Cruisin for kids with Cancer

Is an annual motorcycle ride that my family participates in. I don't ride, so typically, my mom and I volunteer while my dad, Evan, MIL, FIL and Dave ride in it. all proceeds go to benefit the peds cancer ward at Carle.

Today was the 3rd annual ride and it was quite fun. There 40 bikes, which is down from last year. Some of that can be attributed to the fact that it looked like it might pour down rain at any second most of the day (it never did, but the threat of rain is enough to keep some people away) Not only did the family ride, they set up a group of people from work which totalled 15 of the 40 bikes. C also rode with my dad for about half of the ride. His very first poker run ever :) The ride goes by the hospital that it benefits so the kids can see the bikes. The ones that are able, come down to the circle drive to see all the bikes ride by. The ones that aren't watch from their hospital rooms. Today, there were no kids downstairs. We found out later that it probably meant there were none in the hospital today, which is superb.

There was a small snafu with my volunteering. We (my mom, Liz and I) took one car over and mom planned to follow the ride, in case C wanted to get off. They wanted me at the end, but I couldn't get in there until 12:30, which was smack in the middle of the ride and I wouldn't have a way to get from the beginning to the end. I ended up riding with mom for most of the ride and then when C got off we took off for the end so I could be there when the riders got there. It all worked out well.

When you ride in these things, you draw marbles at each stop. Each color of marble is assigned a point value and at the end, they tally all your colors and generally 1st, 2nd and 3rd get nice prizes and last gets some gag gift. First prize was big screen high def TV (retails for about $700) Dh won one similar to it the first year at C4KC. I can't remember what second was but third was an iPod shuffle. Last place was "Anti-Monkey Butt" powder. Apparently, it is similar to Goldbond and prevents chafing on long rides :) In addition to the prizes, they raffled off various gift certificates, food stuffs, and poster. Dave won a really nice leather jacket with Looney Tunes characters on the back. That will come in handy when he goes to Sturgis in a week. This year they also raffled off a beautiful quilt that took shirts from various Harley dealers and black cloth, with rainbow stiching and then on the back they had a gold ribbon (the symbol for childhood cancers) that was signed by survivors and their sibilings.

Viva Viagra

This commercial disturbs me greatly! A bunch of old dudes (I typed duds, which might actually be more accurate) sitting around jamming about Viagra? I think not.

Kitties

I love LOLCatz http://icanhascheezburger.com/ They kill me :)

Bras and babies

I need some new bras. Dh commented the other day "how many bras do you have?" "uh, 2, not counting the left over nursing bras for laundry emergencies, why?" "because every time I've seen you with your shirt off for the last week, you've had that purple one on" "uh, yeah" One problem is I'm endowed and have a hard time finding anything that I like. I wear a D, so not huge, but bigger than a lot of places make. I don't like bras, as a general rule, but I'm a little big to go without so it has to be something crazy comfy. I don't like sports bras and I HATE HATE HATE with a passion underwires. I don't get padded/formed bras in my size either. If I were an A or B, I would totally get it but at a C/D? I fill out my own sweater thanks! Additionally, because I don't like bras, I don't want to pay much money for them. 5 years ago (which is the age of one of my bras) I found some Playtex ones at Target that are great. They are white, lightly padded (to prevent THO, I found out recently), no underwire and $15 a piece. Perfect! Sadly, they don't carry them anymore. In fact I couldn't find any Playtex bras there at all. I also recently got one at Lane Bryant that wasn't too bad. My mom had a coupon for buy one, get one half off and then they had some other sale so we each got a bra for $10 a piece. Unfortunately, the one here has gone out of business (they claim to be moving to a new location but they said it will be at least a year) and I'm afraid to order online. I tried on 3 different ones, same size, just different colors and all 3 fit differently.

Anybody have any suggestions?

Now for babies part. Lizzie is sitting here with her play phone saying "Hi, Grandma Jill, Hi Randy. Hi Grandma Jill, I talk my Randy" She apparently decided to call MIL and FIL but was more interested in talking to FIL than MIL. :)

Secret update

I can finally talk about my secret. Dh got full time at work! We knew last week, but they hadn't finished interviewing everyone else so we couldn't talk about it. He has worked there for 2 years and has put in 2500 hours in the last year and nearly that many the year before. Full time status includes being assured of at least 40 hours a week (Typically he works around 60 hours a week but is sometimes, like over Xmas and all summer, dropped down to barely 20), access to insurance (we are keeping our current insurance for the time being because it is cheaper and covers more) and, best of all, a $7/hour jump in pay!!

The only draw back is that there are 105 people picking runs in front of him and they all have to pick at least 40 hours. He will be stuck doing the worst of the worst for another couple of years until he can move up where he gets some choice in the matter. Probably nights and weekends, although he is really hoping not to have to drive "safe rides" (a service for our university that involves drunk college students calling and requesting a ride anywhere they want to go). Honestly, nights and weekends will work out well for us. It will allow me to help in C's classroom while he stays home with Lizzie. It will also help when I go back to work, if one of the kids is sick, he'll be home so I won't have to take off nearly as much time for that sort of thing.

WOO HOO

http://www.lungil.org/newsarticle.cfm?ArticleID=28

So much for mayor cancer and his "lets repeal something that already passed"

I said during the whole election "you know what would be funny? All these people spent all this time and money and energy to get elected on the smoking issue and now the whole state will go smokefree and it won't matter" And that is what happened.

Funny boy

We were at lunch today and C finished all of his pasta and then turned to his potatoes and said "come here potatoes and join the party in my tummy" ROFL