Tis the season...

Hi, everyone! I'm excited to be participating in this year's Samaratin's Purse, Operation Christmas Child. Collection week is next week, so if any of you want to get involved--you should get in gear! I decided to do a girl's Christmas box for a girl aged 10-14. I think a lot of people tend to pick the younger children, so I decided to go for an older age group. It's a lot of fun picking out a bunch of stuff for my shoe box... necessities and fun toys or stationary. It's a really great idea and I hope it'll make a difference in some child's life this Christmas. When I was doing my shopping at Target, in front of a whole row of children's socks--a nice lady came up to ask me if I had any idea what size to get for a 2-4 yr old--and she was doing OCC too! It was pretty fun shopping, knowing that there were a lot of others shopping in the same store for the same cause.

Busy weekends...

Alright, I do love October, but it is SOOOO busy! I haven't had an un-busy weekend for weeks now, and I'm getting tired :). It's a good thing I was sick partially this weekend, since it made me take downtime and relax at home. On Friday night, I was preparing for the diabetes walk on the next day by making trail mix and washing fruit for snacks. Plus, I had to get up early to cook a big breakfast in preparation for the walk.



On Saturday morning, it was our big Step Out to Fight Diabetes walk. I'm happy to have raised $670 to our total Team Luxe fund-raising of $3820! I thought this was great for our first year, since I really didn't know what to expect. The walk was on the most gorgeous day every! The sky was the bluest I have ever seen in Boston, and it was probably the best day I have ever had walking around in town. After the walk, we just vegged on the sofa and watched tv for a little bit, and then headed out to the Natick Collection for some dinner and shopping.

On Sunday, my sis and I got birthday haircuts and went to a little kids birthday party. :) It's a good thing we were in charge of the Balloon Time, though I had a pretty good time counting the number of meltdowns when kids got pelted by foam balls. :)

My upcoming birthday

Well, now that my birthday is less than two months away... I have some planning to do!



First off, my sister, Candy, and I will be doing the Step Out! to fight diabetes with the American Diabetes Association for the first time. We hope to continue this every year from now on. We are doing a three mile walk on October 13 with fellow team members under Team Luxe. I'd appreciate any support you all can give me, like just an email or comment that says "yay!" ... or money :). You can visit my personal Step Out homepage to see my progress or support me.

Next--where to go to dinner? I'd like to take my friends to dinner on my birthday, and was thinking about having a private party at the Rustic Kitchen Cooking Show... but I'm not sure if I'm into having the show being aired on hotel tvs :). So... we shall see.

And finally, I'll be planning a one week vacation to Amsterdam (will be my 4th time there, and 2nd time for sis). Can't wait to have some of my favorite foods... broodje kroket, pannenkoeken, curry gewurtz, indonesian rijstafel... See what is aan bie den at de Bijenkorf, HEMA, and Blokker.

Did Habitat for Humanity...

Sat Jul 10 2004
Did Habitat for Humanity... it was HARD. The task was to put up dry wall... or, in our case, I guess it was dry ceiling. And, the fundamental lesson I learned? I'll hire people to do any dry walling I might need. :p

Started off having a mega breakfast of corned beef hash, eggs, toast, and tater tots. Then we went to the site and got a little primer in drywalling. There were about 5 supervisors on site--and they must have the most insane amount of patience for people totally messing up those houses... :p Okay, so we didn't totally mess up--but it is very hard to configure the drywall so all the nice seams are in the middle--especially when you have to cut holes for sprinklers and light fixtures... and it is supposed to go on the ceiling. But all in all, it was pretty fun. The only casualties were a few pieces of drywall and my head (which was nudged gently by a 2x4).

After that, we went to Minado... where I ate enough salmon sashimi for... well, dinner at Minado. :p