I have reached my minimum fundraising goal!

I have reached my minimum fundraising goal of $2,300 for 3-Day! ;) Thank you to everyone who has donated so far! I'm so excited! ;) Please continue to keep those donations coming as we still have a long way to go to reach our Force of Soles team goal! We can do it with your continued support! ;)

Training Walk Updates

I've been out of town a lot lately (work-related travel) and will be again in the coming weeks. But I will try to continue my training while traveling... (at least as much as possible). As of today, I have now completed my fundraising MINIMUM which means I WILL be walking in October and can now focus on my training!

In the meanwhile, please keep those donations coming! We're still a long way from our $30,000 team goal! ;) But making great progress!

Cakes for the Cure! Bake Sale TODAY!

Our second bake sale was held today at Sam's Club off Mansell Road in Alpharetta. It was a great success!

Many thanks to teammates, Marilee, Terri & her hubby, Bill and my parents for coming out and helping us sell today. And my hubby for helping set up today. Special thanks to my mom for ALL the cakes she baked for this sale (15) and cupcakes for this sale and the July 3rd sale. Also thanks to Terri & Marilee for baking TONS of cookies and my friend, Fawn for helping us ice cupcakes and bake blueberry muffins last night.

The cookies were a hot item today! Our gross sales were about $463!

Terri and Marilee insisted I complete my minimum fundraising requirements and thanks to today's sale and some checks which I have recently received and needed to send to SKG, my fundraising is now complete! :) Woo hoo!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me so far and continued to support me and my team. Please keep those donations coming! We still have 4 team members who need to reach their fundraising minimums!

Peachtree Road Race, July 4, 2010

My very first 10K, The Peachtree Road Race through downtown Atlanta. The 6.2 miles STARTed at Lenox Road @ Peachtree (next to Lenox Square) and followed Peachtree Road through Buckhead and Midtown before finally turning left onto 10th Street toward the finish line to END at Piedmont Park.

Nina, Carrie & Alisha wating to line up to start the Peachtree Road Race.

What a day! I was wave "W" so my start time was 8:55 AM. Which was good AND bad... :) The good was that it was late enough I didn't have to get up at 3 or 4 AM to get there. The bad was it was late enough that I was gonna hit the bulk of the rising heat of the day. :( BUT, we got lucky today as it was a relatively mild July 4th morning. With recent temps in the mid to upper 90's, we were blessed today with a refreshing 80 degrees near the end of the race which was for me by about 11 AM.

Alisa, Nina and I were in separate start waves. Alisha and Nina were in wave "U" (start time 8:51 AM) and I was in wave "W" (start time 8:55 AM). The girls tried to sneak me up into their start wave, but the volunteers caught me and quickly scolded and escorted me back to the "W" just behind them. I felt like a school girl getting caught with her hand in the cookie jar! haha

So, I had to begin the race all by myself and I was REALLY nervous! ;) There were a LOT of people there!

Waiting in the "cue" to start the Peachtree Road Race.

I was able to start in the front of the pack. But was careful to stay far to the right so I wouldn't get run over by all the speed demons. Walkers to the right... When "W" was finally released to start, my nerves had calmed slightly and I was beginning to get pretty excited! ;)

I had not had much sleep (due to my hectic work schedule) in the days leading up to the Peachtree, so I was especially nervous about that. And woke up feeling quite dizzy and had to fight that horrible feeling most of the day. I was definately over-tired. Note to self: DON'T DO THAT AGAIN!" ;)

I had just crossed Piedmont Road / Peachtree as we were nearing our first water station when I came upon someone on my right and we started talking... Her STORY was very inspiring to me... :) Her name is Sherry and only 4 weeks ago, she suffered cardiac arrest from a bee sting! I was soo amazed at her sheer determination to be there that she chose to walk the race! :)

We agreed to walk alongside each other for company and support! We kept a pretty good pace most of the way and stopped for 2 potty stops along the way. I was sucking water down like a camel! Still feeling the dizziness, I wasn't sure if I were actually dehydrated or just plain exhausted from lack of sleep! But I pushed through it with Sherry's encouragement! It was really great to have someone to share the journey with. :) And she is quite a hoot! ;) Thanks, Sherry for keeping me going and motivating me to NEVER GIVE UP! ;)

I saw quite a few people today who were quite inspiring! I saw someone on crutches and someone with a prosthetic leg walking the race. In fact, he was keeping a pretty good pace! I saw elderly men and women walking the race and doing better than me and Sherry! ;) It was a great feeling to be there among the crowd of thousands and share this experience with them!

We're in the home stretch!

Finally, we crossed the finish line and it was a great feeling! It took Sherry and I about 2 hours, but we did it! ;)

Cakes for the Cure! SUCCESS!

WE DID IT! We managed to pull off an amazing bake sale today. Despite my getting only 7 hours of sleep in the past 36 hours! :) I'm AMAZED! We had an AWESOME sale today! We sold dozens and dozens of cupcakes, cakes and cookies. And we learned a lot for the next sale to be even MORE successful! ;) Our total gross profits today were $483! I'm so proud!

We had my computer there and was able to accept online donations via SGK website! (I think we may have received a few extra bucks from some very generous donors thanks to that capability. A special thank you to Ben and Jenni at Kitchen Drawer for allowing me to borrow the Sprint Wireless Internet connection which made that possible!)

The koozies were a hit! We sold more than 25 today @ $5 with a FREE cold drink. :)

Thank you to our team members, Marilee and Diane for your help preparing the cupcakes and being there today at the sale. And a special thanks to Fawn for helping us frost hundreds of cupcakes last night and Alisha for being our street dancer! Alisha helped bring us a few additional shoppers! ;)

My mom, Carol, get LOTS OF LOVE for baking so many yummy goodies and my dad, John, for helping out at the bake sale today! I couldn't have pulled this off today without them! ;)

Mark your calendars! Our next sale is July 17 at Sam's Club, Mansell Road in Alpharetta, GA. We look forward to seeing you there!

Cakes for the Cure! Bake Sale TODAY!

CAKES FOR THE CURE
Saturday, July 3
Lowe's – Windward Parkway
10AM-2PM or 3

PREPARED CUPCAKES:
24 Devils Food with Cream Cheese Frosting
24 Devils Food with Milk Chocolate Frosting
24 Dark Chocolate with White Frosting
24 Caramel with Cream Cheese Frosting
24 Coconut with White/Coconut Frosting
24 Lemon with Lemon Frosting
24 Strawberry with Strawberry Frosting
24 Red Velvet with Cream Cheese Frosting
24 French Vanilla with Strawberry Frosting
48 French Vanilla with Chocolate Frosting
24 French Vanilla with Dark Chocolate Frosting
24 French Vanilla with White Frosting
24 Vanilla with Chocolate Frosting
24 Golden Butter with Chocolate Frosting
24 Yellow with Dark Chocolate Frosting

PREPARED SHEET CAKES:
1 Lemon Sheet Cake with Lemon Frosting
1 German Chocolate Sheet Cake with Coconut Pecan Frosting

PREPARED BUNDT CAKES:
1 Devil's Food Bundt Cake with Chocolate Drizzle
1 Fudge Marble Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Drizzle
1 Red Velvet Bundt Cake with Cream Cheese Drizzle
1 Spice Cake with Butter Cream Drizzle
1 Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Drizzle
1 Pineapple Cake with Fresh Pineapple/Powdered Sugar Drizzle Coconut

Chocolate Cheese Cookies
Brownies
Candy
& MORE

Busy Busy Week!

This week leading up to the Peachtree Road Race (Sunday, July 4th) has been the hairest week I can remember in a very long time! ;)

Unfortunately, I haven't had ANY training time this week. :( I'd hoped to keep up my usual 20 miles. Or at the very least, put in about 10 before the Peachtree! But it didn't happen! ;(

I am the Art Director for a small magazine in Griffin, GA called Kitchen Drawer. And, this week was production week for the July/August issue. What I hadn't figured on was everything else leading up to this week was gonna be delayed (photo shoots, writing, etc.) which made me delayed... Yeah for me! ;)

The good news? After almost a week of hard core design and production, kick-ass writing and editing from our editor/copywriter, and 48 straight hours with only 2 hours of sleep for the final production push, I managed to release the final file to the printer this morning! :) Woo hoo! As tired as I feel, I feel sooo much better now! ;) AND I'm quite proud of this issue. I have to thank my contributing designers for stepping up and cranking out their respective piece(s) for me. Some going over and above for me by doing multiple pieces! What would I do without you!? Thank you! ;)

Thanks also goes out to my donors cause now I'm at $1,845! ;) I'm getting there! ;)

Today, Saturday is our first bake sale. And have we been busy BAKING! Correction! My MOM has been busy baking! She's made nearly 48 dozen cupcakes, 8 cakes and a batch of cookies and brownies for this sale! WOW!! ;) I sure hope it pays off! ;) THANK YOU, MAMA! ;) With my schedule these past few weeks, there's NO WAY I could have pulled this sale off! ;)

Stay tuned to see how we do! ...