Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.

I learned a few things over this past fourth of July weekend spent largely with my family.

1) All it takes is a family of raccoons living in the treehouse for my family to be entertained for HOURS. Both in watching the raccoons (including two babies) and in debating the merits of letting them remain there and charging admission to this “nature refuge” vs the merits of draping their hides over the railing as a warning to future potential tenants of the treehouse. The majority of the family is for letting them stay. The homeowner is for draping the hides.

2) A full bottle of tequila does not last nearly as long as it probably should.

3) One two year old is capable of holding the attention of ten adults even when she’s sleeping.

4) If you’re picky when you order your food or drink (one shot of vanilla vodka in a martini glass that has to be chilled) in a restaurant, you will NEVER live it down.

5) Talking louder will only result in someone talking even louder over you.

I love my family. The whole crazy lot of them.

Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.

For the last several hours I’ve been sitting on my couch and wondering how, and if, I should respond to the allegations that I was hit with today.

Part of me thought that I should just shrug it off and move on. A bigger part of me, the part that is writing this note, is hurt enough that I need to address this and I need to do it publicly so that I can move the hell on and away from it.

I found out today that because a portion of the funds that I have raised for my walk (about $1100 raised at an event a week or so ago) have not been posted to my fundraising website, that I must be pocketing the funds.

Wow.

I am so stunned that someone thinks that I would stoop so low as to pocket funds meant to go towards the Susan G. Komen 3-Day For The Cure. I don’t think that the person who thinks that knows me at all. What they’re accusing me of is of using my own mother’s death for my financial gain. My mother DIED because of breast cancer. I lost her and I can never EVER have her back, no matter how badly I might wish it. And trust me. I do. I miss her so much every single FUCKING day. I walk in this walk because it’s all that I feel like I can do to prevent someone else from going through what I went through. What my sister went through. What my dad went through.

I sit here and I’m heartbroken.

My beautiful husband, who did this fundraising on my behalf, has said that he feels as though the accusations are more towards him than towards me. To that, I say bullshit. Because this is MY cause. This is MY walk and this is MY fundraising. If you’re saying that Derek is pocketing the funds, you’re saying that *I’M* allowing that to happen and that I’m allowing that to happen under my pet charity’s name and in memory of my mother.

So to wrap up this angry and heartbroken rant, fuck you for presuming to know me and what I’m all about. Thank you for making me wonder which one of my friends is thinking that about me. Maybe next time you should take a moment and ask me what the situation is before you start talking with other people about my integrity.

I assure you that if you are making a donation towards me and the Susan G. Komen 3-Day For The Cure, that IS where the money is going. I’m sorry if anybody has ever made you feel that that’s in doubt. Please donate with confidence. I do this for my mom and I would never dare to dishonor her memory by using any donated funds to my own benefit. It makes me sick to even think it.

Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.

Have you ever done something that you feel phenomenally proud of? Walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure does that for me.

When I walk, I feel like I’m actually making a difference. I feel like I am potentially saving someone’s life with each step that I take and when I’m walking 60 miles over a mere three days? That’s a lot of steps.

Losing my mom to breast cancer was, and continues to be, the most difficult thing that I have ever had to face in my lifetime. I do not wish that experience on anyone. I watched my mother go from a vibrant powerful woman, to one who couldn’t get out of bed. My heart breaks every day with missing her.

Please help me make sure that my daughter never experiences the same thing that I did. Save my life. Save yours. Save hers. Do something to be proud of. Help me by making a donation.

In order to walk, I need to raise a minimum of $2300. Can you donate $25?

Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.

That’s right, folks. I am officially registered to walk 60 miles over 3 days in Seattle this September. With that registration, I have also pledged to raise $2300 to help fund breast cancer research and to one day find a cure.

If you don’t already know, I walk for my mom. She died when I was 14 because breast cancer decided that it was her time and, quite frankly, I think that breast cancer was wrong. I want her back every single day and since I can’t have that, I’ll do what I can. To me that means that I walk and support and I fight to make sure that I don’t put my own daughter through the same thing that I went through. I fight to make sure that she doesn’t fight breast cancer one day.

I’m asking for your help. I know that times are hard right now and it’s hard to give up a little of what’s filling up your wallet. If you can’t donate money, get in touch with me and let me know if you can support with donating raffle items or prizes for various fundraising events that I put on. If you’re in the Vancouver, BC area, let me know and I’ll let you know of upcoming events that you can come out and support.

And if you can donate money? Please do. Here is the link that you donate safely at:

My Personal Page

Thank you so much for all that you do, thank you for being there for me as I go on this crazy journey that is the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.

Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.

It has been an awfully rough six or seven months, whatever it’s been now. It was just in November that I lost a loved grandmother. Then my dad had and was treated for cancer in January. Now it’s May and last week, still in April, I lost another grandma.

It’s been hard, but there have been a lot of good things to carry through it all. It just doesn’t happen in such monumental post-worthy occasions, yeah?

So, things are good. My dad is fine. They caught the cancer by accident and therefore super early and he’s fine. I’m sad, but ok. I handle grief in weird ways so my friends probably think that I’m cracked out, but really, all is well.

And now the screaming tantrum-y child on my lap is demanding my attention. C’est la vie.

Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.

… I think about the old jelly bean dispenser always full and ready for the grandkids on the counter.

… I remember the delicious turkey sandwiches from the day after Thanksgiving.

…. I hear her laughing as her grandkids slid, bumping and giggling, down the blue carpeted stairs over and over again.

… I see books stacked all over the rainbow room - read, in progress and waiting to be cracked.

… I visualize her white hair always perfectly styled.

… her giant grin and her open arms - eager to give us hugs when we showed up for visits.

… I think of how sad I’m going to be when I get the inevitable call that she’s gone.

My grandmother is in a coma and isn’t going to make it much longer. I’m sad. I’m going to miss her.

Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.

We drove past a field with cows in it on the way home from daycare today.

My kid barked like a dog at the cows.

I tried to explain that the cows go, “mooooo!”

She snickered and barked again.

Yup.

That’s my kid.

Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.

Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.

I want a new blog layout. But I’m cheap and broke. And I want to design it myself. Again. But I also lack the coding skills necessary to code any layout I might eventually come up with. I just know how proud I felt after I designed this and got to see it live up here on the internet (thanks to a kind soul who coded it for me). I mean, I can alter code and all, but I can’t just come up with all willy-nilly.

I’ve actually been contemplating closing this place up and starting over again somewhere else. You all could come along, but just for the sake of a fresh start. Does that sound insane if I keep the same readers and the same everything except domain?

Having the Olympics in your hometown is a bit surreal. I go through my everyday life while less than 30 miles away Olympic athletes are strutting their stuff. It’s bizarre. And sometimes overwhelming, especially since I’m American (dur) living in Canada. My patriotism is confused. I don’t know who to cheer for.

I’m really struggling and working hard at getting my diabetes under control. I have to do this. For me. For Ana. Willpower sucks.

I’m looking for some good new tunes to listen to. And a good new snappy ringtone for my phone. Suggestions? I like a lot of indie rock, especially female artists like Lisa Hannigan, Lykke Li, and Neko Case. I need dance-ish (but not popular, please) music for a ringtone. It’s okay if it was popular five years ago.

I’m once again switching things up on the job front. My new, but full of lay-off situations, job is coming to an end. By my choice. I’m just tired of being “on-call.” And tired of being left to work the graveyard shift ALONE in the basement of a side building of a hospital that security barely patrols. Grrr. I have a new job that I start next month and this one might be a keeper. I’m really excited and ready to start it, even though it means daycare.

Ah, daycare. I found a woman who is a stay-at-home and she’s going to watch my little girl. I think I’m going to freak the eff out when I drop Ana off on the first day. ‘Cause yikes. A stranger. With my baby. Responsible for her. How in the world am I going to do this? How do people do this? Seriously.

This blog has been on my mind an awful lot lately. I feel bad that I don’t post, but I feel like I have absolutely nothing of consequence to say. I guess you guys don’t mind that much if I babble, no?

I’m doing the 3 Day Walk again. That’s right, folks. I’m walking 60 miles over 3 days and that means… you guessed it. Fundraising. I need to raise $2300 by September. You will see lots of posts in the coming weeks and months asking for donations, talking about my story, throwing around some fundraising ideas and… maybe even… another blog-off? It’s a possibility. If I can get my shitsnowski together between now and then.

One of my very best friends in the whole world is moving several states away from me and this move happens in just 36 (35 now?) days. I’m going to miss her so very very much.

I hate to end on an uneven number (even though I haven’t actually numbered the randomness), but it’s almost 1:30 in the morning and I am far more tired than I realized. Peace out, lovelies.

Originally published at Five Second Dance Party. Please leave any comments there.

So far, 2010 is working out to be a better year. My dad had his surgery to remove the tumor just this past Tuesday and it went better than they (they being the doctors) had even hoped. He’s on his way home from the hospital as I type this post and it’ll be good to see him getting back to his regular ol’ self.

Derek and I have discussed our finances and while we hate to do it, we think that putting Ana in daycare so that I can actually find a full-time job with a full-time income is the right choice for us right now. So, the hunt begins for a full-time position that makes enough money that I can quit my half-assed job.

Ana is doing amazing, as always. She runs with her arms stretched behind her like Super-Girl and she does it everywhere she goes. She’s been a joy to everybody in 6 East at my dad’s hospital. She runs around the halls and pokes her nose into other people’s rooms where she points and says, “Hi!” She has a small vocabulary and I have the feeling that when it expands, it’s going to expand exponentially. For the time being she says dada (everybody is dada), mama (mainly when she’s upset), ball, cat (always in a whisper and repeatedly while pointing excitedly at the cats), and bye bye (as she waves at everybody even when she’s not leaving). And, of course, hi. She says hi to everybody. Shy kid? Not mine.

So we’re almost one month down and eleven to go and things are looking good. Things are really looking good.