There is life on Planet Coco.

And it is friendly, if not the most intelligent.

Anyway, sorry I have been away for yet another inexcusable amount of time. I have been going through some personal and health problems that have rendered me quite useless but fear not, I am getting better. Sadly, I haven't much progress to report. I am making headway into learning embroidery and hope to have a cute little project posted for you guys very soon. Mostly I've been learning stitches and studying stitch diagrams while making strange shapes on some spare fabric. I know, boring work. Other than that I've not been doing much. Just trying to work through some personal problems, balance some relationships, and deal with the stress of the holiday weekend at work. (Seriously, I lugged around more ice and propane this weekend than I did for the first four months of my job combined.) I was able to do a bit of Etsy shopping for myself though. Retail therapy at it's finest.

I scored this little number from Etsy seller Hissyfitoly

And this strand of button pearls from Chickatey. Now you may notice that there isn't much merchandise left in Chickatey's shop. This is because she and her fiance were the victims of an apartment fire and lost almost everything they had. Read about it here. Making a purchase would help Katey and her fiance so much. Katey is also the charity cause of April's Army this month so any purchases made in the April's Army Shop will also benefit her.

Well, those were my purchases. Now all I need is an excuse to show them off. Maybe something like an ORDER AND CHAOS RETRO PICNIC? (*hintcanwedothispleaseguisehint*)

Now I'm off to the magical land of bubbles and hot running water. I'll check in with you guys after my shift.

~Coco

Coco loves Jason Williams, April's Army, The Audrey Project, Stuart Rose, Punchline, and 8 in 8.

So hey guys, I am thinking of starting a little section here where I link to shops and sites that are selling things or asking for donations to raise funds for various charities. I'll call this little segment "Coco loves [x]". So here it goes.

Currently I love:

Etsy Shop "For Jason" - All proceeds of this shop go to helping Jason Williams afford Pancreatic cancer vaccine treatments. The shop has wonderful bath and beauty products as well as some cute handmade accessories. Also helping Jason are the folks over at Regretsy. Regretsy site owner April Winchell has put together an army of Etsy-ers who will be donating handmade items to a special shop that will only be open for the last week of each month with all proceeds going to a new cause each month. Follow April's Army on Facebook, the April's Army Shop on Facebook, and April's Army on Twitter. I really hope the April's Army project keeps going for a good long while because I think it is wonderful and would love to have Order & Chaos donate some items to worthy causes.

The Audrey Project - Audrey is a seven year old girl with a disease that will soon rob her of her eyesight. Her aunt and uncle want to take her on a trip to Europe so that she can experience the sights of London and Paris before she loses the ability to see forever. They are asking for donations to help this girl see what she will never forget.

Stuart Rose - Stuart is a 21 year old marathon runner in the UK who is running for a very good cause. He runs to raise money and awareness for Multiple Sclerosis, which he also has. He is very close to raising the target amount for his goal.


Punchline - I mentioned last night that the drummer of this band (which happens to be one of my favorites) was badly injured in a fight with the members of the God-awful scene band BrokeNCYDE (or however the hell they spell their friggin' name). Well the band has decided to release their latest album for the donation of your choice (FREE is an option) over at http://www.brokencydesucks.com/ . All they ask is for you to share the link like crazy. I also think it would be rad if you guys listened to their music and gave them some scrobbles on Last.fm since moving a band up in the charts is one of my favorite ways of showing support.

8 in 8 - What do you get when you throw Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer, Damian Kulash, and Ben Folds into a room for 8 hours and tell them to write 8 songs? You get a 6 track album titled "Nighty Night" to be downloaded for a donation of $1 or more with all proceeds going to http://berkleecitymusicnetwork.org/ . I'm going to download my copy right now.

Well, that's all I've got for you this time folks. I hope you enjoy the free and almost-free music, wonderfully priced soaps, and sheer joy of helping out your fellow man that I've offered today.

Love you all!
~Coco.