For The Journey Not just the destination…

Last year, I was introduced to the Susan B. Komen Race for the Cure, by Mel, who participated in the Indianapolis race. When she started talking about donations for this year, I decided to see if I could find a similar race nearby.

Then, I heard on the radio about the 3 day (75 mile) race that also supports the Susan B. Komen Foundation. I thought this sounded like an awesome challenge, but the fundraising requirements were a little overwhelming for a first-time racer. I decided to look for something a little smaller.

It turns out that on Mother’s Day, there will be a 5k walk/race at Atlantic Station in Atlanta. I went ahead and created a team for my department at work and sent emails out to a few coworkers to see if they want to walk with me. We’ve had 6 sign up so far…

I set my donation goal for $100. This money goes to a good cause, honoring those touched by the disease and helping us to celebrate breast cancer survivors. The race raises money for breast cancer research, education, screening outreach and treatment programs. I’ve put a link to my donation page in the sidebar (next to the pink ribbon) if you would like to support the race.

I’ve been going through some boxes of old clothes recently to drop off at a thrift store. One box was packed full of teeshirts I wore in high school. It was hard to get rid of the shirts. Even though I don’t wear them anymore, and most are stained and ratty-looking, they all have sentimental meaning to me. I actually made Thomas sit and listen to my stories about each one as I packed them up to go.

I think it was my mom who once jokingly asked if I was advertising for a date after I wore a Friendlys Ice Cream shirt, and then a Virgin Record shirt the next day. But when I think about it, many of my shirts were selected as a statement – though not really that statement. :) I had a unique – grunge, hippy – style in high school, and my shirts were like bumper stickers on a car. They said: I love nature, I’m open minded, these are my interests, I refuse to wear clothing brand names. One of my favorites is in the entry photo.

Going through these old shirts made me think about how we display to each other who we are, and what we stand for. I don’t have bumper stickers on my car, or the hippy paint job on my bus like I did in high school, but I guess the bus is a statement. I’ve noticed some people use their bookshelves as a statement – displyaing who they are by why the read, watch, and listen to. A blog is definately a statement. I don’t think making a statement is necessarily a bad thing – people do it everyday with what they wear, what they drive, what they hang on their walls, and what they say, but it is interesting to notice what means people use to share that information.

Not sure if anyone noticed, but I took my blog down last week. I was really in need of a blog vacation. I needed some time to think about why I keep a blog, what I want out of it, how much time I want to put into it, and what I want to post in it. The last item is something that has been a big issue in our household this past week – lots of disagreements about what is too much info to give away freely, like names, addresses, and vacation dates. At this point, we’re at a standstill, with lots of compromising – but atleast no one has had to move out. :)

I’ve been thinking about why I keep a blog, and what I want to use it for. I’ve realized that being a blogger has become a part of my identity. However, I filter out so much, that I wonder if it’s an accurate view of who I am. I originally started my blog with great hopes of being found by long lost friends. I can’t think of anyone that has stumbled upon my site from a Google search. I have made a couple of new online friends, but that’s mostly because I comment in their journals. I guess I also started a public blog to keep my family updated on my life, but sometimes I feel like my journal is a refrigerator door, where I’m posting my crafts and photos like they are gold-star book-reports.

I’m still exploring ideas about what I want to do with this, but I got an email from my grandmother asking about my blog, and I promised to have it back up by the end of the weekend. So here it is… :) It’s nice to know it’s being read.

This weekend, Bill came down for a visit from South Carolina. He’s in the navy there and wanted to get some time off base, and we’re always eager for guests to visit.

I’m not sure I can really explain what all we did this weekend except stay up late, sleep in in the mornings, eat too much, and go bowling. We drove around downtown looking for cool things to check out, but it was cold and rainy and parking was a pain. The aquarium is still booked up with reservations, so we couldn’t check that out. We did go to the Brazillian restaurant, J. Christopher’s, and Krispy Kreme. And we did quickly check out Junkman’s Daughter, a vintagey shop in Little 5 Points. It was fun, relaxing weekend.

Saturday morning, in between rain showers, I got a couple bluejay photos. My favorite is the entry photo.

Happy Late Valentine’s Day. I hope your V-Day was as sweet as mine.

Thomas took me out to a weird looking restaurant called Piebar on Monday (my last landscaping class was Tuesday). It looked like some kind of spaceship, but supposedly it used to be a bank. The meal was good, my favorite part being the squid scampi, which actually didn’t have pasta in it. Instead, the squid was fettucini-shape. The courses were tapas style, where they are appetizer size portions and meant to be shared. It was fun to try a new place.

Today, Thomas and I went to the ballet for the rest of our V-day celebration. The part that made it really special was that we rode the MARTA (subway) downtown. It made it feel like we were somewhere exciting, like New York. :) I’m easily entertained.  The performance, Peter and the Wolf, was great. I had only heard it on the radio before, and radio doesn’t do much justice for ballet.

Afterwards, they had a couple of extra dances using lights to alter the visual sensations. One was a ballet performance which was done with strobe lights, so you kept seeing clips of the dancer in the air and never landing. The other used black lights to block out some views. Half the dancers only had their legs showing, and the other had their arms, so they looked like floating body parts. This reminded me alot of the very cool black light theater troupe my brother toured with when he was a teen – Ta Fantastika.