I tend to be a pretty big planner -- ESPECIALLY when it comes to my weekends. The grand scope of plans for this upcoming weekend is already figured out, but as I started to think about the following weekend (I told you...I'm a big planner!), and started to fill it with late nights of music, dancing and great New Orleans beer, I came to a terrifying conclusion -- THAT weekend is marathon weekend!
And so was born the pit that now exists in my stomach.
Obviously late nights will have to be shortened, dancing will have to be toned down (I'm not sure I'm even capable of doing that), and my support of the local brewing industry will come to a short but grinding halt. Does anyone have any ideas for an inspirational movie I can watch on the Saturday night before the race? Chariots of Fire?
I forgot to tell you -- by the way -- I ran 15 miles about a week ago. It was ok. Not too quick, but pretty comfortable! I ran from my house near the river, uptown, to the lake, a little bit east on the lake, and then back! I'll have a 20-miler coming up on Saturday. Oy.
As for today -- I woke up and ran 5.2 miles, did pushups/situps, and then -- like practically every day before -- biked eight miles to work and eight miles back home-ish.
"Home-ish" because tonight was another flag football game. I'm happy to report that the Mariah Carey Dreamlovers won our game and are currently 4-0!
Now the fun part -- we've had a lot of contributions to our joint donation over the last few days! We are now up to $2480 from 86 individuals! We are $20 away from our most recent goal of $2500, and getting close to a once seemingly unreachable feat of 100 individual contributors!
Thank you so much to our most recent contributors for bringing us so close to our goal!! Thank you to Anna Kwawer, Mary Gardner, Lindsay Dunaj, Tom Fernandez, Laura Prigoff, Jill Sluder, Nora Hume, Tommy Serio, Adam Gold, Ben Marino, Dominic Fossile, Aunt Wendy Haskell, Diana Leonardo, John Hummel, Kevin Coniker, Brenna Gillette, Barbara Wind, Larissa Benedek, Kathy Brandler, Rachele Armstrong, Debbie and Sandy Steiger and Dylan Schlotterbeck. Thank you for believing in me to choose a cause that is worthy; thank you for supporting the children at a school I believe is doing -- and will continue to do -- incredible things; thank you for believing in my ability to run this race; and thank you for giving me the opportunity to think about my dad one more time than I might have otherwise :-)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Every contribution is an incredible one. But one, in particular, stands out for two reasons. First -- at $2, it is the smallest contribution I've received so far. Second -- at four years old, Dylan Schlotterbeck, is the youngest contributor I have received a donation from. Dylan is a little kid my mom babysits and so, obviously, Dylan knew my dad. I would be lying if I pretended to understand how that affected him or to have a story about him to share, but I can say two things honestly:
a) I love to hear about who great my dad was with kids. Children -- whether a year old or 28 years old -- loved to be around him, and
b) The thing that brings me the closest to tears when I visit home on Long Island -- every single time -- is the picture that one of my mom's babysitting kids drew for her to show they were sad about my dad passing away.
Dylan's contribution, though small, was meaningful -- not least of all because it happened to bring the total from $2298, to $2300. It was meaningful because it represents exactly what this project is supposed to be. If you believe in this thing -- whether it's for the children we're donating to, or in memory of my father, or to support a friend -- then you can do a lot by giving a little. By combining our donations, we're making sure that whatever you CAN give, WILL make a difference.
I have 1786 friends on facebook (beat that! :-) ). If every one of those friends matched Dylan's contribution, we'd be able to donate $3572 to Akili Academy of New Orleans. That doesn't even account for the non-facebook friend contributors!
I'm not expecting everyone to donate. But if you can, even $2 goes a long way.
:-)
No comments:
Post a Comment