Week 1 of TNT

We had our first training run yesterday. It was only a little over 2 miles but since I basically haven't run at all in the last 2 months I started out easy. I ran with a group that was doing 5 min of running and 2 min of walking. We got done in about 27 or 28 minutes, which was just fine. Also the weather was PERFECT for a run as far as I'm concerned, it was overcast and about 70 degrees, which I'm sure helped.

My husband really wanted to come along just to do the run but he ended up getting a little too excited and signed up for the fundraising again. I hope he'll actually follow through this time, we shall see. Recommittment is in October so he said if he's at $900 raised by then he'll recommit. For the running aspect, he hasn't run at all in over 2 months, he smoked 3 cigarettes on the way to the run, and he did 4 miles in under 40 minutes. Totally not fair! It would be so awesome if I could somehow magically beat him in the marathon, but I don't see that happening.

If my husband and I both do the fundraising we will be raising $2800 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. This will be awesome! And if possible, I want to raise $1000 over my fundraising minimum.

Team in Training Again!

So I signed up for my next marathon with Team in Training. I am training for the Carlsbad marathon in January. My fundraising goal for this event is $1400, but I would like to raise at least $2400, and I think I can do it. If you can, please make a donation via the widget below. Help me find a cure for cancer!

Update on Baby A

She is home from the hospital and doing much better! They found out that she had managed to get ahold of some medicine belonging to her aunt. The aunt was promptly kicked out of the house and returned back home to Florida, for the baby's safety.

They are still stuck with a bit of a hospital bill, though luckily not a big one, but I would still like to help them out with it if possible. So the request for any financial assistance is still open. Thanks!

PS: I'm planning to start my next Team in Training activity very soon, I'm so excited!

New cause

I haven't written on here in a bit. I've been taking a break after the marathon and thinking about what I want to work towards next. While I haven't decided what my next cause will be, something did come up which I want to flow as much help towards as possible.

One of my very good friends, F, had a baby almost 3 months pre-maturely. This was almost a year ago now. The baby, A, has been doing great. She's grown beautifully (she's as big as my 15 month old) and has been a very happy baby.

Yesterday, A wouldn't wake up from her nap. She stopped breathing for a brief period of time. F did CPR on her and they went to the ER. The doctor's couldn't figure out what happened after all sorts of tests and wanted to keep her overnight.

This morning A had the same problems and they had a very hard time waking her up. Her breathing was very difficult. The doctor's are now thinking she may be having seizures.

If she is having seizures, F and her husband C will have a VERY long and hard road ahead of them. They are already not doing the greatest financially and this will take a large toll. They have two other children and F just lost her job. Even if she doesn't have seizures, the baby being in the hospital for a few days with all the testing that's been done is going to cost them a lot of money.

So my new cause is to raise some money to help them out. I'm going to start doing this now and I'm also going to put together a care package for them which I'll take to the hospital tomorrow. If anyone can help me out with this in any way, shape or form, please do so. This baby is so special.

26.2

I did it. I have officially completed a marathon, 26.2 miles. Of course I didn't do nearly as well on it as I wanted to, but my goal was to get through it in under 7 hours, and that's what I did. It does make me want to do another one just so I can get my desired completion time, so I may do that in January.

I'm planning on doing a half marathon in August and then I'm not sure after that. I definitely want to keep going and I will be participating with Team in Training again, hopefully over and over until we find a cure :)

Thanks to everyone for all your support!

I made it!!!

Two days ago I was $250 away. I decided to try a new tactic. I posted on facebook that I only needed 25 people to donate $10. Right away someone donated $20. So I then posted that I only needed 23 people to donate $10. Shortly after that someone donated $25. So I again posted that I only needed 20 people to donate $10. And so on and so forth. I just kept re-posting it until that last dollar came in.

The awesome part was that no one actually did $10. They all did $20, $25, $30 and 1 person did $100! I cannot believe I finished! What a relief and an accomplishment!

Now to work on my husband's fundraising....

Less than $250 away!

This is crazy! I'm so close! If about 23 people donated $10 I'd be done. If 5 people donated $50 I'd be done. If 50 people donated $5 I'd be done! And so on...I'm so close I'm going crazy!

I just sent out a facebook message to a bunch of people and I have some friends that are helping me re-post on facebook. I also am twittering like crazy. The fundraising deadline was supposed to be yesterday but I guess they extended it to today, which is awesome.

I feel like I can totally make it. Any help would be awesome! I will blog again once I've made it!!! Here's the link if anyone reading this wants to donate: http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/rnr10/meiben6mr5

Pizza Day

Just had a crazy pizza day at work as a fundraiser. It was an amazing amount of work for only about a $10 profit when all was said and done, but it was still a lot of fun. Almost everyone participated, which was great. It also got a lot of people to donate 50 cents or a couple bucks more than they would have, so the actual profit was about $25.

My husband finally got off his butt and is selling raffle tickets at work (yay!). He just texted me and said he has sold $120 in tickets so far, which is awesome! I'm still selling them at work and I have extended the time that people can but them through the weekend, since I just found out our fundraising deadline was extended to this Tuesday. I will still be doing this drawing on Monday, since that was the original date for it.

I still have to add everything up, but overall our final 5 days or so of fundraising we will have raised probably about an additional $400 or so, which is a lot better than where we were at! It's actually seeming possible now that we will get pretty close to our goal, maybe we can even make it :) I'll keep everyone updated.

Doing every fundraiser possible

I am running with every fundraiser I can think of. Last night I went out with my husband and some friends to the streets and did some just straight up fundraising. We passed out beads and asked for money for our cause. We raised about $35. Not much, but better than nothing. It was hard finding a good location so we went with what we had.

Today is $2 Thursday. Anyone who donates $2 gets to pick a secret envelope. So far all I have in the envelopes is gift certs for a free hamburger from Carls Jr and a few Starbucks gift cards. I'm hoping to get some more things today before I go to work but I don't know. I was going to go around yesterday and collect up things for the envelopes but I had to watch my friends baby and I totally owe her.

Tomorrow is pizza Friday. I'm selling pizza at work for a small profit (it really won't be much but it's better than nothing). I also have my raffle ending tomorrow with some great prizes and my marathon finish time pool is supposed to end tomorrow, but I may just extend it until the marathon.

I will be sending out one more email to friends/family today asking for donations, and if I get really crazy I may go to Walmart during my lunch time and fundraise outside. :)

Survived the 20 mile run

We did the 20 mile run this morning. I did surprisingly well, much better than I expected. It was still very hard but I beat my 18 mile time by over 30 seconds per mile, so I was quite proud of myself. My legs absolutely HATE me right now :)

We had the silent auction tonight, which went ok....I'm pretty disappointed. We did make about $500 from it, which is better than nothing but we're still $1500 short :( I have no idea how we're going to make that money in the next week :( Does anyone have any ideas?

I will be doing one more raffle and I still have my marathon finish time pool, which I already know I'll get a little more money from. We can't afford to front $1500. I don't want to say this was a bad idea, because even if we've only raised $2000 for our cause, I know that money will help a lot, but really, we can't afford $1500. Please help with any ideas!

20 mile run tomorrow!

I'm scared out of my mind. I have a really bad chest cold this whole week so I haven't been able to do much running and now I have a 20 mile run tomorrow (I STILL have the chest cold!). I have to be there at 6:15 am and spend about5 4 1/2-5 hours running, doesn't that sound like fun? :)

I'm always so scared and then it goes totally fine, so I know there's nothing to worry about (I hope!). Either way, I will do my best, I will feel great afterwards, and I will feel proud of myself for my accomplishment. Plus, we're having pizza afterwards!

Then, tomorrow night when I can barely walk, am exhausted and probably sunburnt, I get to have my biggest fundraising event - the silent auction. That oughta be interesting (I'm sure it will be a blast).

I got some assorted wrist bands from Oriental Trading Co. and I've been "selling" them at work today. Basically anyone who makes a donation of any size gets to pick one. You would think people would just be cheesy and donate 10 cents or something but I think no minimum was a great idea. I've gotten a $10 donation, a couple $5 donations, a few $2 dollar donations, etc. Yes, I've gotten a couple for less than a dollar but overall it's been quite successful so far. I paid about $14 for 50 of these things and I've sold about 10 of them for about $25 or $30. Not bad... :)

Pray, postulate, hope, etc. etc. that I live tomorrow! :)

Silent Auction is coming up!!!

Less than a week away! I'm getting excited. I don't have as many RSVPs yet as I'd like, but we're getting quite a few and I know people are going to show up that don't RSVP. I have lots of cool items to auction off, and I know it's going to be a LOT of fun. I REALLY hope we reach our fundraising goal from it.

We did a 9 mile run yesterday. I've been a bit sick so it was unfortunately very hard. We have our 20 MILER coming up next Saturday, I'm a bit worried about it...I don't know why, the 18 miler went fine. I know it will go fine, I just always worry beforehand. I'm going to get out there and just DO IT! Then, shortly after that, I will be running the marathon and kicking butt!!!

Did the famous "train run"

Wow! Today was crazy. We got up at 4:45 am, threw on our running gear, at a quick breakfast and headed out the door. We had to drop our daughter off at the baby sitter, then drive about 30-40 minutes to the train station in Solana Beach. We took the train to Carlsbad.

At that point, our crazy selves ran 18 MILES back to Solana Beach. 18 MILES!!! As usual, it was difficult, but I didn't die. I got a nice sun burn (note to self: sun block was invented for a reason), a blister on my foot (note to self: stick with the socks you always wear, don't try any more new socks), and of course my legs feel like I just ran 18 miles.

All in all, it was pretty fun! I know it's crazy but I'm out there DOING SOMETHING. I'm running to save lives, to help find a cure for cancer. I'm running for those who can't.

Now, fundraising...that's a different story. I'm getting frustrated about it again. I KNOW anyone could donate a couple bucks, but they DON'T! And I don't understand why! Especially my two oldest sisters, who I love dearly, but who have shown NO INTEREST in helping me whatsoever. They act like they don't even know what I'm doing. It was their mom who died, too. Not just my mom. I would think they would be a little more interested in helping out, especially since they are fully able to.

Once I start talking about money it seems like quite a few people act like they don't even know me. I don't understand this, but I probably never will. I just hope it somehow magically starts to go better. I wanted to totally surpass our fundraising goal but at the moment it looks like we won't even achieve our minimum...

I hope it starts to go better.

Welcome to our Team's Homepage

Welcome to our Team's Homepage

Fundraising is getting there....Mileage is getting up there...

So my paintings for the silent auction are coming along beautifully! The money donations for the food are getting there. I still need to call a few places and check back with them on donations and I need to call a couple places about potentially coming to do wine tasting during the silent auction.

At work I have a "guess how many candies are in the jar" game going on, which people are having quite a bit of fun guessing at. The pool for my marathon time is still going on and I still am collecting change in a large jar, which is filling up nicely.

The running is still going well. Our 9.2 mile run last Saturday was a breeze. This Saturday we have an 18 MILE RUN! I'm kinda scared, though the 16 miler wasn't that hard so I don't know why this one would be either. I can't imagine myself running 18 miles. I'm hoping and assuming that when I get out there it will just be easy. I have discovered that running in the morning first thing is MUCH easier than running at lunch. It's also easier running with friends, than running by yourself.

I will let you guys know how the 18 miler goes!

Silent auction updates

I'm beginning to get really excited about the silent auction. I still don't know if it will raise us enough money but we're off to a great start.

I secured the location completely, and the date I really wanted. It will be a Saturday night, which is great since I don't work on Saturdays. The location is fairly central and has a large space with nice hardwood floors.

I went to Vons today and they donated Vons gift cards which I can use for the food for the event, so that's covered. We don't have to pay anything for the location. I sent out my invite via facebook and started posting it on twitter. I will be getting some big flyers printed out to post in store windows, on bulletin boards, etc. I will also be printing out some 8 1/2 by 11 flyers to pass out at work, at my husbands work, and wherever else.

So it's coming along quite well. I want to have at least 100 people there and raise at least $1000 (MINIMUM). I'm actually going for over $1500 though, which I think is pretty doable if we promote correctly.

As a side note, I'm also really excited about it because it's essentially another art show for me. I haven't had an art show in about 1 1/2 years, and this will be my first "art show" in San Diego. So that, to me, is very exciting.

Our first restaurant fundraiser is tomorrow at Souplantation, so we'll see how that goes. I'm expecting the least turnout for that one, while expecting a large turnout for Rubios next Monday and for the other Souplantation in a week. I will keep everyone updated!

Started some new "fun-raisers"

Today at work I started a pool for people to guess what my marathon finish time will be. It's $10 to guess and I already got $30 from it towards my fundraising today! How fun!

I also got the location for my silent auction finalized (donated by a local coffee shop with a nice, big back room). The space is being donated so I won't have to pay for it, which is awesome. Now I just have to work out the food, which hopefully will be done by Wednesday. I made up an awesome flyer for it today and starting Wednesday will be passing it out, emailing it, posting it where ever I can, etc. I am anticipating most of the remainder of my fundraising coming from this event, if it's promoted correctly. I'm VERY excited about it. It's almost like having another art show! I will be featuring a lot of my art (mostly originals) and other items.

I also have the Rubios fundraiser coming up and two Souplantation fundraisers. I also have another prize drawing going on (the last one for this fundraising). With all of these we should be able to reach our goal, but I am still open for any suggestions so we either have a back up plan or so we beat our goal, which would be AWESOME!

We just ran over 16 miles!

WOW, I can't believe we did that.

I've been sick for three days now with the flu, just barely beginning to feel better yesterday. Last night my husband and I both slept horribly! The baby was up a good portion of the night. Yet we still got up at 6 this morning, dropped her off at the baby sitter, and went out running along the harbor.

It was a beautiful run. My husband took off ahead of me, as usual. I paced myself well and didn't start to really feel the run until about mile 10. By mile 14 I wasn't sure if I could run anymore, but I did it. I kept going, running all the way through the end. I am so amazed at both my husband and I.

Of course my legs are EXTREMELY sore now and I can hardly walk, but I'm so proud of myself. I just have to realize every time I go run that there are people who CAN'T run. I am so lucky that I can run. I am proud at what I am doing, though I still think it's crazy. I am running and raising money to save lives. How many people can say that?

How many lives are my actions saving exactly? I have no idea. But I plan on doing this year after year, for as long as I can, to contribute as much as I can and save as many lives as possible.

Second prize drawing is complete

Did the second prize drawing today. I raised $65 from it total, which is no where near what I wanted to raise, but definitely better than nothing. I think it's really funny how much I enjoy giving out all the prizes. Almost everyone who bought an entry won something, how awesome is that?

I will be doing probably one more prize drawing, which I already have a few prizes for. I will do that one near the end of May, before our deadline obviously, to give myself more time to collect more prizes and entries. I also have some different prizes in the works, so it will be more unique. I'm putting together a spa package, trying to get some tanning packages, of course more Starbucks and more art. I want to also try to get some movie tickets and more restaurant donations, like Souplantation gift certs, pizza gift certs, etc. I want there to be LOTS of prizes.

I am also now collecting for a silent auction, which will be more expensive prizes in general, like a large Starbucks gift basket, original art work, maybe a wine basket? We shall see. Any suggestions are welcome.

Have hit a bit of a wall

The fund raising seems to have majorly slowed down and I'm not sure how to get it back up and running again. I am starting to worry, we only have 1 1/2 months left to raise about $2500. That's a LOT. I would love to surpass our goal but right now I'm so worried about making it.

This prize drawing has only raised about $60 or so. Not nearly what I wanted to raise. I don't know why it's raised so little, I have so many awesome prizes!

I did arrange three fund raisers at restaurants, one at Rubios and two at two different Souplantations. I am getting a lot of help from friends on promoting these, which I'm very greatful for. I hope to be able to raise at least $150 from these, cumulatively.

I need to move forward with the poker night we want to plan. I need to finalize the details within the next week and start promoting it like crazy, I think I can raise about $200-$300 from that.

I am also planning a silent auction, but have no idea about a location yet. Clara Berta, an AMAZING artist and person, already donated a beautiful painting for this, without me even asking. I need to start getting some donations for this (I am hoping for higher end items for this).

So if anyone has any advice, suggestions, feedback, etc. please let me know. Thanks!

Update on fund raising and training

Fund raising majorly slowed down after the art auction, but it is just beginning to pick back up. I had to extend my prize drawing by two weeks because I didn't have enough entries and for some reason it was a lot harder to get donations for prizes this time. But...I persisted and now I've gotten quite a few more entries and I got several new prizes. So the new date for the drawing is April 12th.

We have only 1 1/2 months to go and a little under $2500. I'm starting to get worried. That's a lot of money in a little time. I have several other fund raising ideas but they take a lot of time and coordination to plan. I will be doing a poker night coming up soon, and I just figured out a good location for it (I just have to get the person's agreement), that should get several hundred dollars. Then I was also thinking about doing a silent auction, but I have to figure out a location for that as well. If anyone can help with some really good ideas, I'd really appreciate it.

On the training side, we had a shorter run last weekend, only about 7 miles. I have been doing more outside and hill runs and less treadmill, and it's getting easier every week (though it's still not easy!). I will be doing a 12-14 mile run this weekend by myself (I will be out of town so won't be able to run with the group), which should be interesting. I have to keep my discipline in and actually do it.

Overall though, I'm MUCH more worried about the fund raising than the training. Because even if I have to walk it I will, but I HAVE to get the fund raising done. Feedback is welcome!!!

Current update

The art auction went quite well, though I didn't reach my goal. I had wanted to raise about $500 and we raised about $300. Still, not bad all in all.

Next fundraiser is another opportunity drawing, coming up in 1 week. I need to start promoting it more and selling entries to the people at work/friends. I was waiting until the auction was over because it was a bit much promoting both at the same time.

Training is going better. I ran 11.2 miles today and am at a 24.25 miles for the week. I plan on doing another 2 miles or so tomorrow, putting it at about 27 miles for the week. Then I need to figure out how to increase my mileage next week.

The 11.2 mile run today went better than I thought it would. I was able to run a bit over 5 miles without stopping, and that included over 2 miles of hill, hill, hill. That killed me but I did it. I would still like to figure out how to start running faster, and longer, but all in all I think I'm doing fairly well. My husband also did the 11.2 mile run today and he did fantastic, even though he hasn't really been training. He finished it about 15 minutes before I did (totally not fair since I've been working so hard on training and he hasn't!!! But it is what it is). I was quite surprised.

I will keep everyone updated. I'm still looking for more fund raising ideas, so if anyone has any, feel free to pass them along. Thanks guys!

Auction has started!

Auction started last night, going well so far. So far we have $260 in bids (if my math is correct). Not bad. Still have a bit over 30 hours left so I'm hoping to get a lot more. Promotion is going on like crazy and we'll keep it up until the end.

On the training side, I only got about 16 miles in this week, when I'd much rather be doing about 25 right now. I need to just put more effort into my scheduling. I did, however, run for 46 minutes on one of my runs this week (and I felt like I could've kept going but I was out of time). This may not seem like much but for me it's a great accomplishment. Less than 2 months ago I could barely run for 7 minutes straight. It's gotten so much easier. I did the St. Patty's day 10K this morning and that was pretty fun.

And lastly, it's my mom's birthday today, so it's not a very happy day overall. My family is all in LA out at her favorite restaurant for brunch and I'm here in San Diego. Kind of sucks but it is what it is....

Finally found a good place to get prints made

On Wednesday I went to Chrome Printing in Little Italy in San Diego. I dropped off 6 pieces of art to get scanned and they're doing it for $100. The quotes I was getting from other printers was about $250. I'm very happy about the $100. They do come highly recommended, so I'm not worried about the quality.

They're prices for prints are also a lot better than the other printers I had checked out. To be able to make the prints I want it will be about $100, as opposed to about $300. Yay!

Art auction is now less than a week away and I will be ready with some awesome art work! Please continue to help pass it on :)

Opportunity drawing went quite well

We raised about $150 through the opportunity drawing, not bad for a first try. I've decided to do another one in about 3 weeks since it went so well. This time I will have more time to promote it and my husband will be able to promote it as well.

The art auction is now in about 1 1/2 weeks. I'm trying to finish the auction page and get as much promotion out as possible. Any help with this would be awesome (post the link to your facebook page, pass it along on twitter, etc.). I have already had a lot of help with this but I would like to get the word out a lot more.

I have 5 drawings to get prints made of today so I will be busy. Also collecting donated prizes for the next opportunity drawing. I'll keep you guys updated :)

P.S. We're at about $700 for our fund raising! Thanks for everyone's help!

March 1st drawing

I just had an amazing San Diegan photographer volunteer to donate a portrait session for my "opportunity drawing!" I'm so excited! That's worth several hundred dollars!

Decided to hold an "opportunity drawing" and poker night

I asked friends on facebook for fund raising ideas and got some great feed back. I decided to hold an "opportunity drawing" (I can't call it a raffle because of some weird rules California has with raffles where you can't do them on-line and LLS wants it to be kosher, of course). I am "selling" entries this week until Feb 28th. People can either go directly to our team page and donate $5 or more (entries are $5 each) or give me the money directly and I will donate it, either way. The drawing will be on March 1st and so far I have a couple Starbucks gift bags and also some of my art for the drawing. I'm going to go tomorrow to Jamba Juice and a few other places and see if I can get donated items for the drawing.

I just began promoting the drawing last night and so far already have 5 people from work participating but I'm hoping to get a lot more. Pay day is Thursday and I already have lots of promises, so we'll see :) I'm also going to LA this weekend so hopefully some of my LA family/friends will participate as well.

I will also be doing a poker night. I haven't totally thought this one through yet and I need to get someone's agreement to have it at their house, but I think it will be a lot of fun. I'm thinking it will be a $10 buy in with snacks provided. I haven't decided on the drinks yet, maybe another $10 if you want to drink? Any suggestions on this would be great.

Otherwise, the art auction is still coming along. I'm working out getting prints made of some of my art work by this weekend. I don't know what's possible but I will do my best. I wish it was a lot easier, it seems to be made more complex than it is. I just want a simple flat art copy, how hard can that be? I actually live next door to a printer so tomorrow we're going to try to do some copies and see how they come out. I hope they come out well, that will be an easy and inexpensive solution.

Training has come a little bit to a halt this week, other than cross training. My husband is out of town and I had to rearrange my schedule to be able to watch the baby in the morning and at night, so I have shorter lunches. I will try to figure out how to squeeze in a run tomorrow but then probably won't get another chance until Saturday. I will at least keep up the cross training :)

Training is going great and art auction is in less than 3 weeks!

My training has been coming along surprisingly well. I went from being able to run at most 6 minutes at a time (3 1/2 weeks ago) to now being able to run 30 min straight without much difficulty. I've been running 45 min to an hour 3-4 times a week (about 4 miles) and last Saturday I did a long run (almost 8 miles!). I'm quite proud of myself. Now if the baby would just let me get more sleep!!!

The website is also coming along very nicely. I'm learning how to do things with it I never thought I'd be able to do. It would be nice to have someone to help me but I'm doing quite well figuring things out myself.

Yesterday I spent quite some time figuring out how to enable visitors to leave comments on my website, so that when the auction comes up people can post their bid. I never thought this would be so difficult with a google web site but it was VERY difficult. Finally I got it though.

I've also had quite a few friends/family members looking it over for me and giving me pointers on it, which I much appreciate. It has helped me a lot. Some things you would just never think of and need someone else to point it out for you :)

Very excited about the auction!

Last weekend I went to LA and pried some art pieces out of my families hands for my auction. My dad donated a beautiful piece of wood art that he made out of exotic woods. My brother donated an awesome metal sculpture.

Also, I finally got ahold of a friend who is an artist and she gave me the name of a guy to get prints from. I never imagined it would be so difficult to figure out where to get prints made of my art but it was. On that same note, last Saturday my husband and I got the most awesome camera in the world! I will now be able to take much better pictures of my art to post on my website and to post for the auction.

I just finished a new drawing today and I love it! It's one I started about 6 years ago and I finally just finished it. It will be posted on my facebook and on my website by tonight.

I think this art auction will come off very well, with the way things are currently going. I am working on spreading the word and generating as much interest as I can. I also have several friends and family members helping promote it to literally about 12,000 people, so I'm sure that will help :)

More on website/art auction

I am still so unbelievably excited about my website. I feel like I finally have a place where I can really promote my art and also help promote it. I have received advice on it from several people and I'm very grateful. I do want to keep the website very simple, which I feel like it is.

I now so far have 2 artists that will be donating for the art auction. So far it will be me (of course), Carl Watts and Simone Ralph. Carl does work with exotic woods and Simone is an illustrator. Very exciting. I'm getting a lot of help with promotion from friends and the word is getting out.

My goal for this event is $500 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. More would be nice. I hope that's not too lofty of a goal. I guess it will depend on how many artists we have donating pieces, but I have a feeling I'll be able to get at least 8 artists or so to participate (hopefully more) and I want to have about 20 pieces of art to auction off. We shall see.

Let me know if you'd like to be promoted on my website

I set up a link on my website which will take you to links for other websites. I have sub-categories of "artist," "musician," "authors/writers," and "services/stores." I like to promote people who are artists and people who are just good people.

Please help refer my website to others and also let me know what you think about it :)

http://sites.google.com/site/marcyeibenartist/

I set up my own website!

I'm so excited! I finally set up my own website! I'm pretty darn proud of myself, considering I had no idea what I was doing. I still have a lot of work to do on it but I think it looks pretty dang good so far. Check it out:

http://sites.google.com/site/marcyeibenartist/

I do plan on purchasing a domain name (what I have set up right now is free) once I figure that all out so hopefully shortly it will just be www.marcyeibenartist.com.

Let me know what you think!

Art auction is underway

I got one artist so far (besides myself) who is donating for my fund raiser. I'm very excited about this. Hopefully more artists will come on board, if not, I'll make due with what I have.

The art auction will be Friday, March 12th, through Sunday, March 14th. I picked this date because my mother's birthday was March 13th, and I'm raising money for her (basically).

In case you haven't visited my fund raising page I'll write it on here: my mother died about 2 1/2 years ago of lymphoma. By the time the doctors spotted it, it was too late. She lived for a few more months in the hospital and then passed away. I joined Team in Training in honor of her and to raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, so hopefully they are able to find a cure for this. She was my best friend and I miss her very, very much.

My husband is going to do a bake sale at work for our fund raising (sounds funny but he likes to cook). He's making some honey wheat bread right now for that and I will help him by making some cookies, fudge and eclairs (yum!).

I'll keep you guys updated!

I usually wouldn't blog today

I usually don't blog on the days when nothing is going right, but today I figured I might as well. Maybe people can help me get past my frustrations.

I've been planning this art auction for my fund raising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. My family are all artists and I have a lot of friends who are artists. I thought people would be excited about it. Nothing. No feed back whatsoever, no volunteers to donate art work, no comments on it, no interest, etc. I don't really understand it. It makes my faith in humanity go down a bit.

I've also been trying to drive traffic to my blog through friends, family, facebook and twitter. I know it takes time but I've been working on this for a couple months now and I still only have 8 followers (I love you guys!) and only about 6 people going to my blog per day. I have no idea how to increase this. I guess what I'm writing about isn't interesting enough? This may definitely be true, but I don't know how to improve it really. Any ideas?

Well, I did take a break while writing this and went for a 1.5 mile run during my work lunch break. That has made me feel a little better. Also working on my art makes me feel better, but today I left my sketch pad at home :(

Anyways, I'm done rambling for the day. Any comments and help are welcome, as usual... The next blog will be happier, I'm sure :)

Someone just told me about a really cool website!

On Twitter someone let me know about a website called http://www.fundraisingtips.com/. I checked it out and it has a lot of good info! It gave me some great ideas.

Here are my ideas so far (these are all for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society currently but would also be used, if they work, for other causes):

1. Silent auction with donated goods. These will be donations from businesses, my paintings, art work or crafts donated by others, and anything else I can get.

2. An art work auction on-line. I saw a group on-line that is doing an art auction to raise money for Haiti. It was a little more complex than mine would be but still an awesome idea I can use. Mine would most likely be mostly my paintings, but I think I can get some other artists to donate pieces as well, such as my niece. She is a wonderful artist and I'm sure would love to help out. I would set up either a web page or maybe just a facebook page (probably easier) where people could bid on certain pieces and I could have about 75% of the proceeds go to my fund raising.

3. A great big raffle. I guess the good thing about a raffle is you don't really have to have a location, you just have to have the items and set a time for it. Then you have to get the prizes delivered. This would be a fairly simple one.

4. A bake sale. I love to bake and I'm sure I have friends that would help out. Once again though, this comes down to location. Maybe a friend's front yard? Or in front of a business?

These are my ideas. Any assistance, input or others ideas are welcome! Everyone has been so great with all kinds of help so far :)

Does anyone know of some good fund raising ideas?

I want to be able to hold a big fund raiser but I don't even know where to start. How do you get a location? Should I ask a catering company to donate food or just include that in the cost of a ticket to it? I have lots of good ideas I just don't know how to make them happen.

I would love to do a silent auction, but once again, where would I have it? I don't think I'd have a problem getting items for the auction, I guess it would mainly be the location and the food that I would need to figure out.

I'm going to head out the door to get some art supplies right now but I will continue this later...

To blog, or not to blog...

I know some people blog every day, but I don't think I should do this. I've been blogging whenever something relatively significant has occurred and I hope they've been an interesting read, and I would love any feed back on how I can specifically improve my blog.

On other notes, I have over 32 fans for my artist page after just 1 day, which is not bad at all. I have only been able to post 4 pictures so far (it's hard when both the baby and the cat are trying to crawl all over them as you're trying to take a picture of them) but will be doing more by the end of tomorrow. Much of my original art work has been given away, so it's also time to do some more!

I haven't moved very far on finding someone to make prints, so if anyone has any suggestions in the San Diego or LA area, let me know. I have a friend in LA who is a professional photographer and I'm going to ask her if she can take some good photos of some of my art work, so that I can get prints made easier.

Once again, any feedback is more than welcome!!! :)

Starting to sell my art work

I just created a facebook page to sell my artwork through. I have posted a few of the pieces so far and will be posting more as soon as I can. 40% of the proceeds from this will go towards Raising Money to Help My Family and 40% will go towards my fund raising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. The rest will cover materials, etc.

Here's the link if you want to check it out: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Marcy-Eibens-Artist-Page/275043828838?ref=nf#/pages/Marcy-Eibens-Artist-Page/275043828838?ref=nf

I'll be promoting it on facebook and twitter. Any help with this would be great and I'm trying to get as many fans of the page as possible.

Right now I only have the originals so I'm researching how to get prints made. If anyone has any advice on how to do this, let me know.

Held the first fund raiser for Haiti

Last Wednesday I got up the nerve to go to Starbucks and ask for donations for my meet-up group for the Haiti fund raiser. It was actually surprisingly easy. They gave me 2 awesome gift bags to auction off! I was then a little disappointed because I had to cancel our fund raiser for Wed night. I only had 2 RSVPs and a raffle can't really work with 2 people.

Yesterday was the "second" fund raiser (it was actually the 1st since the Wed one was cancelled). It was only 5 people but it was so much fun! We went to the beach and had some signs and buckets. We raised $107.30. Not bad for a couple hours. There was no real way to do a raffle, so I still have the 2 gift bags from Starbucks. I'm thinking I will either try to do another meet-up with a raffle, or just raffle them off at work. We shall see...

After this I'm taking a break from the Haiti fund raising for a while. I still have a lot of fund raising to go for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (I'm at about $300 and need to get to $3500) and I still want to do a bit more fund raising for my brother. Then I want to expand that to raising money for other families.

I will keep this updated with my progress!

The widget for Team in Training

Posting the links one more time

Once again, the link to donate to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society for my Team in Training is:

http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/rnr10/TeamEiben


And the link to donate to Raising Money to Help my family is:

I think I'm getting the hang of this fundraising thing

I have to admit, twitter is actually an amazing networking tool. I have yet to actually physically meet anyone from it, but I've made some good "virtual" friends and I know I will meet some of them in the future. It's such a great network for everyone to help each other (of course some peope abuse it and some people are just kids playing around but that's unavoidable).

I've also found that when you're working towards a good cause, you will be able to find many good people to step forth and help you, even complete strangers. This has been working with raising money for cancer and I hope that it will continue to help with my Haiti fundraising as well. I plan to go out this weekend with a group of friends (I'm praying that it won't rain that one day) to raise money from complete strangers on the street. That ought to be interesting!

I want to learn how to get businesses to help out, specifically with donating items to be raffled and donating their space to have a fundraiser. I'm not sure how to approach this so I will be talking to some people from Team in Training to see who has done this before and how they have done it. They should be able to help me.

So far I am at $145 towards my fundraising for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. I have a feeling I will actually surpass my goal, which would be awesome. I also have a feeling I will be doing most, if not all of my husband's fundraising (I need to get him off his butt!), which will mean that I will be raising at least $3500 for the both of us. We shall see...

I do still want to continue with my Raising Money for Families idea and see if I can set that up as an actual non-profit organization, but I still have a LOT of research to do for this (at least I have someone who will be able to do my logo! Yay!). I still haven't decided on the name and I need to sit down and write an actual business plan for it. Coming soon, to a blog near you :)

Here's what I'm up to recently....

There's just so much going on! I want to do 100 things at once! How does anyone keep all this organized?

I'm still raising money for my brother and his family, but it has taken a slight back burner. I just joined Team in Training with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and I have to raise $1750 for them by June! This is a very important and personal cause for me. My mother died of lymphoma in 2007. She was my best friend and I miss her more than anything. I feel like I gave up on her in the end and that I didn't do all I could to help her, so this is my way of trying to make up for that. My husband is also doing it and needs to raise the same amount by June (totaling $3500 between us). Here's my website for that if you want to check it out or help out http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/rnr10/meiben6mr5.

I just got started on that fund raising, then this huge earthquake happens. I am now trying to organize my friends into a fundraiser to raise money for the Red Cross and also the Volunteer Ministers for Haiti. I am the organizer of a group on meetup.com and I added up some figures. If everyone in my group just donated $10 we'd have over $1700! That would go a long way towards relief for Haiti.

There's just so much going on and I'm not even sure what to push anymore. I'm just going to do it all at once and see what happens :) Did I mention I'm also a new first time mom, I work full time and I'm starting my own financial services business? Sheesh! I have a lot to do!

Slowed down a little, still doing research

The cause has slowed down again. I need to promote more! Any help with this is much appreciated. I know I need to add a pic to the facebook page, which I will be doing very, very soon. I wish I had pictures at work that I could upload but they're all at home :(

I am still researching the idea of starting a non-profit. From what I have read so far, I need to talk to a lawyer who is familiar with non-profits and get their advice of how to go about doing it and all the legalities of setting it up. So now I'm on the hunt for a good lawyer who will do a free consultation! I will keep everyone updated.

In terms of a name for the cause, I'm thinking "Raising Money to Help My Family" is a pretty good name. Any feedback on this? It could be "Raising Money to Help Families" but I kind of like the first wording better. Let me know if you have any suggestions.