International News: Purple Day: March 26th!!!

I'm thinking of organizing a party or some other kind of event. This date gives us yet another date to work for awareness, so we should take it!!!

Or, at least we should all participate and wear purple!!!

I think Cassidy has come upon something wonderful, and I am pleased to be of support to her efforts. 

GLOBAL AWARENESS OF EPILEPSY

Purple Day - March 26th http://www.purpleday.org  Purple Day was started in 2008 by a nine year old girl called Cassidy Megan who comes from Nova Scotia, Canada and she has epilepsy.  She started Purple Day to dispel myths and the stigma attached to epilepsy. She wants to let everyone know that there are different degrees of epilepsy and it affects different people in different ways. She wants everyone to know that people with epilepsy are the same as everyone else, just ordinary people.  Cassidy wants to let other children with epilepsy know that they are not alone. Epilepsy affects over 50 million people worldwide.  Cassidy wanted to have a day where the whole world could think about epilepsy and that is now 26th March.  And why the colour purple? Lavender is the international colour for epilepsy.  At Matthew's Friends we were so impressed with her story and her courage that we just had to get involved and we are VERY proud to be the UK Partners for Purple Day. An 8 year old boy was the inspiration behind Matthew's Friends and now a 9 year old girl is going to make sure that the world knows about epilepsy and we want to help her do this.  If everyone can wear purple on the 26th March EVERY YEAR, then the word will spread about epilepsy and we want to get people talking. Cassidy encourages people to hold fundraising events or parties on Purple Day, by whichever means you want. It is not only about fundraising, it is about raising awareness.  PLEASE SUPPORT CASSIDY  Take Care  Emma Williams  Founder/Chief Executive - Matthew's Friends

Secular Stuff About Valentine's Day...

Valentine's Trivia about Flowers and Chocolates

• 110 million roses, the majority colour red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period.
• The red rose was the favourite flower of Venus, the Roman goddess of love. Red stands for strong feelings 
  California produces 60 percent of American roses, but the vast number sold on Valentine's Day in the United States are imported, mostly from South America.
• 15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day.
• 73% of people who buy flowers for Valentine's Day are men, while only 27 percent are women.
• More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold for Valentine's Day.
• While 75% of chocolate purchases are made by women all year long, during the days and minutes before Valentine's Day, 75% of the chocolate purchases are made by men.
• Over $1billion USD worth of chocolate is purchased for Valentine's Day.
• One-third of all Valentine cards are accompanied by gifts.
• An estimated 25% of Valentine's Day cards are humorous.
• 70% of those celebrating the holiday give a card, followed by a telephone call [49%], gift [48%], special dinner [37%], candy [33%] restaurant meal [30%], and flowers [19%].
• The Italian city of Verona, where Shakespeare's lovers Romeo and Juliet lived, receives about 1,000 letters addressed to Juliet every Valentine's Day.
• About 3% of pet owners will give Valentine's Day gifts to their pets. (Probably chocolate.)
• The most fantastic gift of love is the Taj Mahal in India.  It was built by Mughal Emperor Shahjahan as a memorial to his wife.

Quotes for Your Valentine's Day Cards

Will and Guy invite visitors to write one of these quotations in the Valentine card they send this year:

• Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius. Mozart
• Love is indescribable and unconditional. I could tell you a thousand things that it is not, but not one that it is. Duke Ellington
• To love someone is to see a miracle invisible to others. Francois Mauriac
• Love is not blind, it simply enables one to see things others fail to see. Anonymous
• 'I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.'  Rita Rudner
• Never close your lips to those whom you have opened your heart.  Charles Dickens
• Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired. Robert Frost
• Kissing...
• • The science of kissing is called philematology
  • Lips are 100 times more sensitive than the tips of the fingers
  • A real kiss may quicken the pulse to 100 beats in a minute
  • A French kiss moves about 29 muscles in the face
  • One little kiss burns up to 3 calories. The longer the kiss: the better the exercise
  • The world's longest kiss took place in New York City, lasting 30 hours, 59 minutes, and 27 seconds
  • It is thought that men who kiss their wives every morning before going to work live 5 years longer than men who don't
  • 70% of people aged 16 to 24 years had their first kiss by the age 15, whereas only 46% of their parents had kissed by the same age
  • Couples may transfer an average of 9 milligrams of water, 0.7 milligrams of protein, 0.18 milligrams of organic matter, 0.71 milligrams of fat and 0.45 milligrams of salt to each other with each open-mouthed kiss
  • It is said that an average woman kisses about 29 men before getting married
  • A kiss can contain up to 278 of different bacteria, most of which are non-dangerous
  • An average person spends two weeks of his or her life kissing
  • Two out of every three couples turn their heads to the right when they kiss
  • Eskimos, Polynesians and Malaysians rub noses instead of kissing
  • First movie kiss was in 1896 when John C Rice kissed May Irwin in the film called 'The Kiss'
  • Kissing helps reduce tooth decay because the extra saliva it creates helps clean out the mouth
  • More than 4,400 couples arrived together in the streets in Chile for a ten second kiss, this set the world record for the largest number of people kissing simultaneously

  How to stop people from bugging you about getting married

  Old aunts used to come up to me at weddings, poking me in the ribs and cackling, telling me, 'you're next.'  They stopped after I started doing the same thing to them at funerals.