Yes… it’s been a while since we’ve posted. We could make all kinds of excuses, but the truth of the matter is: We’ve been sidetracked by life.

It happens.

Life, as we all know, has a tendency to sweep one along the current, and that is exactly what has happened to us.

We’re happy to say that the flow of life we’ve been riding in 2010 has most definitely been a good one. It has picked us up and taken us to spectacular new places around the world and connected us with some truly amazing people. Things are ramping up at Handshoe and we’ve been taking care of that which takes care of us. Our business. Our clients. Our livelihood.

We’ve also been taking care of each other. Both of our families have grown this year. There are new babies and the combining of families and all of the many blessings that accompany this particular type of growth and abundance.

And we are eternally grateful for every sidetracked second.

The state of being grateful in itself means that one has identified value in the things that really matter in life. To honor this spectacular year and continue to give back in 2011, we’ve created a little something that serves as a daily reminder to do just that.

Handshoe | 2010love has teamed up with Heart and Stone Jewelry in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts to create a limited edition LOVE WHAT MATTERS ™ necklace. Each LOVE WHAT MATTERS ™ necklace is hand made from 100% Recycled Pure Silver by Julie Booras.

10% of sales from all LOVE WHAT MATTERS ™ Necklaces will be donated to Feeding America, “the nation’s leading domestic hunger-relief charity.” www.feedingamerica.org.

Everyone needs a gratitude reminder every once in a while. We hang ours around our neck. We hope you will too.

As always…

Love what matters.

Severn stood up for what she loved.

18 years have passed since that day, and when we listen to this child speaking so passionately about the state of the world and of humanity as a whole, it makes us wonder if we (all of us) are doing enough.

Severn took a step toward making the world a better place. Some of her efforts have made a huge impact. Some have come and gone. People have applauded her efforts and many have ridiculed her as well. The point is she took a first step toward standing up for what she loves, no matter what others thought. Then she took another step, then another, and now, at 31, she is still working toward achieving that vision of a better world.

Because that’s what matters to her.

I don’t know about you, but that was the kick in the pants we needed to bring us back to responsibility consciousness. Today, we’re reminding ourselves what our role is in creating a more positive world for our kids.

18 years ago a child spoke words that eventually reached out to inspire others in the future.

Amazing, isn’t it?

So recently we donated a piece of artwork (created by Leslie) to the BlogHer ’10 Voices of the Year Gala and Art Auction that took place in New York City on August 6. Ok, so what is BlogHer? Well, its pretty much what it sounds like. From the website: “BlogHer is a community and media company created in partnership with women in social media… Today, BlogHer is the largest community of women who blog: 23+ million unique visitors per month (Nielsen Netratings). Engaged, influential and info-savvy, these women come to BlogHer to seek and share advice, opinions and recommendations.”

The Gala/Art Auction was also curated by kirtsy. What is kirtsy you say? From their website: “kirtsy is a social media platform of pure goodness. A plaza for the peachy. A portal to the pretty. A place to find cool things. kirtsy is the place to find and/or link to anything and everything on the Web that you’d like to share. The front page content is ever-changing and always cool.”

Although we’ve really just begun exploring these wonderful communities, we really dig what we’ve found so far. The proceeds from the Art Auction (which began post gala/conference is still happening online Ebay here!) go to The Nature Conservancy, benefiting the people and wildlife of the Gulf Coast oil spill. Our piece already sold (yaay!), but there are many other cool pieces to choose from.

Speaking of cool pieces… I am always looking for affordable and unique artwork. Along with the BlogHer/Kirtsy Art Auction, I recently discovered some awesome, eco-friendly art at paperwork. Have you seen this?… supercool.

It’s part of  UGALLERY, which offers a more diverse collection of artwork… (and some heftier prices)

And both are connected to Daily Deal… a heck-of-a-deal bidding war for one piece of artwork offered up every day at 12pm EST. How fun is that!
Which reminds me, I need to go because i have two minutes to see what today’s selection is.

Have a great weekend everyone, and take the time to check out some art. It will fill your heart with love.

Photo © Amazon.com

In light of the planned “International Burn-a-Koran Day” (which sounds ridiculous) on September 11 (even more ridiculous) this year, we thought we’d suggest an alternate route.  Hate breeds hate, mister. We are seriously dumbfounded on this one.

Keep spreading the love… PLEASE. (Thanks Becky for the link:)

Breast cancer incidence in women in the United States is 1 in 8 (about 13%).

In 2009, an estimated 192,370 new cases of invasive breast cancer were expected to be diagnosed in women in the U.S., along with 62,280 new cases of non-invasive breast cancer.

Besides skin cancer, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among U.S. women. More than 1 in 4 cancers are breast cancer.

–Breastcancer.org, January 8 2010

Breast cancer, of course, affects us all: friends, mothers, sisters, daughters, wives… which is why continuing research and support for a cure is a necessity.
Kristin, of Yorkshire, Ohio shares our 2010love sentiment which is why she decided to wear the PINK 2010love tee during her Susan G. Komen 3-Day for a Cure Walk in Cleveland, Ohio. (10% of proceeds from 2010love PINK limited edition shirts go to Susan G. Komen for the Cure)

Kristin says she is blessed to have not been walking for anyone in particular, but “just had been really wanting to be part of the cause for a couple of years and now was the right time.” Pretty admirable, right?

The Susan G. Komen 3-Day for a Cure Walk consists of 60 miles of walking over the course of 3 days. Contributions “fund innovative global breast cancer research and local community programs supporting education, screening and treatment. Every major advance in the fight against breast cancer in the last 28 years has been impacted by a Susan G. Komen for the Cure grant.” (Susan G. Komen, FAQ) The walk takes place in cities like Chicago, Boston, DC, Atlanta, San Diego, Cleveland, Seattle and more. Registration for 2010 and 2011 is available here.

Thanks Kristin for your support, amazing effort and the great photo! May you be an inspiration to us all…

Dr. Bowlin's team, left to right: Kathy, Markie, Dr. Bowlin, Vicki, Barb

Since we launched the 2010love project in February of this year, we’ve sold hundreds of t-shirts to lovely people across the globe. Our tees have been used for gifts, special occasions, personal achievements, and even events that help support or fund important causes or relief needs. (Of course our tees are also purchased for the fun of wearing them and simply spreading a positive message… we love this too.)

Some of the t-shirt stories being sent to us, however, are quite inspiring… and it’s those stories we’d like to share with all of you.

We’ll start with Dr. Julia Bowlin and her team in Versailles, Ohio. Dr. Bowlin is Board Certified in family medicine and certified in Environmental Allergy and Immunotherapy. Through her medical practice and regular speaking engagements, she strives to clear the emotional, spiritual, and physical clutter in our lives that impacts our healing and recovery process.

Every year she donates to the United Way, and this year, she commemorated the effort by purchasing 2010love tees for her office staff. Pretty cool, eh? Dr. Bowlin’s team also supports their patients’ families with annual donations and mailings to troops overseas. Lots of love to spread in many different ways.

With a little creativity, teamwork and energy, opportunities to spread the love are endless. If you have a story to share, please send us a note to 2010love@handshoe.com. Way to go Dr. Bowlin and team!

Can you believe its already August?! That means soon leaves will be turning, crispness will fill the air and the kiddies will be heading back to school… Hooray for Autumn!

To get the season started off right we are holding a Back-to-School sale in which all 2010love t-shirts (adult, youth and toddler/infant) will be 25% off through Labor Day. That’s right, quite a deal… and we still donate 10% to charity.

So take advantage now and help spread the love at school. You can purchase shirts at our Etsy shop here, or email us at 2010love@handshoe.com for larger orders.  Also, if you’d like to use 2010love shirts for your school event or fundraiser, let us know!

We love it when people send us pics that connect to the 2010love mission… send us yours!

Message to the masses on Pensacola Beach. Photo: Randy Hamilton

Day 84.

According to the CNN counter, at the high end of the estimate there are 2520K gallons of oil gushing into the gulf every day, for a total of 217,700,000 + gallons and counting with no end in sight.

Reading this kind of news every morning has the potential of starting one’s day on a seriously blue note. I was feeling pretty helpless and depressed about the whole situation until I read this little email reminder to find the bright side of every situation from Mike Dooley at The Tut’s Adventurer’s Club:

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“On the very bright side, never in peace time history has there been such a gallant effort, by so many people, spending so many billions of dollars with no end in sight, to rapidly clean up your environment.

Never before have numerous heads of state and representatives of a corporation as large as many smaller nations, pledged to work together, sharing expertise and resources to get a job done.

Never before have so many prayer and meditation groups suddenly formed, amongst and in between every religion and those belonging to none, to foster healing of your precious planet.

Never before have finger pointers, conspiracy theorists, and blame mongers been so idle and unnecessary in the face of such a tragedy.

Never before have industry titans across every sea chosen to reexamine their own safety procedures, revisit their own environmental safeguards, and expend their own fortunes to voluntarily reflect upon and demand that they do an even better job from this day forward.

And to top it all off, your planet has a loving, brilliant consciousness all her own, and of her countless balancing acts, healing herself is one in which she truly shines.”

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I guess sometimes it takes a serious wake up call to inspire a large-scale shift in consciousness. There IS a bright side to this insane situation we’ve gotten ourselves into. We can get ourselves out. By pulling together and stepping into action.

Love what matters. Do it now.

Pretty deep net-philosophy for a Tuesday, huh? It’s true though… At least that’s just my opinion about Salman Khan. Sal has some pretty impressive credentials. He has earned a BS in Mathematics, a BS and a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT and an MBA from Harvard Business School. The wealth of knowledge gained from his very impressive education primed Sal for pretty much anything he could possibly want to do in life.

But Sal’s true purpose was to be a teacher.

Sal had a cousin who has having problems in 6th grade math. She lived in New Orleans and Sal lived in Boston. In order for this busy 6th grader to watch the lessons post after-school activities, Sal decided to make things easier by creating small, direct lessons on his computer then post them on YouTube for her to watch and learn at her leisure. Simple enough, right?

The crazy and amazing thing about the internet is that Sal’s simple good intention to help his cousin also helped a lot of other people around the world. With every lesson he posted, more and more people began to watch and benefit from his unique, self-paced style of delivering lessons. Sal had grown beyond tutoring a family member. He had become a teacher.

Now, Sal’s lessons have grown to over 1,400 videos covering everything from basic arithmetic and algebra to differential equations, calculus, physics, chemistry, biology, history, statistics, economics and finance and are available for people all over the world to watch and learn… free of charge. Sal’s initial good deed has grown into what is now named the Khan Academy, a not-for-profit organization with the mission of delivering a high quality education to anyone, anywhere. They are now a now have over 80,000 students each month watching 35,000 videos a day.

The Khan Academy and Salman Khan have received a 2009 Tech Award in Education. The Tech Awards is an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity.

The best thing about Sal and the Khan Academy (and the reason we’re sharing his story on 2010love) is the spirit from which this grand vision is rooted. In Sal’s words, from the Q & A section of the Khan Academy web site:

Q: How are you funding/making money off of this?

A: “I quit my day job as of September 2009 to work on this full-time and was digging into my savings until recently. In May, some generous individuals have given large enough gifts for me to take a salary for the time being. I could be aggressive with advertising on the site, but I don’t want to do that until I have to. I am speaking to some foundations that might enable Khan Academy to get to the next level. If you know of potential partner foundations who would agree that there is no better way to educate and enlighten the world, they shouldn’t hesitate to email me (sal ‘at’ khanacademy ‘dot’ org) “

“Khan Academy is a IRS-recognized 501c3 not-for-profit organization. My goal is to make it self-sustaining in the next five years.”

Q: Are you interested in turning this into a business? Maybe with some VC funding?

A: I’ve been approached several times, but it just didn’t feel right. When I’m 80, I want to feel that I helped give access to a world-class education to billions of students around the world. Sounds a lot better than starting a business that educates some subset of the developed world that can pay $19.95/month and eventually selling it to some text book company or something. I already have a beautiful wife, a hilarious son, two hondas and a decent house. What else does a man need?

With that said, if you are a social venture capitalist and are looking to deploy capital with the highest possible social return per dollar invested, we should talk. I think you’ll find that there is no more measurable, scalable and high impact way to educate the world.”

Now THAT, my friends, is a man who loves what matters.

Thanks Sal… You’ve inspired us.