Jim tried to entice me into taking a walk with him the other night, but by the time we did dinner, lunches, laundry, and then the kids went to bed…well, I was pooped. That’s the trouble with waiting til things calm down at home to walk…by the time we’re able to do it, I’m too pooped to move. Pretty soon it’s going to be getting hot, and the nights will be too muggy and buggy to walk. I’m not looking forward to continuing my training this summer.
I was on a conference call tonight with my 3-Day coach to get info on being a training walk leader. Unfortunately, I had to leave the call about halfway through, because it was dinner time in our house. (Why they scheduled a call for Florida people at 6pm…?) Anyway, all that’s left to do now is plan my route and get it listed on the training calendar for our area.
If you read my post about my mailbox surprise last week, wow, do I have a story to top that! This morning my oldest came and woke me up – it was about 10:30am and I was sleeping in. She told me a man was at the door…and knowing I wasn’t expecting anyone, I wasn’t in a hurry to get downstairs. I figured it was someone trying to sell me something. I told her not to answer it, and got up, went potty, brushed my teeth, and wandered downstairs. I noticed he was still at the door, so I went to find out what he wanted. Turns out it was a neighbor a few house down who had gotten a copy of my yard sale flyer. (I passed them out to every house in my development) He handed me a check for TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS and apologized for not being able to help with the yard sale last week.
Wow!
I told him thank you about a million times and than ran inside to get one of my donation forms. I got the check in the mailbox today to submit to the 3-Day people so it can be applied to my account. Technically, this means I made almost $700 with my yard sale. Once his donation is applied to my account, I’ll be just over $1500.
Double wow!
I made my yard sale donation to my 3-Day account last night, which boosted my total up to almost $1300. I’m over halfway towards my $2200 goal now, and I am certain I will be COMPLETELY done fundraising before the walk this year.
As a reminder, I am taking donations from all of you – and you get something in return! By donating $20 (go right here to my 3-Day page to donate) you’ll get your name listed over there —> til October, when I make the walk. This is a PR 4 site, so it’s it’s worth your while to be linked, and your $20 definitely goes to an excellent cause, if I do say so myself!
My 9 year old handed me $15 of her own money during the yard sale last weekend, and told me she wanted to donate to me, as well as my sister, Dana, and Sindy, who I walked with last year. Last night I finally got the chance to get online and make the donations for her, and she wrote a special little note to each person. Of the 5 of us who walked last year, Sindy and I will be in Tampa in 2007, Cheryl is walking in Philadelphia again with her cousin, and Dana will be in Atlanta. I don’t know if Chris will be walking again in 2007.
Hope you all got your Gracie donations!
Since my yard sale last weekend was for charity, I was able to get a nice little blurb about it published in our newspaper. In addition to the classified ad I paid for, the local editor gave me a writeup in the community pages section, with my name, address, 3-day info, and all of the sale info. I didn’t think much of it once the sale was over, but today I came home and found a letter in my mailbox from a stranger in town. Inside was a check for $30 and a nice note from a woman telling me she was donating because her mom had breast cancer. I’m writing a thank you note tonight!
I just think it was so sweet that someone went out of their way to help a stranger like that.
The next time your kids ask to go on the computer, or watch a TV show, make them work for it. Suggest that for every block of TV or internet time they want, that they earn it by running around outside. Studies have shown that just 15 minutes a day of outside play can help children avoid becoming obese. My oldest ALWAYS wants to be on the computer or in front of the TV, but we’re encouraging her to go outside and ride her bike, or take the dogs for a walk, instead of plopping on the couch and doing nothing.
Children who did 15 minutes a day of moderate exercise (equivalent to a brisk walk) were 50% less likely than inactive children to be obese.
The 3-Day people have some great promo materials for walkers – shirts, signs, socks, banners, hats – all kinds of stuff. But I’d love something personalized with the URL of this site, and they don’t offer this. I came across a site selling Yard Signs, and they also do magnetic signs and banners for cars! Not only could I display the fact that I’m walking in 2007, but I could personalize it with the URL to this site and maybe even drum up a few more donations.
I’d even consider putting a sign in my yard to show off my 3-Day pride!
If you’re a reader at my other blog, you already know by now that my 3-Day fundraising yard sale was a big success! I had $474 at the end of the day on Saturday, and we got rid of a LOT of stuff. One trip to Goodwill later, and my garage is clean and clear.
We did get quite a bit of rain on Friday, but we didn’t let that discourage us…we just moved the sale into my garage and kept on going! We also had out donation buckets, and signs EVERYWHERE letting people know it was for charity. A lot of people “rounded up” their totals to add to our total, several who didn’t buy still handed over money, and even more emptied their change from wallets into our buckets. Even my son added a penny when he bought a table top football game from his aunt. (The sign on our bucket said “Every penny helps”, so he put in 1 cent…LOL!)
The yard sale is tomorrow. I’ve got a garage full of junk treasures to sell, signs ready to go, and children ready to shake 3-Day buckets for donations.
I can’t shake the nagging feeling that I’m forgetting something. Or that I didn’t clear out everything from my house that I wanted to sell. I’m going to open a closet in a week and find a ton of stuff that should be out front tomorrow, right?
