The 3 Day: Week Five Progress Report

I received a few fun packages this week. One was from the 3 Day Shop and contained a T shirt, some pinback buttons, a bandanna, & Body Glide! Yeah, those first three items are for promotion (and because I wanted them!), but I've been told that Body Glide is a gift of the Gods when it comes to blister prevention (that purchase was a no brainer!). I also received some stuff for fund raising: silicone bracelets, pink ribbons, & a fundraiser kit from Pink Wings.


Training Update
This week I tried out my second new pair of shoes from New Balance. The size definitely felt better and my heel didn't hurt at all in them. The problem this time was with the balls of my feet and arches doing both an easy walk and a more moderate walk. The moderate walk was a little bit more like power walking and I had to cut it short because of how badly my arches & balls hurt; in fact they were still hurting two days later. The easy walk was better on my arches, but the balls still hurt. I do think that these shoes may not be quite right and that I need more shock absorption in those places, but I also think that it's been a long time since I walked this much and my feet need to get used to it again. I'm going to go visit my friend Ken at New Balance again and see what he thinks. I feel bad that I keep going back, but 60 miles and countless training miles are too far to walk in shoes that don't fit properly.


Fundraising
I had a couple of big fundraising projects to work on this week. The first was the announcement of Blue Buddha Boutique's sponsorship of my forthcoming Pink Warrior Chain Maille Collection. Thanks to Rebeca's very generous jump ring donation, all proceeds from the sale of items from this collection will be able to go straight to my fund raising. I spent a good amount of time creating some pieces this weekend and hope to be able to debut the beginnings of the collection at some point this week. I am very excited about this!

The second fundraiser that I'm working on right now is my raffle. I started a thread in the Etsy forums and have already received commitments for some really fabulous items from a number of very generous people! Check out the thread if you'd like to contribute, otherwise keep an eye on my blog: the raffle will go live in just a couple of weeks.

Every time I get an e-mail with the subject line "A donation was made on your behalf" it feels like I've hit the lottery.
-An Herb Society friend's donation made me feel so much better after getting home from a walk frustrated & in pain.
-Random love from amazing twitter followers was a very happy surprise, too.

Also this week, I sent out my follow up e-mails to the friends, family, and co-workers that I haven't heard from yet. One of those messages resulted in a nice donation! I also sent snail mail to family that I don't have e-mail addresses for.

In last week's update, I mentioned that I wanted to be at about 75% of my goal by the time my training officially starts. Here's a breakdown of what I have in mind:
-Blog Raffle - I will be promoting the hell out of this, but I'm also hoping that my participants may be able to bring some some entries as well. Even if there's only the same number of bids for each of the twenty (so far!) items at a minimum of $5 that will come to $100 worth of donations!
-Pink Warrior Chain Maille Collection - I'm hoping to debut the beginnings of this collection this week. With any luck, I will sell around $200 worth within the first couple of months.
These two fundraisers will bring me up to half of my goal!
-The next big fundraiser for me will be setting up a table outside some stores and at some farmers markets. I've read about other walkers raising any where between $400-$800 by doing this! I have the fundraising goodies that I ordered, a pink ribbon cookie cutter for sugar cookies, and tickets to two separate shows in the area that I can raffle off. So, I have a few different ways of setting up which will allow me to do this multiple times. To get started, I'm going to try to get confirmations for two separate stores or markets and estimate on the low side that together they will bring in the $575 that will bring me to 75% of my goal of raising $2,300.

Mileage to date on training walks: 41
Goal: $2,300
Achieved: $870 or 38%
Remaining: $1,430
Countdown: 215 days until the event!

If you're enjoying keeping track of my progress, please consider supporting me in my effort to eradicate breast cancer. No amount is too little or too much. Thank you!!

Simple Joy Sunday

Finding the simple joys each week...

Fresh strawberries. I love fresh strawberries. Strawberries made me happy this week.

I managed to catch a 50% off sale of an Etsy shop that carries packaging supplies. I placed an order for a bunch of stuff to play with for my herbal concoctions. I have a few ideas of some products that I'd love to start carrying, so I really need to work out the details like this.

My honey recently started working on the shelves he's custom building for his office.... ahem.... game library. He's been working on them off and on since we moved into the house two years ago. Needless to say, I'm thrilled that he started working on them again: I can't wait to get all of the boxes of games (yeah, he's got literally hundreds) out of the dining room.

My yarrow is starting to blossom!! I've had it since last summer and this is the first time that I've seen little white heads starting to bud. I can't wait to see it flower!

After working two really long days, I didn't have to go in on Friday. I spent the majority of the day cleaning the house in preparation for my mom's visit later this week. Yeah, house cleaning sucks but it really does make me happy to have the place clean (I know OCD). On top of that, usually by the time I'm done with that much work I'm ready to collapse on the couch. Not this time! I was still feeling really good and went for a training walk. I'm really happy to see my energy levels are up. It's amazing what a good attitude and some regular exercise will do!

Saturday was absolutely gorgeous out! I had all of the windows open and was thoroughly enjoying the fresh air while I spent the day working on my new Pink Warrior Chain Maille Collection. I got a few pieces done and hope to either get some more done today or get the already finished pieces photographed. It's coming along!

As always, check out more Simple Joy Sundays over at Cool Zebras. What were some of your joys this week?

Call for Raffle Donations to Support BOOBS!

To date, the majority of my fundraising for the 3 Day has been in the form of letters, chatting up people, and social media promotion. Through those outlets alone, I have already raised $850 - only $1,450 to go! I'm excited to announce my first true fundraising event! Sure, it's a virtual event, but an event nonetheless!

As part of my fundraising, I will be raffling off items from my blog. Some items I will make or I will have donated from local businesses (show tickets!). Others will come from the loving and supportive arts & crafts community. This is a call out to all of you amazing artists and crafters for items to donate.

~*~ This is how it will work. ~*~

-Amazing crafter provides me with picture(s), a detailed description of the item, and an estimated value or simply directs me to an item in their shop where I can gather all of this information. All of this information will be in your item’s listing in the raffle in addition to your shop information.

-The raffle will run for one month.

-In order for all raffle ticket purchases to go towards fundraising, I will direct people straight to my profile at the 3 Day website (as opposed to Paypal which will deduct fees).

-The minimum donation of $5 (which is the minimum that can be donated at the 3 Day website) will be the equivalent of 1 ticket, $10 will be for 3, $20 for 7, and $50 for 20 tickets.

-I will require everyone that purchases raffle tickets to leave a comment on my blog post with their first name, e-mail address, and number of tickets purchased so that I can cross reference their information at my 3 Day Personal Page (where they make their donation) and be sure that I have a way of contacting them to receive their winning item.

-I will promote the auction on my blog, on Facebook, and twitter as well as among all of my online communities and encourage all participants to do the same.

-If you are able to include your product donation on your taxes, I am more than glad to supply you with the 3 Day’s tax ID number.

-I will use a random number generator to pick the raffle winners.

-At the completion of the raffle, I will notify the winners via e-mail that they won and I will notify my lovely donation crafters of their mailing address. As part of your donation, I will ask that you take care of shipping your item and try to have it shipped out within three business days of receipt of their address.

~*~ Why would you want to do this? There are a few reasons. ~*~

-Free promotion: in addition to promoting the raffle, I talk about this event a lot and boast about the angels that support me & the cause.
-A possible tax deduction: if you include your Etsy business on your taxes, that is.
-Getting your work out there: the more people that see your fabulous goods, the more likely they are to come back or tell their friends about you.
-Supporting an amazing cause: if you’ve got boobs and, yes we ALL do, you benefit from supporting the 3 Day.

~*~ Important Dates ~*~

-This Etsy forum thread will be open to accepting item donations until Sunday, April 4, 2010. Donations can still be made after this point, but I need somewhere to start!
-The raffle will go live on Monday, April 12, 2010 and stay open for one month.
-The raffle will close at 11:59pm on Sunday, May 9, 2010.
-The drawing will occur on Monday, May 10, 2010. And winners will be notified promptly at the completion of the drawing.

Again, visit this thread to let me know what you'd like to donate.

One in eight women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime. Without a cure, one person will die of breast cancer every 13 minutes in the United States. That's why I'm walking in the 3-Day for the Cure: because everyone deserves a lifetime. I hope that you'll share this incredible adventure with me by supporting me in my fund raising efforts.

If you’d like to make a monetary donation, go to my personal fund raising page: http://www.the3day.org/goto/Janine.Vanderhoff

If you have any questions or want to hear more about what I'm doing, I love talking about the event. Thank you for taking the time to read this message. Thank you in advance for your generosity!

Friday Finds - Spring Planting Accessories

It's officially Spring and the weather is getting warmer. Mother Nature is blossoming and practically begging Her people to get dirty and start gardening.

My soil is so sandy, I really am afraid of trying to plant anything in it for fear of killing the poor greenling. I currently have a flourishing herb garden in containers. I love these pots:

3 Chalkboard Flower Pots by The Mays' Homemade

In case your drooping plantings aren't a giveaway, this handy little garden marker will remind you what to do:

Water Me Vintage Silverware Garden Marker Plant Stake by Monkeys Always Look

I've been curious about using worm castings as fertilizer. This looks like a great way of trying it out without investing in the worm home and all of the worms. Plus, they upcycle by using misprinted flour bags for their packaging, saving them from going to a landfill.

Worm Castings 1 lb Bag by One20 Farm

Have you started your planting yet this season?