Blessed

About two weeks ago, LaVor asked if I was still planning on doing the walk.  Fundraising had hit a major plateau, I wasn't motivated to train, and was feeling pretty "blah" overall.  He got out of the shower one night and said, "So I was thinking..." and presented a plan on how I could get more donations.

With a plan in place, and an especially supportive hubby, I started walking again and have made great strides (no pun intended).

LaVor was planning a visit to the Bay Area last weekend and suggested I join him, so I could stand out with my sign and hopefully get a few more donations.

...a few more.

I made about $30 in the first hour or so that I stood out at our local Farmer's Market.  I was excited and hoped for at least $70 more at my second spot.

It happened to be an extremely hot day, so I grabbed a couple bottles of water, my sign, and set up shop in the exact same spot that I've used for years.

Literally, about thirty seconds after I got there, a gentleman came up from behind me and said, "I think you dropped this."  I didn't drop anything but he kindly handed me $5.00.

After about three hours of standing out, I came home to find that I had earned an additional $130.  I could not believe it!  I have to write down a few of the experiences I had, as they all really touched me.

-One gentleman saw me from across the street and as he was coming at me,  I immediately recognized him.  He said, "Where have you been?!"  I told him we recently moved out of the area but that I thought of him often.  He has donated every year that I've stood out with my sign and it meant so much to me that he wondered why I wasn't out this year.

-Another man walking by pulled out his cellphone to show me the pink ribbon cover he had on it.  His mother was a breast cancer survivor but ended up losing her life to another disease.

-There's a bar across the street from where I stand and in the past, people have come out for a smoke, saw me, walked over, gave me $1, then went back to smoking or drinking.  This time, a man walked out of the bar, walked straight over to me, handed me $10, and turned right back around and went straight into the bar.  He also gave me the updated score of the A's game.

-After about an hour of standing out, and despite drinking lots of water, I started feeling a little faint (a familiar feeling, unfortunately) so rather than create a scene, I plopped down on a bench and took a little break.  Before I knew it, a patron from the nearby restaurant was standing in front of me with a full glass of ice cold water and a donation.  She said, "I've been watching you this entire time and thought you could use this."  She continued in saying, "I have many friends who have suffered from breast cancer and I appreciate all that you're doing!"  I almost started to cry because I appreciated what SHE was doing.

-Even when I was sitting on the bench, with my sign upside down and hard to read, people would still turn their head to see what it said and donate.

There's always funny things that happen, too.  Like the guys who asked me if I was going to use their $1 for crack and if I put Vaseline on my teeth to make them shiny, or the ex-Raider who sat by me for two hours and told me his life story, or the man who pretended to honk a pair of hooters as he went by with his wife in the driver seat.

I love the honks, waves, smiles, inspiring stories.  But I especially love the kindness that I get to witness. Most of these people don't know me but they are willing to hand me a $20 bill to support those affected by breast cancer.

While I love being able to walk, and I might get a tad annoying when it comes to asking for money, I'm not doing it for me. I'm doing it to help those that are battling this disease. And it's with the help of amazing people I've been able to meet, while collecting donations, that hopes and dreams are able to come true.

You Might Be a Redneck If...

As soon as The Lime woke up from his nap yesterday, he asked if we could go outside and play golf.

We had to improvise...

a lot.

When the stick didn't quite cut it, we substituted a miniature plastic bat.

Surprisingly, The Lime has quite a swing and launched the bouncy ball much farther than I could.

The golfing quickly turned into an inning of baseball with said yellow plastic bat and a racquetball.

Which then turned into a game of football.

And we finished it all off with an icy cold Pop Up (I've been calling them Push Ups...when did they change their name?!).

Bernie Lean

We were at Target last week, checking out the A's gear, and The Lime asked if there was a Coco Crisp shirt. Unfortunately, Cespedes was the only player they had but I told him we'd check online to see if we could find one.

While he was napping today, I decided to see if they even made Coco Crisp shirts in a size 4T. Amazon provided me with a child's XS but I'm afraid that would be too big.

I noticed a link at the bottom of the page that looked inquiring so I clicked it and found this website:

I just about died. I immediately pinned this shirt onto Pinterest and giggled at all the other ones they had.

Fast forward to tonight, when I went into my bedroom and noticed an amazing glow coming from outside. I walked into our front yard and saw a majestic sky, immediately ran back in to get my camera, grabbed The Lime, and headed across the street to the dog park to take some pictures.

There was a border around the parking lot of medium sized rocks that The Lime was stepping on. They were a bit slippery so he asked me to hold his hand as he walked along them. He accidentally slipped, and while I was holding his right hand, he sort of leaned back, trying to catch his balance with his left hand. He paused for a moment and said, "That rock just made me do the Bernie Lean!" Again, just about died. That kid cracks me up.

So now I'm back to t-shirt hunting, this time for a Coco Crisp/Bernie Lean ensemble.

Gold Rush Days 2013

LaVor's parents planned a visit to our place this weekend but before they could make it to our house, we met them at Gold Rush Days. We thought The Lime would really enjoy it this year since we'd be seeing lots of cowboys.

Decked out in his hat, keys, boots, and radio, we visited the Pony Express exhibit first. The Lime gently pet a horse, pretended to ride a horse, and jumped on several bales of hay.

The Mormon Battalion tent was our next stop, where we learned lots about the early Saints who settled in California. The Lime got to check out some old keys and found a ranger badge in the tent next door.

While walking along the shops, we caught a glimpse of a Pony Express reenactment. It really is amazing the things people did in the olden days. A plaque we read noted that only one piece of mail was lost during the entire Pony Express existence. The USPS could learn a few things from those guys.

We overheard some people talking about a shoot out so we parked it along a dirt road and waited for the show to begin. Unfortunately, it was a ridiculous shoot out and we cut out early. It involved the following...

Some prostitutes on the balcony of a building doing things they shouldn't have been doing (we couldn't see them, they were above us). So the teenage Sheriff went upstairs to arrest them.

Then the men started hootin' and hollerin' and the women marched around saying, "Sin no more!"

One of the ladies went crazy and began shooting into the crowd of prostitutes.

That apparently didn't stop the prostitutes from doing their business because the men went back to hollerin'.

Soon after, a man in red underoos came out of the building carrying a bundle of smoking dynamite. The Sheriff followed with two prostitutes handcuffed to him.

The building ended up catching on fire and all the prostitutes came rushing out, and then began fighting each other.

Once the drunk lady passed us, crying over her empty bottle of booze, we decided to check something else out.

It seemed as though the actors put the show together that morning and crossed their fingers it would go okay. And it didn't end there...The Lime continued to ask questions about it for the rest of the day. We had to remind him that it was pretend, just like when we play Peter Pan and Captain Hook. I can't let him see these pictures or he'll start questioning again.

We walked around a few more blocks and decided we needed to take a break and get some lunch, which then turned into just calling it a day. On the way home, we realized we had missed several things we wanted to see/do.

Once the weather cools off (which it's already starting to do...lots of rain today!), we'll most likely be taking a trip to pan for gold.

And there better not be a shoot out planned.