-alumna-honorary.html. Wednesday, our plumbers posted a link to my blog post about their last visit on their facebook page http://www.facebook.com/McNeillPlumbing?v=wall Makes me wonder what might happen today.... hmmm. :)