WOW! I need a nap

Holy cow the last few days have been so busy I feel like two weeks have gone by in 5 days.  At the end of last week I scrambled to sell the last of my Superbowl Squares for my Dana Farber fundraising just before the weekend, collecting money and chasing people down, begging everyone to buy another square.  I got them filled and the numbers picked and copies distributed, but geez, I don't think I will do that ever again.  It was a lot of work and way too much stress. 

Thank God Friday afternoon I had an acupuncture appointment and plans for dinner afterwards to catch up with my friend Denise and see her now 2 month old baby.  Acupuncture was amazing as usual (although I already feel like I need to go back just for stress relief and a little relaxation).  Dinner was cut short because I got stuck in traffic and got there late and poor baby wasn't cooperating and letting me and Denise socialize, I'm sure we will somehow get him back for this when he is older.  Oh you want to go to the movies with your friends do you......sounds great we will come too.  hahahaha

Saturday was the Stair Climb in Boston for American Lung Association, one of my favorite events all year.  I signed up to climb 3 times this year and had a small team of friends and coworkers climbing with me.  My first start time was at 8:12 then my second and third times were spread out a little after that.  I didn't train and I'm still a little heavier than I would like to be, so I had pretty low expectations going into it.  I just wanted to be consistent between climbs.  Mission Accomplished!  My times were amazing, nothing fast enough to place or anything, but all right around 10 minutes.

After I was done with all my climbs we got brunch at the bar and hung out for a little bit.  I wanted to see some of the firefighters climbing and then stick around to see if my hometown boys from Portland Fire could reclaim the title, but all my friends bailed and I didn't want to just sit at the bar by myself.  I ended up going home and it was a good thing because I fell asleep on my couch and slept for 3 hours.  Guess I needed some rest.

Sunday I had my long run to do before trying to fight crowds at the grocery store on Superbowl Sunday and I needed to do a ton of laundry.  I finished my 12.7 mile run and felt AWESOME!!!!  I was sort of expecting to be tired and sore from the stair climb, but I felt great and ran probably the fastest average pace on a long run in a long time.  When I was done it was still sort of early and there were no crowds at the grocery store yet.  I was able to get in and out and even caught up with a good friend living in Seattle and called my mom too.  It was a SUPER productive morning.  By the time I got home it wasn't even noon yet and I still had all day before the big game started and I had to keep track of who won squares.  I wish I could say I did something crazy with all my spare time, but I didn't.  I took another nap.

Back to work on Monday, paid the winners for the superbowl squares and began making a mental to-do list for my next Fundraiser - the painting party Tuesday night.  I had to go home, bake a cheesecake, clean my house a little, blow up the aerobed for my mom and put sheets and blankets on it, organize all the raffle items and make sure I had labels and cups and all the supplies I needed.  And I think once the cheesecake was out of the oven, I might have taken another nap, but technically it was night time so really I just went to sleep early.

Tuesday, I rushed through work and got home to wait for my mom and head over to the bar to set up for the painting party and get some food.  Mom got lost coming down and went past the exit she needed to take delaying her arrival by about 30-45 minutes, but it worked out fine, we got to the bar right on time and got a parking space right in front.  Set up all the raffle items and finally got to sit down and relax before the night got going.  Dinner and a beer and chatting with some friends that came early for dinner, then it was time to host the event.

It was a little crazy trying to say hi to everyone and thank them for coming and sell raffle tickets and make sure mom wasn't just all by herself, but once everyone arrived and we started the painting part things settled down a bit.  I spoke briefly and thanked everyone for coming, mentioned that it was World Cancer Day and looking around the room the crowd was mostly female, a scary statistic is that one in every three women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime, but with the money raised for Dana Farber they are doing amazing research that increases the survival rate of those women so it was great for all of them to come out and support such an important cause.

We painted the "Impressions of Boston" and I raffled off a lot of really great things - chocolate cheesecake, a handmade throw blanket, gift certificates to area restaurants, a gift certificate for acupuncture, bottles of wine, a running book, a chocolate fondue kit, a gift certificate for two to another paint night, and a few other things.  Everyone had an amazing time and all the paintings look great.  At the end of the night I raised about $700 for cancer research.  HUGE THANK YOU to Tutto Bene for hosting and helping organize the event. (http://www.tuttobenecellars.com/) If you are in Lowell, you MUST go to their shop and check it out, they have a great selection of wines and cheeses and fine foods.

Yesterday I took the day off from work because we got a big snow storm and I didn't want my mom driving home in a blizzard.  It was nice, we just chilled on the couch all day and then shoveled out our cars when the snow slowed down in the afternoon, watched a movie and some TV, had a late lunch and yup, you guessed it - another nap.  Today, I was going to try and do the Thursday night Newton Hills run, but I'm so tired, didn't sleep well last night, and I've been going non-stop for days, so I think I'm just going to go home and ........ oh yeah, not hard to guess at this point....... NAP. 

I have a 14 mile long run planned this weekend, followed by possibly going cross country skiing, and I want to feel good for it so taking it easy for a few more days to get my body back to fully rested mentally and physically is not a bad idea. 

At the end of the week, with checks in the mail and everything all tallied up, my fundraising total should be just over $9000!!!!  Almost time to revise my goal.  I had put $10,000 originally, but secretly in my mind if things went well my goal was to be a DFMC Pacesetter and hit $13.1K so.......as soon as everything is updated I will be bumping my goal up.  Thank you to everyone that has contributed so far, and if you haven't there is still plenty of time to donate and any amount is acceptable.  A dollar per mile perhaps? $26.20.  Or give just $5, the cost of a cup of coffee, then ask 5 friends to do the same.  TOGETHER we can all make a difference and the DFMC team could raise over $5 million for innovative cancer research this year.  Please help and donate today: www.rundfmc.org/2014/alicial