Bloggy Bake Sale is tomorrow

I'm knee deep in baby poop and spit up here.  But you don't want to hear that.  Instead here's an update on the Bake Sale tomorrow from Kari's Blog.


As many of you may know, tomorrow is the day of my blog bake sale to raise money for Kisses from Katie. If it's your first time here, please visit my Running for Katie page to read more about my goals for the year.

So far Kristen and I have raised over $500 with the help of generous family, friends, and readers. We're excited and encouraged by the outpouring of support from everyone. Our goal is to raise $5000 to help support our friends Vickie and Alan as they work to support children and families in the pediatric ICU.

The bake sale tomorrow includes over 30 tasty offerings from friends, family, and even quite a few awesometacular bloggers.

In case you needed some enticement to come back tomorrow. You can buy the perfect gift for Valentine's Day, a care package for someone far from home, a delicious treat for yourself, OR a birthday gift for me! You can even use whatever you win as  motivation for your next workout. Like, I better get on the treadmill today, because 2 doz. cookies are on their way to my belly! Or, you know, something not weird at all. 

The sale will be live from 8 am to 8pm, so stop by and do some bidding!!

Bloggy Bake Sale for Charity

As you may have read in my Call to Arms post, my New Year's resolution is to support a charity that's very close to my heart: Kisses From Katie (click the links to catch up).

Well, my friend Kari didn't stop at just running - she's also hosting a virtual Bake Sale.  Read on for the details and information from her post or read the original one here. 

Here's the basic idea:

• Volunteers from blog land and anyone else we can wrangle into it volunteer to make a certain baked good
• I will post the list of items on a designated day that I'll announce well in advance
• Bidders have 24 hours to email in their bids in a sort of silent auction (highest bids will periodically be posted)
• At the end of the day winners will be announced
• Winners will have 24 hours to submit their donations or the next highest bidder will be contacted
• Bakers will have 3 days to send out their goods
• All donations would go to Kisses from Katie

To get more publicity, all bloggers who are offering up a baked good can briefly post about their participation on the selected day (and I'll link back to you on the auction post) and link back to the auction. I'm thinking about hosting the auction on my birthday, Saturday Feb 5. What do you think? Is anyone interested in participating (both on the baking or bidding end)? Bakers, please sign up here. You don't have to commit to anything right now, I'm just looking to gauge interest. I'll send a full email with rules, etc. to those who want to bake in a week or so. Those interested in bidding, just leave a comment so I can see what kind of interest we have! Thanks!! I'll even participate myself and bake a loaf of my fantastically awesome, incredibly delicious banana bread!

A call to arms

I've been thinking a lot lately about my 2011 resolutions.  There are so many things that always frequent my list, like join a gym and actually go.  But this year I think I'm going to take a different approach.  Instead of making a list of resolutions that, let's face it, I rarely follow through past the first couple of months, I'm going to post about a charity that's very close to my heart and their goals for 2011 and hope that it brings them some good.

As you probably know (if you read our story), Jon and I both work at the same company.  But what you probably didn't know is that we both got hired by the same guy - an Irishman by the name of Alan Manning.

Throughout the next five and a half years (yup, we're still working at the same place), Alan has played a very significant role in our lives, not only in the work-related sense, but as a mentor and friend as well.  Alan is someone who's always been able to look at life as glass half-full, even though life has thrown more than a handful of sharp glass pieces at him.  Yet, each and every time he's come out of it stronger and with a resolution to make everyone elses lives better.

The major event that I am referring to is the birth and passing of Alan and Vickie's first-born baby girl, Katie.  Here is a quick capture of their story:

On May 19th 2008, our first daughter, Katie, came into the world.  Unfortunately, on May 21st our brief euphoria was interrupted by the news that our Munchkin had a rare congenital heart defect, Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS).  The next 175 days were draining yet uplifting, heartbreaking yet inspirational.  After an intense battle (Katie’s story) Katie passed away on November 9, 2008.   While she may be gone in body, Katie’s impact will be felt for a lifetime. Vickie and I hope to honor our daughter’s life by creating an organization that supports other families that need to spend extended periods in the hospital.

Instead of taking a negative approach, Alan and Vickie decided to start a not-for-profit organization that is centered around helping children and parents that have to frequent the NICU.  That's how Kisses from Katie was born.

In 2011, our friend and co-worker Kari (the one that frequents my blog), decided to join the efforts by resolving to run a half marathon (to start) and help fund raise for Kisses from Katie.

So here it is, my do-gooder blogger buddies.  My call to arms.

Help us spread the word.  Help Kari reach her fundraiser goal.  Help Alan and Vickie in their efforts to make the lives of patients and families at the hospital just a little easier.

Write a blog.  Make a donation.  Tweet this entry.  Facebook it.

Here's some more background:
Kisses from Katie website
Kari's 2011 Resolution
Kari's Interview with Alan Manning