Mission: Accomplished

Well, we did it! My teammate, Angie & I successfully walked all 60 miles of our Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk. It was harder than I thought, emotional, inspirational, rewarding and I'm so glad I did it. I fared a bit better than Ang did and escaped relatively unscathed by blisters, pulled muscles and generally just came away with an all-over soreness that went away in a few days. A little knee issue, but it's all better now. It really was amazing to see all the women and men walking - all different shapes, sizes, walks of life, and reasons for walking. There were pregnant women - and I mean PREGNANT and might give birth around mile 32. There were survivors and women who were going through treatment and it was amazing to me that they were able to get out there and walk. What amazing strength they must have.

It really was a wonderful, lifetime experience that I would do again in a heartbeat, as challenging as it was. I was so happy to be able to walk in honor of my grandmother and in honor and memory of the thousands who have been touched by it. When all was said and done, the Atlanta 3 Day raised 6.6 million dollars for breast cancer research! Amazing.

The camp life was much better than I thought - it was about 45 degrees in the mornings, so we froze a little bit, but the days were beautiful and the community support and cheering stations were so great. It was kind of a disappointment not being cheered for everywhere I walked after I finished! The food was delicious - and they made sure we always had snacks and drinks on the route. Let me just say that there are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on graham crackers that exist that I did not know about and I am on a mission to find them so I can have them at home. They are wrapped to look like ice cream sandwiches and are delicious. I had an awesome sleeping bag that kept me nice and warm at nights and the port-a-pottys, well, I just had to get past it. It is what it is.

And my teammate, Ang, was awesome! She soldiered through wicked blisters, bad arches and walked the whole way without getting picked up by one of the vans. She totally rocks and I had the best time being her teammate and tentmate. She is a true wilderness girl and without her, our tent never would've gotten put up. I called her a Red Feather, but she didn't so much like that - I just meant she had awesome camping skills, as opposed to Troop Beverly Hills, which is the troop I would have been a member of.

What a gift it was to have my health and such a wonderful support group to be able to do this walk. The Lord has truly blessed me!

Here are some pictures from the walk - enjoy!



Tent, sweet Tent. And yes, that's a TNT towel. We Know Drama, baby.









Ahh, camplife.










My nemesis, the port-o-potty's.








Tyler came to cheer me on at one of the cheering stations along the way!










Closing ceremonies - Everyone held up a shoe in honor of the survivors.

Happy Birthday, Brenda!

Today is one of my very dear friend's birthday, and so I thought I would post in honor of her big day. She, like me, loves celebrating her birthday and I appreciate that. My husband makes fun of me because I act like a little kid when my birthday comes around, but so does Brenda and I applaud that. We like to make week-long celebrations out of them.

And not only does she love to celebrate her birthday, she is also a great friend. One of my most clever, tv & movie loving ones who always makes me laugh and has been one of my favorite things about Atlanta since I moved here!

So Brenda, happy birthday!! Hope you have a fabulous day!

Cupcakes for the Cure!

With less than a week left until the Atlanta 3 Day, my teammate and I made a final attempt at raising as much money as we could for our team, "Simply the Breast." Pretty sweet name, huh? Just wait 'til you see our t-shirts.

So, we decided that we would make cupcakes to take to work and accept "donations" for anyone who might want one. Here's hoping we make more money that way than by setting a price for them. But after a lot of icing and frosting, "that's what she said" jokes, blood, sweat and tears, here are our results.












That's right - we made boobie cupcakes! They're not offensive, right? I think they're pretty funny. Especially because we have mini-ones, which we call the A-cupcakes. But for those who might take offense, we also have the ribbon cupcakes. You would pay a pretty penny to eat these delicious strawberry cupcakes, wouldn't you?

Violence Shmiolence

Can someone explain to me why directors, producers, etc., feel it's necessary to depict the most gruesome, violent events on camera, rather than leave it to the audience's imagination? Do you give us so little credit that if you show a knife to someone's neck and then cut away or switch to a reverse shot of the body slumping, we won't realize that someone's throat has just been slashed? Really guys, we're not that dumb. Now, I get, that in some instances (i.e., Saving Private Ryan), that it serves the plot of the movie and is necessary to teach and educate us, even though it may be hard to watch. However, it seems these days, that it's merely thrown in for shock value to see just how much you can get away with, how absolutely foul you can be. Case in point: I went to see Eastern Promises last night with some friends and there were about 5 or 6 scenes that really, were totally unecessary. I get that the Russian mafia is violent. I get that they kill people in terrible, torturous ways. But (spoiler warning), do I really need to see someone's fingers actually being cut off? Viggo Mortensen stabbing a rival family member in the eye? In the back of the head? A guy's throat being slashed and then seeing it open up and out pours the blood?

And the movie actually had a very interesting plot line, dynamic characters and was really well done - I would have enjoyed it I think, had I not had to look away every 15 minutes or so because I was afraid I was going to throw up in the seat next to me. I'm sure my friend Brenda appreciated the fact that I didn't. It's really not violence that bothers me, it's the unecessary violence that does nothing, in my opinion, to advance the plot line. It left me feeling like I needed to shower, throw up, then shower again.

And when did movies become $9.50?? Hollywood is making me angry. I LOVE to go see movies, but having to pay that much, for any movie, makes me want to sit at home and wait for the DVD to come out. But on the bright side, my local theater did just decide to start carrying Junior Mints again. VICTORY!!

The Great Bear Rescue

My husband just forwarded me this email about a bear who fell over the side of the bridge because it got scared by cars crossing the bridge. The bear caught himself and was able to pull himself up on the ledge. Authorities placed a net under the ledge, tranquilized the bear, who then fell into the net. They lowered the net, the bear woke up and out he walked. Hooray for the bear savers! Please scroll down to the end of the pics to see what Tyler wrote in the body of the email. It made me laugh out loud. Maybe it's just because I know him and can picture him saying it. I think sometimes that Tyler should have a quote of the day because the things that come out of his mouth are pretty amusing. It's one of the things I love most about him, even though it's one of the things that causes the most embarrassment on my part sometimes.
















































And here is what Tyler said about the last one: Tell me this. Why is the person taking the last photograph so close to a bear who had just been tranquilized? If I was that bear, I would eat that person.

Thanks, honey, for that interesting perspective.

Though he does have a point. When we were in Yellowstone a few years ago, there was a baby brown bear cub on the side of the road, eating grass, and people were literally about 2 feet away from it, taking pictures. Granted, it was a cute little cub, but mommy was not far behind. Did they think because they weren't in the middle of the woods, the Mama Bear wouldn't eat them alive for being so close to her baby? Maybe that's just me.

Rescue Recess!

So, when I came into work today, I got a handout entitled "Rescuing Recess." I don't know if anybody has heard about this, but what a great idea! This week is National Recess Week - again, something I had not heard of - but totally awesome. Anyway, the general idea is that only 8 state school boards have a policy that ensures daily recess - something that I know I had everyday in elementary school growing up. This movement is asking for volunteer hours from employees/fellow Atlantans to be a recess monitor, help the P.E. teacher, help renovate or build playgrounds, and many other things. However, I know this is a nationwide campaign, so check out the website to see what you can do to help in your state!

Anyway, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute - I think it's terrible that recess seems to be a thing of the past. With obesity in children at what seems to be an all-time high, it doesn't seem to make much sense to take away what might be a child's only exercise all day. I realize that parents need to be held responsible for raising their children to be healthy, active adults, but help 'em out a little and keep recess alive! It might even help the teachers out, letting the kids have an outlet for all their pent-up energy. Maybe not dodgeball, because that used to scare the heck out of me, but I used to love going outside, or to the gym, to run around with my friends. I imagine it not only helps with weight issues, but also with sociability among the kids.

So keep recess alive! Bring back Red Rover and monkey bars and all the other cool things recess involves. Did anyone else used to get to play with a giant parachute? No? That was just me? Well, it was awesome.

18/11

Don't worry - this is not a post about math and does not involve converting fractions into mixed numbers. You were scared, weren't you?

These 2 numbers signify the mileage I covered, respectively, on Saturday and Sunday. And this isn't even as far as I was supposed to walk. I was supposed to walk 15 on Sunday. Yeah, my legs didn't get that memo and decided to go on strike at about mile 10. After a little pep talk, I managed to get one more mile out of them in order to get home and not be stranded on the Silver Comet Trail. Good times.

I'm a little discouraged that this was only 29 miles in 2 days and I actually have to walk 60 in 3. Something's not quite adding up. Here's what I'm hoping. The walking will be a bit more spread out during the actual event rather than me busting a move trying to get it done in the fastest time possible, thus leading to the feeling that I have dislocated my left hip. The adrenaline pumping and encouragement of other people being around me will also help, so I am not solely relying on Peaches and Herb's "Shake Your Groove Thing" to help me go those last few miles. This is what I'm hoping.

But apart from the end result of bathing in a vat of Myoflex and feeling like I broke myself, the awesome thing about this weekend was the weather. It was such a beautiful weekend and that really did motivate me. Fall is in the air everyone, and I, for one, cannot WAIT. For a lot of the miles I walked, I thanked God for the beautiful sunshine, slight breeze, fall smell, and general gorgeousness of His creation. It really was more of a blessing than a curse to have walked all those miles this weekend. Hooray for fall!