Simply Incredible

If anyone has ever doubted the good in people (I admit I have my moments, often), please consider walking for a cause like Breast Cancer. The crazy amount of emotion I have experienced the last few days alone is almost too much to handle. On Friday, I finally decided to email my co-workers to tell them about the Walk and ask for support. Initially I was nervous about this because I didn't know if there was a company policy which wouldn't allow it (my husband's company is really uptight about this. I won't mention any names. Grr...) I was proved terrible wrong when, after sending the email I got a response that morning from our CEO saying that any donations made by employees would be matched up to $1,000! My thoughts went like this... "Wait, what? What? WHAT? Oh my gosh, oh my gosh... *I was then without thoughts for about a minute, then* WOW!" I immediately thanked him and emailed my group to tell them the news! So far employees have contributed $250 to my Walk page, and it's still coming in! :-) (The words "yippee" and "skippy" come to mind!)

As I said before, Saturday was the Expo in Boston. We got up early and met a large group for a Training Walk before the Expo. We dressed warm, but it was still quite miserable. We walked about 5 miles around the Charles River (Boston and Cambridge sides) in the rain/snow/sleet/ice and wind. I took a lot of comfort knowing that, even though it could rain, the likelihood that it will be SNOWING the weekend of the Walk (May 17-18th) is pretty low. (However, there is a chance, since this is New England and it has snowed on Mother's Day before... remind me why I haven't moved to Florida again please. Oh yeah, hurricanes, that must be it, and maybe alligators.) Steps recorded for Saturday = 19,050, a new personal record!!!

On Sunday we went back to Shaw's in North Reading for another bake sale (as a team, since all 5 of us were there! Amanda and Dan had the pleasure of meeting the infamous Kevin Bacon.) We got a bunch of donations but two people really made me want to bawl. One was a young boy, about 10 years old, who had brought in over 6,000 pennies (wow!) to cash in from his piggy bank. We watched as it was all counted with the machine and in the end he had just over $60! When he came back from the cashier with his cash he came over to our table and gave us $1. I mean really, how sweet is that? A little while later a woman came up and put $5 in the jar and said, quite simply, "this is for my Mom." *tear* (Not regular tears, not "oh, this is sad" tears, but rather huge gushing tears that wet your cheeks and make you unable to breath...)

Our team received some incredibly sad news from home yesterday. A friend's Mom was diagnosed with Breast Cancer on Friday and will undergo a mastectomy on the 31st. Apparently it's slow moving so the doctor's are confident. This woman also recently lost her husband and has been having a hard time in general, and now this. Please keep her, her family, and everyone else having to go through the same in your thoughts. (I am confident I am going to run out of tears soon.)





TEAM PHOTO! (Left to right: Me, Jason, Amanda, Dan, Nicole)




Dan (our team's graphic designer!) is working on replacing the ugly yellow background with a color that doesn't remind me of puke. ;-)

15,121

I just have to say, this past weekend was a stressful/emotional/fun time! Friday night my team mate, Nicole, and I baked up a storm for a bake sale on Saturday. Which, I must say, was quite successful considering the weather didn't cooperate with us at all. People are so incredibly generous, it is really amazing. (Our bake sale was at the Shaw's in Reading and the store manager who helped us out was named Kevin Bacon... how great is that?)

Sunday morning we woke up with every intention of a 10 mile training walk on the Minuteman Trail in Cambridge. However, the weather disagreed. It was cold and windy out and we knew we wouldn't last long walking outside (I'm not really that tough when it comes to weather, despite the fact that I grew up in Vermont where the snow is known to melt around June.) Instead we went to the Burlington Mall and walked as much as we could before the mall got crowded. We walked about six miles in the mall and I wasn't even sore the next day! This is definitely getting easier. At the end of the day my pedometer read 15,121 steps! (My goal every day is 10,000!)

This Saturday is the Boston Expo and my whole team will be together for the first time! Amanda and Dan are driving down from Laconia, NH on Friday. Saturday morning we are attending a 5 mile (moderately paced) training walk which will take us right to the Expo. I am most excited about the yoga session they are holding at the Expo and being able to take a team photo to post on my Avon page! (And my blog, of course!) :-)