Run For The Cure 2011

Yesterday was my 4th year participating in the CIBC Run For the Cure and as you all know because I've been begging and pleading I annually fund raise for this event.  Not only did I participate and fund raise this year but I started a team as well at my Taekwon-Do School!

 The Almonte Taekwon-Do Run For The Cure Team 2011

For our first Almonte Taekwon-Do team we were 16 strong made up of family, friends, and students!  As a team we fund raised $2,845.00!  I am so proud of my team and how my friends and classmates supported me this year!

Me & Tracey waiting to start the race

Personally this year I raised $1,600.00 for Breast Cancer Research!  I have many of you to thank for surpassing my goal this year!

Some of the 9,000 participants crossing the finish line

On Sunday we ran with 9,000 other people and helped raise 1.64 million in Ottawa alone!  Last year nation wide 33 million was raised for Breast Cancer Research through this event.  This year I crossed the finish line of the 5K course in 31 minutes, and it was just wonderful running with my teammates!

Not only is this event run across Canada simultaneously, this year a run also took place on the Canadian Forces base in Kandahar, Afghanistan.  Is that not just the coolest thing ever?

 Greeted by the Ottawa 67 Cheerleaders after crossing the finish line

 Keeping warm, waiting to start the race!

 Father & son running together

 Mother & Son running as well!  A great event for 

families.

Lots of fun outfits!

We ended off the morning with hot beverages and breakfast!

Fundraising Update

So, Run For the Cure is tomorrow morning!  I have ALMOST surpassed last year's fundraising totals I am currently $59.00 shy of raising $1,500 for Breast Cancer Research!!!

If you can help me reach that goal please click here to visit my personal donation page.

Thank you to all who have been in a position to help me with my fundraising this year!

One Last Run For The Cure Plug

Hey everyone!  I sat down and added up my online donations (which you can see on the right there) and my "old fashioned on paper donations" and you know what?  I am only $139 shy of raising $1,500!!!!

That's only 14 donations of $10 each!

Last year I raised just over $1,400 so please if you have the means, help me blow last year's total out of the water by hitting that $1,500 mark!

To donate online at anytime, from anywhere in the world, simply click on "donate now" on the right or click HERE

GREAT news! TUSAL & Ready to Run

While I was sitting down to write up this post I got the best phone call ever, the caller ID showed my parents house, and it was my Mum calling from HOME!  I am so happy and excited that my Mum got discharged from the hospital today!  She has been improving and getting stronger and more stable in leaps and bounds in the last week.  I feel like 200 lbs has just come off of my shoulders!  There's still a long road ahead but this is movement in the right direction!!!

Gosh with the pace life has been going out I'm surprised I didn't forget to post for this month's TUSAL.  Thank goodness to the handy calendar and reminder I have set up on my phone!

Its fall here, the leaves are turning and starting to fall.  Its like a switch had been turned off once September started and the colours are quite lovely right now.  There's not a lot that's been added to my Ort Jar this month, because family comes first.

This Sunday is the CIBC Run For the Cure, a 5K run/walk and its happening all across Canada at the same time.  Its a very powerful event to raise money for Breast Cancer Research.  Boy am I ready to run!  Thank you to the support of many of you out there who have made a donation and helped me reach my fundraising goal of $1000.00 this year!  An amazing feat considering what's been going on in my life, and it also proves the true power of Social Networking because all I've had the time to do was fund raise via e-mail, facebook and this blog. You can still donate (help me KILL my goal), its not too late simply go here to make an online donation.

I want to say a big thank you to my many friends out there!  Your support through my Mum's time in hospital, and my fundraising efforts and MORE!  Thank you!

CRAZY PINK GIVEAWAY TO SAVE BOOBIES!!!!

Hello kind readers and fellow bloggers!  I just wanted to give you a quick update on my fundraising efforts for the 2011 CIBC Run For The Cure.

My goal this year is to raise $1000 towards Breast Cancer Research, last year I managed to raise just shy of $1,500 with your help!  This is my chance to give back after my Breast Cancer scare in 2007, this has become a cause very close to my heart.  I know that without the money raised in the past I would not of received the excellent and speedy care when my lump was found in my breast.

I've currently raised $205.00 ($170.00 through online donations, and $35 in person donations).

Click HERE to go to my personal online donation page

So what's with the giveaway you ask?  Well its going to be for anyone who makes (or has made) a donation and has done so because of one of my Blog entries!  Its going to be a CRAZY PINK BONANZA!   I will stitch you something PINK and I will fill the parcel with all kinds of PINK goodies.  If you haven't yet made a donation please leave me a personal message when you make your online donation (there's a box for that), letting me know you are donating because of my blog and you will be entered in the CRAZY PINK GIVEAWAY TO SAVE BOOBIES!  If you'd like to receive two extra entries (for a total of three) please share the information about this giveaway for a good cause on your blog!  Grab my little logo, post it on your blog and link to this blog entry!  Please leave me a comment to let me know you've shared my giveaway on your blog.  If you have already made a donation drop me a comment, or e-mail to let me know so I know to enter your name in the draw.

The deadline is October 1st... the run is on October 2nd!

Please Help Me Raise Money For Breast Cancer Research!

2010 Run For the Cure

Some of my long -time readers may remember the breast cancer scare I had back in April of 2007.

I am one of the lucky people the lump in my breast turned out not to be cancer. Since then I've wanted to be able to do something to give back.

For the fourth year in a row I'll be participating in CIBC's Run for the Cure (5K charity run) on Sunday October 2rd. I have set my initial goal this year for $1,000, however last year I raised over $1,400 and would love to surpass that.  I can only do that with your help.  If you wish to sponsor me and make an online donation click HERE to go to my personal fundraising page and make a donation (anyone from anywhere in the world can donate).  You can also click on the progress bar on the right at any time!

2009 Run For The cure

I'll also be out and about with sponsorship forms on me at almost all times.  So if you live in my area or at a stitching get together with me and wish to donate using cash or cheque, just let me know!

Please let me know if the link doesn't work.

2010, The Year In Review

Sorry about the delay in getting my annual "Year In Review" post up, I had really intended to do it yesterday, then the letter "i" broke on my laptop keyboard.  Do you know how hard it is to get by without the letter i?  Pretty darned hard.  So today when the shops opened up not only did we do the grocery shopping, I got a new wireless keyboard, wireless printer (silly me though its not compatible with the air print on my iPhone... shoulda done my research first but it was dirt cheap!), and a new laptop.  Did I REALLY need a new laptop?  No, my old one has been performing beautifully but all of you know I do hit the roads quite regularly and you loose the point of a laptop when you have to have a keyboard, it kinda becomes a glorified desktop computer.  The reason we did get the new keyboard for it is so that Todd can inherit it.  He's been using a really old laptop for sometime now and I'm tired of hearing him curse and swear over it so in the end it will reduce my stress level.  I've moved up in the world to a 17.6 inch monitor and I quite like it.  I'll probably change my mind when I lug it with me!

Let's get to the interesting stuff first....

The ceremonial emptying of the Ort Jar on New Year's Day!  I've noticed many of my online stitching friends have adopted this annual tradition as well.  Doesn't it feel great/therapeutic to dispose of all of those orts to start fresh?  I think this year I'll have to hit some of those neat shops I went to in the fall with my friend Tracey to find myself a nicer, more interesting ort jar than a plain old Mason Jar.

The Ort Jar stuffed full by December 31, 2010

Emptied and awaiting 2011 orts!

Stitching Year In Review :

I completed 30 projects in 2010 all of varying sizes from the tiny to the very big!  The finishes I'm most proud of are :

Tour des Marques by The Silver Lining

(psst I have another SL waiting in the wings)

Celestial Dragon by Teresa Wentzler

I had hoped to finish Art Deco Spirits as well in 2010 but I got close, with finishing up 3/4 on New Year's Day ( I didn't quite make the midnight deadline, but I was backstitching as the clock struck midnight at Rebecca's).

3/4 of Art Deco Spirits completed

Air Panel finished on New Year's Day

So this year there's not big New Year's Day start as there has been in previous years. My good friends Bonnie and Christin (she's got a pic of the flower frog I bought her on her blog go take a look!) indulged themselves by starting Ink Circle's Cirque des Cirques. I may join them later in the year.  For now I'm going to carry on with last year's focus, to empty out what's left in my stitching basket!  I did very well this past year with finishing off Tour Des Marques and Celestial Dragon, both very big projects!

Here's what's left to stitch up in 2011

Art Deco Spirits by Mirabilia

The Accolade - Timeless Designs, Gitta's

Delightful Dragon Fob by Teresa Wentzler

Enchantment of Winter by Dimples Designs -- my next focus piece

This little kit I started on my DR trip last year and I've had no interest in picking it back up

Byzantine Ornament #3 by Teresa Wenztler

I of course will be continuing my ornament a month which I have been doing for years!  I think this year I'll be stitching up all the JBW mittens to match the stockings I gave the girls in the office for Christmas this past year, and I'll finish up the Teresa Wentzler Byzantine Ornaments.

Personal Highlights of 2010....

My Dominican Experience Trip for sure!  What an amazing experience (see my posts from March 2010), and to share it with teenagers just made it so much more rewarding.  I'm very fortunate and my Principal has allowed me to run the trip again for 2011 and in a few short weeks I'll be back in The Dominican Republic again, this time with 12 different students!  I'm looking forward to my trip February 18-25th, and of course I will have photos for you!

My summer vacation was just so wonderful this year!  I got to spend a couple of days up in the gorgeous Georgian Bay area with my friend Sheila, it was a treat for sure!

Then I got to spend 3 days in Quebec City with my Mum.  If you're ever in Canada or are a Canadian everyone should make a trip to Quebec City once in their lives!  I definitely want to go back and explore it some more.

Of  course there have been the wonderful retreats and get togethers I've been lucky to attend this last year!  I enjoy and cherish each an every one of them.  There's nothing more pleasing than being in a room full of people intent on one purpose that's to stitch!!!  I of course am looking forward to more of these great days with friends in 2011!!!

Billy Talent

Nickleback

Concerts!  There's not been too many of them in 2010 here in Ottawa but I did get to go to two great shows with Christin early on in the year, Billy Talent and Nickleback!  Two of my favourite bands!

I got to see a once in a lifetime show this fall with my Mum when Roger Waters went on tour with Pink Floyd's The Wall from start to finish.  Wow!  What a show!

There was a hurricane named after me this year!  However I do think it was a fairly well behaved hurricane... as well as a hurricane can be.

I participated in my 3rd Run For the Cure and thanks to many of you I raised $1,410.00 for breast cancer research.  I'll be running again the first Sunday in October of 2011.  Speaking of running I've set two goals for myself this year and they're BIG!  I've already registered for the 10K in the Ottawa Race Weekend on Saturday May 28th.  This will be my first official timed race!  I'm hoping this will lead to registering and completing the Ottawa Army Run Half Marathon in September (not yet registered for).

Despite running this blog for 7 years, in July I stared a second blog : Battle of the Bulge, I wanted to separate my stitching blog from my weight loss experience.  Over at my new blog I'm sharing my weekly progress, Weight Watchers meeting topics, ideas and insights.  Speaking of my weight, I rung in the New Years 2lbs lighter than before the Christmas holidays started!  I was so happy to come out of this holiday season with a loss (very hard to do).  Ideally I'd like to loose 6 more pounds to get within my "healthy" BMI.  This year has definitely been a challenge to maintain my weight loss, back in March I gained about 6-8 lbs and it took me until August to get those pesky pounds off... they went on in 3 weeks and took me MONTHS to get off again.  Since then I've maintained my goal weight and have even dipped a little bit below every once in awhile.

This fall I was back to teaching at Taekwon-Do after a very long break (like 3 years!), its great to be back at the front of the class again.  I'm teaching the "Little Tigers" 4-6 year olds and loving it!  They are so much fun and life is just so simple and straightforward to them.  I also competed for the first time in just as long, coming home from a friendship tournament with a gold and bronze medals.  I look forward to competing some more this year.

I was very proud this year to remember to and fully participate in NaBloPoMo!  I posted once a day on TWO blogs for the whole month of November.  Imagine doing 60 blog entries in 30 days?  Yup I'm that crazy!

I've enjoyed getting back to sharing my PhotoHunt pictures with you in 2010 and I intend to continue in 2011.  I've got some catching up to do!!!

Finally on the fun side of life, I got to drive a Corvette for the first time ever!

So I think that covers EVERYTHING!  What I have done and what I hope to do both in my stitching life and my personal life.  I hope everyone has a fantastic New Year!

Run For The Cure 2010

Today myself, my partner Todd, and my best friend Christin participated in the CIBC Run For The Cure at the Ottawa run site. This is an event that is run across Canada every year in the hopes of raising money for Breast Cancer Research and raising awareness. There were 9,000 participants in Ottawa who raised 1.6M dollars, my final total this year is $1,430! I surpassed my goal of $1,000 and would like to thank each and every one of you who as supported me both financially and with well wishes!

I have written a slightly longer more involved post over at my other blog, please visit Battle of the Bulge to read a little more and see a few more pictures from the day.  Christin has also written a nice little post about the day too!

Almost Raised $1,500 For Breast Cancer Research

Tomorrow morning is my 3rd CIBC Run For the Cure (5K walk/run... I'm running)!  I've been fundraising for the event, as of this evening my total stands at $1,410.00 if you're interested in helping me reach the $1,500 mark you can do so by donating online HERE.

I hope to have a nice post about the run sometime later on Sunday!

WIP Progress and Retro Photo Hunt

Its the middle of the week, I know, I know and I'm finally sharing my weekend stitching progress.  I managed to have a fairly quiet and low key weekend (I know rare for this girl).  I took advantage of having some time to stitch and time to just rest!  So let's get down to business!

I worked on several projects this weekend.

I spent the majority of my waking time working on Art Deco Spirits, I've finally gotten through those huge blocks of white, black and grey.  Of course I've moved onto more grey.

I gave Enchantment of Winter a little bit of attention as well.  I got a little tired of counting around and putting in gold confetti here and there so I pulled out the lovely purple silk and worked with that instead.

I also had a travel project, it really wasn't moving very quickly and didn't look like much until after a little needle time this weekend.  This is a class piece from the Creativ Festival given by Jennifer Aikman-Smith of Dragon Dreams when I last went a few years ago.  I'll give you more details on my next post, right now I'm too lazy to get up and go get it!  I have way too many class pieces waiting to be stitched up. But then who doesn't have a lot of projects waiting to be started?

Now how about a retro photo hunt?  This is from the end of August 2009, "Surprise"

In March of this year my friend Ann turned 60 and with my help and that of a few others her husband was able to throw her a fantastic surprise party!  Ann was shocked and overjoyed when she saw that her family had made the 3 hour drive to be there too!  Ann's reaction was the BEST surprise party reaction I have ever witnessed!  Here she is with one of her brothers.

My run is coming up father than I thought it ever would now, its this Sunday!  I am very proud to say I have surpassed my fundraising goal this year!  My total is over $1100.00 all going to Breast Cancer research!  Thank you to many of you fantastic readers who have made online donations!  There is still plenty of time to make a donation if you wish!  Click HERE to go to my personal donation page.

7th Blogiversary Winner, Stitching, Stash and PhotoHunt

Lots to cover in this post, so let's get to it!

First of all the announcement you've all been waiting for... who won my blogiversary draw?  First I went to the trusty website : random.org and asked it to give me a number!

The winner is comment #55 and that one belongs to :

Congratulations Lindsay!  I was very happy when I saw the winner was Lindsay I've known her online for probably about 10 years now since when I started coming online to look for cross stitch and stitching communities.  We first met on the Teresa Wentzler Bulletin Board.  I think I have a good idea of what sort of thing to stitch up for Lindsay!

This week, the stash I ordered at the end of August finally showed up!  Yes, I bought STASH!  Something I don't do very often these days.  It was a wonderful envelope full of threads, fabric, and a few other odds and ends.

I bought these supplies with two particular projects in mind!  Both I've been wanting to start for some time now.

Yes, I was very bad, I even started one of these two projects : Enchantment of Winter by Terrance Nolan of Dimples Designs.  It will be a fantastic purple and gold Imperial Russian Egg with St. Basil's Cathedral depicted in the center... the Cathedral will be over one (on 32ct eek!).   I've even had quite a bit of frogging to do because I assumed there was a 2 stitch overlap between the chart pages, and you know what... there isn't.  So I fixed it... then I stitched one stitch over three... I fixed it again... then I stitched a row of 17 stitches instead of 16 and I fixed it again!  That's when I gave up and went to bed!

Just because I've started a new project, which isn't very like me since I'm usually a one project gal doesn't mean I've forgotten my other WIPs.  Art Deco Spirits got quite a bit of my attention this weekend, unfortunately I'm still working white on white so all of my progress isn't so obvious.  I'll be glad to get all that white out of the way.

Since I had worked on two WIPs this weekend, my third was feeling a little lonely and I pulled out my over one BAP, The Accolade and gave it a few hours attention.

Now for this week's PhotoHunt the theme is : School

I took this picture while on a field trip to Gatineau Park in the fall of 2008.  I just love this shot of the school bus in one of its mirrors!

Now time for an update on how my Breast Cancer Research fundraising efforts are going.  I've passed the half way mark and I've currently managed to raise $570.00 out of my goal of $1000.  There are only 13 days until the Run For the Cure 5K!  So if you're planning on making an online donation please do so soon by clicking HERE to my personal fundraising page.  I've been running a couple of times a week to work on increasing my speed as I've been challenged to do the 5K in 25 minutes!