Video

I went for a walk after work tonight and it felt so good. I will be going for one tomorrow if it's not raining and hopefully riding my bike to work Thursday. I think the Relay for Life has helped me get back to where I want to be.

I can't help but laugh right now. My hubby is trying to get a controller button unstuck and it's just not working for him. I love him very much but I will probably have to fix it soon because he will be fed up shortly.

I said I would post some pictures from the Relay for Life and here they are. This first item is the team Survivors Lap they did as part of the opening ceremony. This will also serve as my trial run with using video as well.

The first two pictures were taken during the opening ceremony. The Fight Like a Girl banner was part of the Teams Lap. There were 20+ teams I think they said.

The second picture is the doves. At the end of the opening ceremony they released white doves and this was the best I could do with my camera.

This picture is Pat Conover who is my boss and was the team captain. The photo was taken by a 4 year old boy which is why it is mostly of her upper torso. He had a really hard time getting all of someones head in pictures but he definitely took a lot of ground and feet pictures. It was actually very humorous going back through the pictures. Thank goodness for digital cameras.

This last photo is of the luminaries which people could buy in memory or honor of someone with or having fought cancer. They actually sold enough to surround the 1/4 mile track. It was a very cool thing to see these all lit with the lights off. Actually after 10 pm these were how the track was lit. They turned off the stadium lights and left these lit. It was a very nice site.

Experiment

Today is experiment with pictures day.

I am going to try a bunch of layouts and see which ones I prefer.

The pictures above and below are of my perm after about 6 weeks. I think it looks better wet but it usually doesn't look too shabby no matter how it is.

The next couple pictures are misc. but I promise there will be some sort of commentary.

So I have decided you have to build picture blogs from the bottom up or you end up having to move everything around. This is kind of weird and frustrating.

By the way this is RJ ready for his first day at Price Chopper. I know I am a photographing maniac now but I want to remember these days when I'm old and senile.

This is a picture from this years Reed Reunion. Left to right are my grandfather Reed's sisters Donna and Carole, some unknown relative and husband of unknown relative. The face in the corner is my cousin Meagan.

This is my brother Aaron with his daughter Addison, March 19th, the day she was born. I have not met her yet but my parents said she is adorable. I get to meet her towards the end of August. Yay!

I think I like the alternating right and left photos over the vertical stack because is takes up less room on the page. I like white space and all but not a whole lot.

I have been trying to get two pictures to be side by side on the same row and it is just not working. Anyways above is the concrete pad poured about a week ago for Tim's double wide.

I was going to post some pics of the Relay for Life I talked about yesterday but I think I might wait and do another post for those pictures.

Relay

I participated in the 2010 Relay for Life of Tioga County last night. I walked a total of 10 miles which was less than I thought I would be able to walk but still not a disappointing number. It was the first Relay for Life I had participated in and I am quite sure I will do it again. I think my biggest problems were wearing my new sneakers instead of my walking sneakers and starting prep and set up at 11 am which included loading 50 cases of water in and out of my jeep, putting up our tent(s), getting food around, etc.

Starting the major prep work at 11 am not really a big deal that was actually a blessing or I never would have made it as long as I did. Loading 50 cases (24 packs) of water did take its toll but I think the worst part was the tent(s). I put the s in () for a reason. We had one booth location with a tent but the tent Pat brought had 3 broken legs which she was unaware of so we had Kelsey go back to the store and get the other tents we had left there. She came back and we started setting up the second tent only to find it also had a broken leg. McGivers we were and took the good leg off of the one tent and put it on the second tent. Yay we have one working, standing tent. We get everything all set up for our booth. No more problems we are ready to go.

About 30-45 minutes later we get this crazy thunderstorm come through with lightning hitting very close to the relay site. The coordinator says everyone inside. We start walking toward the building and hear a crash behind us. The rain had come down so hard and fast the tent couldn't shed the water fast enough and collapsed under the weight. I mean snapped frame and all. GRRR...!! So here Pat and I are holding the tent up trying to keep everything from becoming completely ruined from all the water and this relay committee lady informs us she can't go in if we are still outside. We politely tell her were are not going inside with our tent collapsed on everything so she just leaves, no offer to get help, nothing. I think 2 seconds later the storm passes anyways so poo on her.

So now we have gone through 2 tents, everyone and thing is soaked and we are frustrated and getting fed up. Kelsey gets the 3rd tent from her car, we pull it out and realize it's only 5'x5'. It wasn't even large enough to cover the (2) 6' tables we had. Well it's all we had so we set up the best we can and it looks pretty pitiful but oh well. Around 6 pm we call one of the other girls that was coming down after work to see if she can find a larger tent, another cooler and bring some more ice. Thankfully she comes with a 12'x12' tent, cooler and ice. We all move the itty bitty tent out of the way to set up the one she brought and finally all is well again.

So 8 hours later after all the loading, unloading, putting up and taking downs I was a little tired and finally able to start walking for the relay. Although I was tired I still had a great time and hopefully next time the prep/set up won't be so tiring before walking.

The next walk i am aware of is the breast cancer walk in Binghamton in October and I think I will participating in that as well. I just need to talk with Pat and see what she is doing for it and how I can help.

Long Time

I have fallen out of my routines lately. I haven't walked, ridden, blogged, cleaned, read or any of my other usual things. Now having acknowledged the situation maybe I will be able to motivate myself back to my normally more active life style. Partial fault for this I blame on work. I have been working what I think some would call a swing shift. Overnights for a day or two then days for a couple days and then back to overnights for a night. The constant change in sleep times makes for very restless sleep.

It is amazing to me having worked up to 3 jobs at one time during college I was always still able to do school work, socialize, etc. I then worked at Sanmina and even when I would put in 50+ hours in a week I still had time to do the normal day to day things and now that I am working part time I have time to the day to day but I have no ambition to do so. I also have a hard time and generally feel exhausted when I put in more than 35 hours. It's rather strange to me.

I am going to have to start looking for the Grade B maple syrup again. I felt fantastic and energetic after my cleanse and it wasn't even for the full 10 days either. I think I may do the cleanse 3 or 4 times a year now or at least frequently enough that I don't get the run down feeling.

This time however, when I come out of the cleanse I think I may pursue a more vegetarian life style with my only meat being minimal amounts of chicken and fish. By fish I mean tuna because I still haven't found a fish dish that I like. As far as when to do the cleanses go January, May & September seem to be pretty good times for them. After the holiday seasons would probably be best.

I am going off the bed now as I almost dozed off while typing this.

Viewing

This weekend started not so great but I am hoping will end on a lighter note.

Yesterday I went to the viewing of Jerry Dartt. I am sure there aren't many people who read this who will know who he is but he was the father of a very good family friend, an officer of the Steuben County Sheriff Department for 30+ years including 3 terms as sheriff and an all around great guy. Although I do not have any personal stories of shenanigans with him my older family members do. I was unable to attend the funeral service today but while at the viewing I heard many highly amusing stories about this man from my mother, father and Steve Dartt. Steve is Jerry's son and my father's best friend in the whole world. Although my deepest sympathies go to Steve and his family I have to admit that I am happy Jerry is no longer in pain. Death can be a much needed relief.

Different topic: I tried starting some seeds months ago from fruit I had bought from the store for smoothies. My starter inventory consisted of 3 mango, 2 peach & 3 apricot seeds. To my great displeasure none of them have done anything and all 3 of the mango seeds have rotted so I threw them all in the cut grass pile under the dying maple tree. I knew getting them to grow was a long shot but I was still hopeful. Watch, now that I have given up on all of them and thrown them to the compost pile they will all do great, minus the rotted mango seeds of course. I guess I will just have to try again with the next bunch of fruit I buy.