An Update on my Sister - March 30

I emailed this note to friends and family yesterday but someone suggested I post it here as well....an update on my sister's breast cancer fight.

Hi everyone,
Thank you so much for your many emails and phone calls and kind words for us as a family and for my sister especially. She has remained very positive through all this, albeit tired, but she starts chemo tomorrow so we expect she'll likely start to feel worse as the drugs take effect. She has been told she'll lose her hair within two weeks but she's not concerned about that, more about feeling nauseous. The doctor's plan for her is 2-4 chemo treatments over the next 8 weeks followed by surgery to remove the lump, followed by radiation. We imagine this will go thru the summer. Then there will be 5 years of daily drugs that she'll have to take and we pray that after the 5 years she'll be cancer free.
So many of you have offered to lend a hand and we're so very appreciative of that. There's so many different ways that people can help whether it's emotional support or research, financial or practical. As her husband will still be working full-time thru her treatment we thought that practical help would really benefit them. While we have no expectations of you, if you felt that you were able to help in some way, perhaps by preparing and dropping off a meal for them (keeping in mind she's allergic to flaxseed) or maybe offering to clean their apartment, or dropping off an already read magazine, something like that, I know they'd be very grateful. I imagine these next weeks will be rather overwhelming for both of them so we thought that if you were wanting to do something like this that you could let Mom or I know and then we can let her know the timing.
She has been very touched by everyone's love and support and kindness and we thank you for that. Thank you also for your prayer's and positive energy!
Hugs,Rebecca
(on behalf of our family)

Earth Hour's Hour....

So? How did you do? Did you turn off your lights for Earth Hour last night? We did. We'd decided we'd get all organized in advance, getting the candles out and the matches, unplugging unneccessary appliances and power cords and making a plan of how to entertain ourselves for an hour without power. And no, there won't be a baby arriving in 9 months! My husband Mike even made fun of me because I was acting like suddenly the power supply would be shut off right at 8pm, but really, that's how I was approaching the whole thing, so I wanted to be prepared.

We had a great time actually. We took the doggie for a walk around 7pm so had turned everything off before we left and when we got home before 8pm it was pretty much dark so our Earth Hour started a bit early. We didn't turn on any lights but lit some candles. We sat on the couch for a bit and chatted and then I had a GREAT hot bath with candlelight and before we knew it, Earth Hour was over and it was after 9pm. We didn't even have time for the planned candle lit scrabble game. We decided though to keep the lights off for the whole evening and then the only power we did use was the TV/DVD player to watch a movie before bed.

It really wasn't hard to not use the lights for an entire evening so we're going to try to be more aware of our power usage on a daily basis and only use the neccessary lights in the evening, and all day for that matter!

Here's hoping your Earth Hour was a fun success! And if you missed Earth Hour last night, there's no reason you can't create your own Earth Hour, and hopefully, eventually, strive to make every hour Earth Hour. We're going to try.

It's just one hour...

The World Wildlife Fund is encouraging everyone to take part in Earth Hour TONIGHT! It's really simple, we all just have to turn off the lights or other unneccessary electrical things to save energy. It starts at 8pm and it's for just an hour, however, hopefully it will help people to realize that we don't always have to have everything plugged in and using energy constantly. Earth Hour is an attempt to help slow climate change and it will take all of us to make a difference.

Did you know that when you have certain items plugged in but you're not actually using them at the time that they're still using energy. For example, if you could uplug your microwave and coffee machine sitting on your counter when you're not using them that would help. Also, when you don't have your cell phone plugged into it's charger, you can unplug the charger. Every little bit helps. Obviously if you can turn out the lights, that's the easiest way to help support Earth Hour but it's also a good habit to get into turning off your lights when you don't need them. Let's try to make every hour Earth Hour.

Kudos to Canadians as Canada has one of the highest participation levels around the world with over 150 cities participating. If you'd like to participate you can simply turn off your lights but if you'd like to send a message to our government showing that you care about our Earth then you can sign up as a participant of Earth Hour on the World Wildlife Fund website - I just did. The site also has tons of other suggestions on how we can live "The Good Life" and help to fight climate change. Simple things like wash your clothes in cold water instead of hot, that's doable! Plus, there's a live kilowatt counter on the site so you can see how the energy levels will actually change tonight at 8pm. Kinda cool. So let's all do our part and 'turn out for Earth Hour'!!

WASP - What A Super Party!

Last night I MC'd a fundraising gala for WASP, the Whistler Adaptive Sports Program and wow, WASP - What A Super Party! WASP supports people with disabilities and enables them to participate in sports, particularly skiing and riding, and many Paralympians got their start with WASP. It's an amazing program! Truly inspiring!

I think everybody left the 1st annual Friends of WASP Gala with a smile on their face. Possibly because they made a donation to a wonderful cause, enjoyed the scrumptious dinner, or won a fantastic auction prize. But I imagine more than a few left smiling because they'd had the opportunity to laugh their heads off. Why? Well, it was laughing at me. Not with me, but at me.

I've MC'd many events before but I've never been an Auctioneer. When I saw the program outline and it listed a live auction I asked the organizer if she'd arranged for an auctioneer to do the auction but she had hoped I'd do it. I suggested she find someone experienced because I'd never done this before and I really didn't want to risk not raising enough money for WASP. After all, it was a fundraiser. But she was confident that I'd be fine. Wow, was she wrong!!

I now know for sure that I am clearly not a good auctioneer, entertaining perhaps, but not good. However, my attempt at doing it made everyone in the room laugh, especially me, at myself!! I was horrible, and I'm not just saying that to be all dramatic. I forgot what the bid amount was at, not once, but at least a half a dozen times. No joke. I also couldn't keep track of who had most recently bid, it was a mess, but a funny one. My own confusion even confused the bidders and we weren't sure who had bid what and even one bidder upped his own current bid. It was pretty crazy. Clearly I'd never done this before and everyone in the room could tell. But luckily, the room was filled with some amazing people who could easily relate to how difficult this was and in the end, the target fundraising goal was reached and everyone was very entertained.

I don't think I'll be signing up to be an Auctioneer anytime soon although it turns out some people thought it was actually a ploy of mine to be so messed up to either get sympathy bids or just to confuse bidders to get the bids higher....well, no, that was definitely not the case, but hey, if it came across that way then I'm ok with that. Whatever it takes to raise the most amount of money for the great cause right? And after the evening was over, many people commented on what a great job I'd done. I think they were being really nice.

Hey, you have to be able to laugh at yourself right? Well, it was a great laugh! What a super party!

Ha ha ha, gotta love the ads!

Ha ha ha. I get such a kick out of the Google AdSense ads that pop up on my blog. Of course the spiders scan the site to see what topics I'm posting about and then Google posts the relevant ads....and I just saw that one of the ads is for tickets to a Donny & Marie concert....too funny, considering my recent posts about them. That made me laugh!

Happy Friday!! And, even happier weekend!!!

I learned something new about Donny & Marie!

Ok, so I kinda feel bad now about going on and on about Donny and Marie and what have they done lately? (see previous post 'What's the Deal with Donny and Marie') I just learned that they and the rest of the Osmond family are the founders of the Children's Miracle Network. I had no idea but I'm glad to have learned this and to see celebrities using their celebrity for the betterment of the world - good on them! So while they haven't released a new CD as of late, they are helping over 17 million children each year at the 170 Children's Miracle Network hospitals in North America, and I believe they're going international soon. Now that's deserving of a few extra minutes of fame.

Money CAN buy happiness?!

This is a great story and I love happy news stories. And funny that's it's still on the topic of consumerism - seems to be a theme for me recently posts-wise, yet I'm really not much of a shopper myself. But anyways, did you hear the story in the news yesterday about how shopping and spending money can actually make one happy? This definitely ties in to the theory in "Story of Stuff" (see below post) about how we're so driven to get more stuff, however, this has a bit of a twist.

According to research done at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School, money can buy happiness, but, only if you spend it on someone else. It seems our society is always trying to keep up with the Jones' but that of course means spending money on oneself to have the nicest house with the white picket fence or the fastest car, a new boat and whatever else you might want. We seem to think that the more we have the happier we'll be. I have to admit I'd be pretty happy to have any, or all of those things. But in this case, the money spent needs to be spent on others and then you'll be happier than if you bought something for yourself. Isn't this great? I just love this story and it just goes to show that the lesson we learned in kindergarten is true: giving is better than receiving. And if you happen to be a fan of shopping, well, who can complain if you're buying something for someone else because really everyone wins!

Ok, now I'm off to pick up some Easter treats, and no, they're not for myself! :)

Happy Easter!