Happy Birthday to Me!

We started off strong with a 5k supporting the Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research. I got a PR, AND hit my fundraising goal! (But you can still donate to my efforts here.)

Thanks to my team for doing the run with me!

Here is How I Want to Celebrate

I'm turning 30 this year. For my birthday, I'd really like to live in a more wonderful world.
For my birthday, I would like:

• all of my friends to go donate blood (I add an hour to the thermometer for each donation)
• for money to go to Northwest Harvest to support the good work they do to battle hunger (Text ENDHUNGER to 80888 to make a $10 donation from your phone.* *See details here.)
• for people to come and run a 5K with me to support efforts to end Ovarian Cancer. You can join my team when you register (30 for my 30th, of course), or donate to my efforts here. But it would be most fun if you came to run with me.
• for people nearby to come to my house, eat cake, share merriment and bring me items from the Friends of Youth Supply Wish List, to support the needs of foster children in transition and homeless youth on the Eastside. More details on this to emerge, but Sunday afternoon, my house.

If you do any of these things, or any other really awesome thing in your community, let me know so I can throw it on the thermometer.You'll be glad you did, because then we can share this happy and good feeling.

And, if you know of any good charity food events (pancake breakfast, crab feed, etc) in the area, please let me know so I can add it to my schedule!

--Update 7/17/13--
I've hit my fundraising goal for the 5K! Thanks to the support of my friends and coworkers, how cool! Ovarian Cancer research and patient relief can still use your help, so it's not to late to pledge. Or consider supporting one of my teammates.

We are getting so close to 30%...

Pre-Birthday Anxiety

When my friends started turning 30, there was this apprehension that maybe life is over now, that our chance to be cool was over and that life would necessarily be more boring. I can say that of my close friends who have passed this milestone birthday, none of them have gotten less cool, and most of them have started living even fuller lives, like having kids, launching new careers and finally being successful in the careers they've been investing in. Turning 30 isn't cool in a Seventeen Magazine kind of way, but I traded in my cool and popular card a long time ago. I'm looking forward to having the confidence of experience and moving on to the next stage of life.

But... did you know that Ben Haggerty just turned 30? Yes, the Same Love and Thrift Shop rapper, artist, activist and damn cool guy. He and I have had the same time on earth, and I have arguably done less to impact the world I live in then he has. I mean, this whole project (or initiative, as Ruth suggests I call it) is supposed to help me address that. But, with my birthday actually showing up, I'm starting to feel a little behind. I often feel a little behind. Because after my birthday, I'm going to have to clarify that it's not that I am raising money for my birthday, I'm raising money now that I am 30, which is somehow less compelling.

I am still hoping that I can use the general enthusiasm that people have for birthdays to make a little extra good in the world, y'know, for my birthday. I was thinking of hosting a trail work party, but since I know nothing about that and the Washington Trail Association needs about 2 months (and firm numbers) to put that together, we may have to go another route.  At the moment, I am thinking of doing a 5K for cancer research, and possibly hosting a party (because, cake) and asking people to bring things that the shelter is looking for. But I'm not totally sure I can pull off hosting a party at the moment. And there is a chance I can do a work party at the HiveBio Lab, which would be a big help for a nascent non profit (and scores hours with a multi-person multiplier for the thermometer), although arguably not the same heart strings impact as feeding the hungry and curing cancer. Ack! So many decisions!

I hope when I do turn 30 I am no longer paralyzed by indecision or overwhelmed by simple planning and management tasks. And that maybe I can still be a little cool.

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I took dinner to the shelter again tonight. I'm pretty pleased with how quickly this has turned from a massive source of anxiety to just another set of tasks. Having my mom and grandmother to help with the cooking was clearly the missing piece to a low-stress dinner for 15 thing.

It's July Already

Well, I hope it's obvious to everyone else that the pubcrawl things was a bit too ambitious. I'd really like to do something like this in the future, but a lot of other things piled up ahead of that, and I of course made it all much too complicated to get a lot of participation. Which is actually for the best, since on these beautiful summer days, it's hard to picture myself celebrating my birthday in a bar. With crowds of strangers. Ick.

But, I still want to do something to further this goal for my birthday. Which is later this month. (Eek!) I'm pleased to say that my anxiety about the pending day (July 21, I hope to hear from you on FB) is more related to meeting this ambitious goal than it is to feeling old or something. I don't have time for feeling old- I'm wracking up volunteer hours!

Hopefully after a weekend retreat with my inspiring mother-in-law, I'll have some insight into what might do-able in the little time that I have left to pull something off. At the very least, I'll be directing dollars to a charity and asking you to donate blood- so start beefing up your iron levels!

And maybe I'll have time to write about my new (volunteer) position as the Executive Director of Education with the community lab HiveBio.

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Goal update- Shout out to my old nieghbor Ruth whose support of her friend's MS bike-a-thon pushed us over the 25% mark. Woot!

100 Volunteer Hours

Today I spent the afternoon in some volunteer work I needed to catch up on. I am the editor for the Seattle Association for Women in Science (AWIS) newsletter, which means that at least quarterly, I have to sit down and edit some documents, exchange flurries of emails and get some files organized. It's not unlike my real job (as a writer), and it's nice to be able to schedule it for when I have time. What I'm getting at here, is this was a fairly routine experience.

And as I was updating the totals on my spreadsheet (which I love doing), I noticed it updated to 104 hours. That's a lot of time! And since what I really love about the spreadsheet are the metrics, let me break it down for you. From the totals on the thermometer (currently $7,345.27), which is combined hours and dollars, about half of that is hours, and half dollars. About 57 of those hours, I've been involved in (I will track combined hours for something Matt & I or myself and others do, so it's less lines on the spreadsheet).

Just for the record, I think we can compare the amount of volunteer time I've racked up this year to the amount of volunteer time I did last year, which was basically only my work with AWIS. Or ~4 hours a month. In the 5 months since I started tracking, I've basically doubled my own efforts, and some how talked others into matching my volunteer efforts.  Go us!

--
That being said, having spent a sunny Saturday in my office, I've got to get serious about finding some outdoor volunteer opportunities. And it looks like the pub crawl is going to fall through- but I'd like to get a group together for some type of volunteer project: trail maintenance? flash mob at the blood bank? 5K? I'm not sure, so if you have ideas, let me know.

Dinner Donor

Just dropping a line here to say that I did take dinner to the Landing last night. Things worked out that I didn't have much help (except for a clutch moment where Matt helped me slice peaches so I could get a crisp into the oven before the lasagna). Since it was pouring buckets, they were expecting a pretty full house, and warm lasagna seemed like the right thing to bring. While it's neat to feel like I can cook for 15 people by myself, it was way more fun when I had help.

There were lots of staff hanging around at my delivery (there was a basketball game on?), and I am super curious about who these people are. They always act like I'm bringing them something really special- like it's the best stuff they've seen all week. By the time dinner is loaded into my car, I'm always very self conscious: Four lasagnas and 24 rolls. What do normal people eat for dinner? I'm sure they've been told that little bit of enthusiasm makes volunteers like me really happy to come by. What can I say, it works.

Another HUGE Milestone- 20%

Big news- we hit 20% of the goal last month.  That means that in May, we did 10%.  THat's huge! If we can sustain 10% of the goal every month- we'll be done in EIGHT MONTHS.

Of course, there were some (great!) reasons that May was so strong that may not be true through the summer. Seattle Big Give encouraged me to give away a fair part of my donation budget early. My brother's volunteer gig with Austin Partners in Education is on summer break (thanks Noel!). There were Mother's Day gifts in donations.  So, we gotta get/stay serious about keeping up this momentum through the summer.  I'll be looking for some trail work myself, and some more 5Ks.  But mostly GIANT, gushy Thank YOUs to everyone who has helped push the thermometer up this high, this quick!  It's awesome!