April 7, 2013: Who's On First?

Heaveno!

I gave this post that title, because humans and dogs have been coming and going with such regularity that one's head could spin right off trying to keep up around here!

Oh, the puppies...

The puppies are currently being courted by our neighbors and Ang's parents.  Coco (the white one) is currently spending his second night in a row at grandma and grandpa's house.  Their chihuahua, Lexus, is not thrilled with the new arrival, but she's not thrilled with most dogs, so it seems par for the course.  More important, Coco is unfazed by her cold shoulder! LOL.

Caramel has had a couple of play dates with our neighbors and their yorkie, "Brit," and so far so good. Brit tolerates Caramel surprisingly well, according to her parents.  Caramel hasn't done an overnight over there yet.  They are going to their vet tomorrow to make sure Brit is up to date on her shots and will talk to the vet about what their next step is with Caramel, so everything seems to be moving steadily... fingers crossed.  I will definitely miss Caramel.  He is SO stinkin' cute, and this morning, Julian and he were playing together, and it was amazing.  When we fostered dogs way back when, occasionally there would be a dog I would miss, and Caramel will definitely be added to that list.

Ali and I just got home from Phoenix last night.  Ali is on her 2 week spring break, and I had a conference in Tempe for music therapy, so I brought her along to stay with her nanny for a few days so they could catch up while I worked.  Nanny lives in Phoenix.  That went GREAT.  It was so great to hang with Ali on the road trip on either side of the trip.  She really had fun with her nanny as well.  They went to the Musical Instrument Museum, they went shopping, they went to see OZ, they sewed, swam, painted, and played with nanny's dogs.

While Ang held down the puppy hotel with Julian, I finished out my term on the executive board of the regional chapter of our professional association as vice president.  I now begin a two year term as president-elect of our region, which will be followed by two years as president, then two years as past president, for a total of six years.  The vice presidency was two years as VP-elect and two years as VP, so this will be a ten year run in service, which started during my first year as a music therapist.  I like the fact that I will have served my community every year I was a MT when I hit my ten year anniversary.  I think service is a vital role in anyone's spiritual, personal, and professional growth.  I know it's been so great and healthy for me.  I tell people that by being willing to be a part of the solution, "I have earned the right to bitch!" LOL.  As VP, I was able to pioneer a bunch of improvements to how we run our conferences, and now there are some great new opportunities to expand the organizational structure and operations of the board.  As with any volunteer organization, we are all unpaid and working on this in our spare time, and as such, sometimes it's not a perfectly running machine, but I love looking for ways in which we can make things run smoother, more efficiently, and have an ever increasing amount of FUN while doing it!

In other news, if you would like to participate in this year's TIME TO FLY race in Minneapolis, come join us on Team PUCK!  CLICK HERE to sign up!  However, if you can't make the race, how about plan a small FUNdraiser and make a donation with those funds to our team?  We are shooting for $50,000 this year!  That's just shy of DOUBLE what we raised last year, so we need all the help we can get.  One thing that helped last year was people all over the country doing small events that were easy and fun, and then contributing that to the team.  We're more interested in that, because if you the reader make a donation, that's great, but if 10 of your friends come hang out at your house for a fundraiser and learn about EB and U of M, then 11 people donate, and TEN MORE people know about EB and the work U of M is doing for a cure!

For example, Ian Swarr created an event on facebook.  CLICK HERE to see.

Events are easier than they sound, and people are happy to come.  People like to support good causes, and not everyone has a cause they support, but would support one if they felt personally connected to it.  You (the person reading this) is that connection!  :-)  Also, fundraisers don't need to be gala events.  They can be small get togethers that raise $500-$1,000.  A couple dozen of those happening around the world over the next few months makes ALL the difference!  We have a "fundraiser in a box" on the PUCK website which makes it REALLY easy.  Check it out by clicking HERE.  In addition to THAT, Christie has created a facebook group for Team PUCK where she has posted several great links for fundraising tips, ideas, sample emails to send, etc.  In other words, we try to make it as easy for you as possible to have an event and feel like you are part of the cure!

Okay, okay, enough out of me.

God day.