Gwendolyn Strong Foundation placed

OMG, I didn't realize that I hadn't reported on how the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation placed in the Community Giving campaign on Facebook. I did on the Bipolar Kids message board on Jan. 25:

OK, we've been following this for the past 10 days. Today, I checked out the leaderboard on Chase Giving again.

We have some excellent news!! although none of our favorite charities won the $1 million dollars, Gwendolyn Strong Foundation did win $100k!! Numbers 7 through 100 won $25k! So, that means Ehlers-Danlos, National Autism Assoc., Pancreatic Cancer!! The Chase Community Advisory Board picked another 17 charities to win even more dollars. Six more charities won $100k and 11 more won $37k.

So, my dear friends, thank you for putting up with my crusading, thank you even more for participating in the voting.

I came over to Blogspot to check on Jonah, Gwendolyn, & the other blogs I follow. This is a nightly routine. Just before I go to bed, I check the blogs. Tonight I found a comment from Kristen, a lady who lost a baby to SMA, on my blog. I answered her & then went to check her blog to see what I had said. I read more of her entries, found another blog from her blog about a family losing twins, a boy named Nicholas, & a girl, Olivia. I had to check that blog too.

I heard the clock chime, & I, thinking it was 1 a.m., checked the computer clock. It was 2!!!!!!!!! It couldn't be, I just started this journey. I bookmarked Georgia's Journey, & now it's almost 2:30 & I have to work tomorrow & I should've been in bed hours ago!!

Kristen posted this on her blog about the Facebook Chase Community Giving & SMA being in 6th place:

I know that some of you are probably annoyed but think about it this way. Autism has Jim Carey and Jenny McCarthy. They have books, millions of dollars of research, treatment and 'cures'. Their victims are out in the community getting noticed. Our children remain silent for the most part. We have no celebrities and no treatments. All that we are left with is manpower and hope.

So, I answered: 

Autism has Jim Carey and Jenny McCarthy. They have books, millions of dollars of research, treatment and 'cures'. Their victims are out in the community getting noticed. Our children remain silent for the most part.

This is said so much better than I could ever have said it. Which is exactly why I DID NOT vote for autism awareness, even though my 22-yo son has Asperger's. I did not want to jeopardize the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation.

I am saddened to read about your sweet Georgia.

No, I didn't vote for autism awareness. I did not want to jeopardize the Gwendolyn Strong Foundation. These babies are DYING!! Besides, the research for SMA will benefit other diseases such as Parkinson's which is what my father had. And ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease which is what Bob Marshall, a former owner of The Citizen, died of. These diseases are cruel. Polio was eradicated, why can't these diseases be eradicated?

Now, it's 2:52 & I'm not very coherent. I hope this post makes sense.

Tuesday, Dec. 1

We made it home last night about 8 p.m. A day later than we planned. We spent a day longer at Disneyland than we had planned, but we're home! Mother did not come home in a coffin!! Woo hoo!! She's awfully tired, but you can't keep her down.

She almost had all of their laundry, hers & Don-Mike's, done & stuff put away when I got to her place this afternoon about 2:30. I, on the other hand, unpacked a suitcase. Before we could wash anything we had to get a bag of laundry soap.

I've caught up on Jonah, Sheila, Angela & Gwendolyn. It didn't look like anyone else had posted on their blogs in the last week. I also caught up on Facebook, but that wasn't horrendous, as I've been doing that sporadically this week.

I took my laptop with us, but the internet was always SOOOOOO slow. The only thing I could access was Facebook, so I was glad to check on that every day. Sunday night Nick & Don hogged the laptop. I was too tired & upset to fight for any time. I read.

Pickups, walking & babies

Here is Nick standing in the "new" driveway by his '69 pickup today, about 15 to 4. I'm glad it wasn't blurry. So many of my pictures turn out blurry.

This was a farm pickup & he found it out in Whitney in a field, sitting there rusting. Not sure what was wrong with it. He & Don-Mike fixed it up & he got a lot of years out of it. He traded it, plus some cash, for the Corvette, which they are now trailering home.

One of the T-tops blew off the 'Vette & the owner stopped, picked it up out of traffic, called Nick & told them to get off at the next exit. They did & he returned the T-top. They put all of the loose stuff in the camper shell on Don-Mike's pickup. They took Don-Mike's "new" diesel pickup.

On to walking. A friend had a link on her blog for a blog named Little April Rose. April's mommy has a link to Kayleigh Anne Freeman. In reading the condolences for little Kayleigh, I ran across a link, out of the thousands of comments, that intrigued me, Random Thoughts of a Great-Granny Grandma. See how blog browsing just kind of snowballs?

I read one of Great Granny's posts & thought it was interesting. It kind of summed up my day today:

1. Tell us how you sneak exercise in when you can't "get to they gym" or "the treadmill is broken" or whatever. What do you do at work/around the house/etc. to move more?

I certainly tried to be creative today. I knew I wouldn't have time for a straight 15 minute walk. I tried to get through work by 11:30 since we had DUP this afternoon & the books were being audited. I knew we would need to eat lunch. I parked out in the farthest corner of Stokes parking lot. For the local people, it was where the pink Victorian house used to be on 2nd South. I walked across the parking lot & down to Lewiston State Bank. Once I got my money, I walked down to the deli, opposite end of the grocery store & bought a couple of 3" sandwiches, a small bag of chips, a small macaroni salad & a small cherry pie for lunch. Back out to the car.

This evening, after supper at ChesterFried Chicken, we went back to Stokes to see if they had some postage stamps. I wanted to mail the DUP audit to the company secretary. However, I still have 42¢ stamps. The post office was closed because by now it was after 6 p.m. The post office used to have a vending machine, but no more. We went there & I walked in, only to find a metal sign over the wall where the stamp vending machine used to be. Stokes only have 44¢ stamps. I had Don park out quite a ways from the entrance & walked in & back out.

When Mother discovered that we were looking for 2¢ stamps she said she had some in the cupboard at home. Sure enough, she did. So, I took one & got the audit in the mail, woo hoo!!

Then, this evening, I walked down to feed the dog. Don walked with me & he watered the dog while I got the food out of the shed. Don had to make a special trip to the grocery store last night for dog food. He got the 50# bag. Now, tonight, I see the cats are almost out of food.

The second part of this was:

2. Let us know how your week went. Let us know your goals for next week. Not your long-term goals, just your goals for next week.

If you follow my blog, I let you know how my week went almost every day, LOL. Goals are to continue to walk daily, make the bed daily. One of my big goals for this week was to get MY wash caught up. I needed undies & socks. Undies washed, folded & waiting to be put away. Socks washed & in the dryer. I'm hoping I won't have any orphan socks. I have 9 orphans. I really wish I could find the mates.

Now, back to Kayleigh, April Rose, & Baby Jonah. Jonah is my cousin Loraine's grandson. He was born at 24 weeks gestation in September 2008. Loraine's dad, Jim, told me about a blog that Tanya & Dave were keeping of their baby Jonah. I started following Jonah's blog. I checked it morning & night. Dave & Tanya are sometimes very late in updating it & I couldn't go to bed without checking the blog. I was having a hard time sleeping back then. Sometimes I'd wake up in the middle night &, almost without volition, start praying for Jonah.

Now that I'm off the femara, the new CPAP helps too, I'm sleeping better. But one blog leads to another & now I have a whole list of blogs to check. My main ones though are Jonah, Kayleigh & April Rose. I have my blog list set so that those blogs that have new entries rise to the top, like cream, LOL.

Baby Jonah

Yesterday my uncle Jim Anderson gave me an update on his great-grandson Jonah Layne. He mentioned that Tanya had a blog that she & her husband Dave updated every day. He couldn't remember the name of it, but he hadn't had a chance to check it before he came to Preston.

I thought about it all day today & finally decided to call Loraine, Jonah's grandma, Tanya's mother, to get the URL for it. I was happy it was BlogSpot because that's where the majority of the blogs I read are.

I go by Rayni on line, so it was kind of funny to see Nick stop & look at me when I said, "Hi Rainie, this is RaNae." LOL He has always heard me call myself Rayni, not someone else.