Relay For Life 2009

This is how I've been spending my time over the last couple of months. And why I've had no time for blogging this past week. I am Team Captain for our local Relay For Life team at work. The event was this past Friday evening. It starts at dusk and ends at the next day's morning. The light and darkness of the day and night parallel the physical effects, emotion, and mental state of a cancer patient while undergoing treatment. After dark falls, the luminaria ceremony takes place. They light luminary bags in memory of those who've passed away and in honor of those fighting for their lives.





We had 27 team members and all the members have worked so hard to raise money . We've sold rubber bracelets with inspirational sayings. We've sold "casual jeans day" stickers. We've had a Links of Love competition. We've had classroom competitions with girls vs. boys. We had a yard sale. We sold baked goods and did face painting at our booth over the weekend. I'll soon have more photos to post. We had a blast at our tent site and was enjoying the Karaoke Idol competition when the bad weather moved in about 2am. Wow! High winds and torrential downpours have quite the impact on a field full of tents, campers, balloons and assorted tent site debris. We dressed out in full rain gear and myself and two other women managed to break down our complete tent site in about 15 minutes. Whew! It was something! And you know how I love symbolism. They announced that once everyone got their site packed up, we were moving into the building to party all night long! Woohoo! No disastrous weather was going to quell their enthusiasm for the fight against cancer...

So far our team has raised $3,000.00 and we met our goal! I've had SO much help from friends and family to accomplish this and I want to thank them all for it. I've lost family and friends I love to cancer. My friends have lost parents, siblings, children to cancer. The bottom line is that we've ALL lost someone to cancer.

Cancer sucks big hairy balls and that's Why I Relay.


*For those of you who sent concerned emails as to my whereabouts, I am found! And I am well, except for the wicked blister on my foot from walking all night long!*

Odds And Ends

I'm going to prattle on in this one. I want you to be prepared...

Yesterday, I filled out an online application and sent in my resume and a cover letter for part-time home health care. A company in town is advertising for LPN's which was unheard of a few years ago. I guess they're having trouble staffing RN's. Anyway, they said they had "flexible scheduling" and that's what I need. My parents take a vacation from us for the summer and I stay home with the kids. They deserve that and I want them to have time to themselves. But we need money and I thought I could take advantage of the summer months to work some evenings and weekends. We'll see how it goes.

I received an invitation to "Muffins with Mom" for Sam's class the first of May. I balk at these things. Do you? I know how proud they are to have a parent at school for something special but I cannot bring myself to like any of the parents. Maybe "like" is not the word. I feel SO very different from them. They use the term "sahm" a lot. I wish I could "sah" but I can't. I feel that they look down on me because I work. I take the tiniest bit of offense when one of the classmate's moms walks up and says, "Hi! I'm Sally Sue. I'm a sahm. Joe Bob is my son. What do you do?" and I say that I work as a nurse. Then I get The Look. I never know how to interpret The Look. Disapproval? Pity? Superiority? I don't know. Next time it happens though, I'm going to say, "Oh. I'm Kim. Sam is my son. I'm a ftwm." That's full time working mom, for those who need it all spelled out. Ugh. I don't like to show my claws. The point is, I'm going to leave work and go to Muffins with Mom and then come back to work. In the meantime, I'll cook up some nice anxiety to go with those muffins.

I am team captain for our Relay For Life team at work this year. I've enjoyed my involvement VERY much. I was once terrified of AIDS but now, since Joe is the only one I give it up to, I worry mostly about cancer. I'm an equal opportunity worrier though. I include my entire family on the roster. Our team has managed to raise over $1,000 so far and that's very impressive considering we are located in a more disadvantaged area of town and the financial climate. We are having a yard sale this weekend and the walk is the next weekend. I can't wait. I received a thank you card in the mail yesterday from American Cancer Society for volunteering. It was very nice and it made me feel really good.

That's about all I can think of right now.

OH! I have one recommendation! I tried a bag of Archer Farms Baked Rosemary Garlic potato chips the other night and they were the best chips EVER! They are more the texture and consistency of Pringles and I have no idea how much they cost. I was hungry and it was an impulse buy. I'd planned to make fun of them on the blog. But I can't. They were delicious. Try some.

Now, I'm finished.