Blog Love

I read several blogs on a daily basis and one of my very favorites is TellingDad. Greg Zellers is the author of TellingDad and I am here to tell you, the man is one giant (literally, the man is tall) goofball. If blog crushes were a real thing, mine would be on TellingDad.

Last summer he did a series of posts called Take Me With You in which his readers, like myself, printed out a cartoon version of him and took it with them for photo ops to random places. Personally, I took him to New York City for Ellie's Sweet Sixteen and got our photos featured on this post here. Fun and Silly? You bet. Totally worth making people wonder why we were holding up a paper doll for photos? Absolutely.

He also travelled to Chicago for a blogging adventure and offered to send postcards to his readers upon request. He did not realize how many readers he had and suffered the hand cramping/disfigurement to prove it. I love my postcard just because, once again, it was silly and fun.

Although for the most part his blog is hysterical, there are some posts that tug, pretty roughly, on the heartstrings. He and his wife started the Sweet Dreams Fund after his wife's cousin lost her mother and children at the hands of her abusive ex-husband.

And just this past spring, he wrote a funny yet touching love letter to his wife while she was away taking care of her dying mother. See? He's a good guy.

Now he is asking for our help to get flip flops to kids in a Village that he and his wife help support in Malawi. They were going to do a campaign where you had your kids walk one mile barefoot while people pledged money to their efforts. Then the concern of what could happen to the kids' feet became a factor. They could get hurt, blisters, cuts, and infections. The idea was scrapped due to those concerns. But do you see the irony here? We wouldn't want our kids walking even a single mile without decent footwear while these children in Malawi walk EVERYWHERE barefoot. And what really struck home for me about this was when I thought about the number of shoes that Tessie has. Her shoe collection at times has rivaled Imelda Marcos'. And she cannot walk. I must admit, it made me feel a little bit uncomfortable when I thought about it in that context.

So I made a monetary donation and offered to spread the word (even just a little) here at Travels with Tessie Toodles. I'm hoping those of you who can will click the link below and make a donation as well and/or copy the link and share on your preferred social networking site.  This is not meant as pressure or guilt. It is simply an, "if you can and want to, then here is the info you will need to help".

Whether you are moved to help with this campaign or not, I hope you take some time to read some of Greg's posts. You won't regret it.

Here is the link to the flip flop campaign(or you can click the word link):

http://www.tellingdad.com/2013/walk-a-mile-for-their-shoes/

TellingDad himself in all his goofball glory.  *photo credit to TellingDad*