Prepare to Spew Diet Coke All Over Your Computer Monitor.....

Warning:

This isn't all family-friendly.

But good night, it's funny!

Prayers, Please....

My sweet, sweet friend Ruthie Cahill needs your prayers today. When Kelly and Ruthie were here last week, her oncologist and radiologist were trying to determine whether a "spot" in her abdomen was matastasized ovarian cancer.

Ruthie's oncologist was supposed to meet with a group of her colleagues yesterday to hammer out an answer.

Ruthie should hear something today.

Please pray for her.

I Don't Have a Laptop....

But if I did, I'd have to get me one of these.

On Boobies and Bike Riding....

Training for 30 miles in three days is a lot different than training for 60 miles in three days. For one, my feet don't hurt nearly as much as they usually do at this point in the season. Where my friends are doing 10-12 mile training walks, I'm doing 4-5. It's not all bad.

It's all for the boobies....

Since I know better than to walk every day on my feetsies, I've been cross-training on my bike. Walking the kids to school every morning gives me a mile. On Monday and Wednesday, I walked 4 and 5 miles. Tuesday and today I rode my bike. Twelve-point-two miles on Tuesday; 15. 5 today.

Along the way, I've come up with some observations.

1. Duck poop is messy.
2. Duck poop can be rather large. Like really large.
3. Someone has placed rat bait traps over by the lakes, so I must not be the only one in Fairfield with rat nightmares.
4. Praise God for Body Glide.
5. My hiney hurts.
6. Landscape guys are pretty desperate -- they still give me "the eye." Or are they wondering if I'm going to fall off my bike??

I've also learned how to ride a long ways.

1. Ride five miles while struggling, wondering how you let your legs get so weak.
2. At mile 4.40, realize you forgot to put air in your tires.
3. Ride home and put air in your tires.
4. The next 10 miles will be a breeze!

If You Don't Donate to the 3-Day....

You just might find

a surprise

in your yard!!!

We Need Your Help

Hi Ya’ll,

Were you wondering if I had given up on the breast cancer 3-Day? Not on your life! This year will be my fourth year to do the walk. In years’ past, I’ve written a 3-Day update by mid-July. But not this year.

This year has been a struggle. I’ve been putting off writing this letter until I had a grasp of how many miles I would be able to walk this year, but I still don’t know. My feet continue to be an issue. As of right now, my goal is to walk at least 10 miles a day. We’ll just have to see.

I’ve struggled with how to ask you to support a 60-mile walk when I’m not sure I can walk all 60 miles. But you know what? This isn’t just about walking 60 miles. This is about saving lives.

As I’ve struggled with the walking end of this gig, breast cancer has continued to take its toll. My friend Sonja passed away this spring, leaving two precious little girls without a Mommy. After months of chemo, my friend Ann’s lumpectomy is scheduled for August 31. She’s my age, with twin girls who just started Kindergarten.

And it’s not just breast cancer. My dear friend Ruthie was diagnosed with ovarian cancer this spring. As I write this, her oncologist is conferring with other doctors to determine whether or not they think her cancer has spread. Elise Goertz, a first grader at Keith, got her angel wings in January after facing leukemia for the third time.

Those stories are just the tip of the iceberg. Cancer just keeps coming at us. And we have got to do something about it.

Two years ago, I made this crazy commitment to walk 60 miles in three days (and sleep in a tent) to help find a cure for breast cancer. My friend Lisa and I walked in honor of my Mom, and we raised about $6000.

In 2007, Team Tiara was officially born, and 17 of us raised over $38,000. It’s hard to describe what that weekend meant to me – walking in memory of my Mom. It meant so much to have those dear friends, and all of your prayers, hold me up along the way.

In 2008, 60 Tiara walkers joined forces to raise $125,000. What an incredible experience!

Now it’s time for the next chapter…. This year, we already have 40 walkers signed up to walk with Team Tiara, and we’ve raised over $43,000 so far. When all is said and done, our goal is to raise over $150,000. We’ll be walking November 6-8.

At this point our fundraising is down from last year. I’m sure it has something to do with the economy. But we can’t let that stop us. Breast cancer doesn’t care about the economy. It doesn’t select its victims by race, age or even gender.

My goal is to personally raise $20,000. I know. It’s a big number. But this is a big disease. And it’s going to take a lot to stop it. Statistics show one out of every three people will face cancer in their lifetime. One in six women will have breast cancer. We need your help – and your continued prayers.

You can walk with Team Tiara – As a walker, you will be introduced to many “firsts.” You’ll sleep in a pink tent, take showers in a converted semi trailer, dine on peanut butter and jelly graham cracker sandwiches and become an expert on blister care. You will laugh at the kind of jokes only breast cancer survivors can come up with. You’ll cry over people’s stories and share your own. And in the process you’ll help raise millions of dollars for breast cancer research and education. You can check out the Team Tiara website at http://the3day.org/goto/tiaras. On that website you will find a button that says, “Join D’Lyn’s Team.” Just take it from there.

You can donate to Team Tiara -- Without you, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do. The money you donate goes directly to research, education, awareness and services…. You can donate online at http://the3day.org/goto/imissmymom. You can donate by phone – just call 1-800-996-3329. My walker ID number is 1434066. If you prefer to donate by check, you can make it out to “Breast Cancer 3-Day” and send it to me. I will attach one of the new donation slips and send it to the 3-Day bank! And of course, all donations are tax-deductible. Before I go.... I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you to “check your chi-chi’s” and make sure the women in your life get regular mammograms! As I said earlier, breast cancer knows no age or gender boundaries. You are your best defense!

Many Blessings,

D'Lyn

First Day of School!!!

I love to compare the girls' school pictures to see how they've grown each year.

This was last year....


Last day of school in June...

And today! Look at how tall Abbie has gotten!!!

I walked the girls to school this morning -- I would have anyway, even if we still had bus service. Can't let a year go by without pictures of the girls with their teachers on the first day of school!

We are so incredibly blessed for Abbie to have Mrs. Evans again this year. I can't tell you how glad I am she's in Liz's class.


And Kait has Mrs. Book. We've never had Mrs. Book for a teacher before, but I'm thrilled Kait gets to spend the year with her. And what a sweet class this is going to be! So many of my favorite friends from Kinder are going to be in Kait's class. It's going to be a great year!

9,999 Hits on the Wall, 9,999 Hits....

When I stopped by my blog this morning, the "counter" read 9,999 hits. How cool is that? I don't know what all four of my readers have been doing over the last couple of years, but you sure stop by often!

If I'd installed a counter when Mom first got sick, rather than a year later, I'm sure it would have been a lot more. But it's still cool.

This has been a super-busy week, trying to cram in as much fun as possible before school starts. The girls have had play-dates and lots of sleepovers. We went to the Blue Bell pool on Wednesday and Splashtown yesterday. Today we're going to Meet the Teacher and the Children's Museum. Tonight we're watching Rice vs. Baylor in soccer, and then headed to the Creek.

I'll come up for air on Monday after I drop the kids off!

At a Crossroads.....

I'm pausing for a bit in the making of that 25-patch quilt.

Here's my dilemma. Fifty blocks are what I would need to make a twin-sized quilt. A great thing to have on the back of the couch, or hanging on the wall or whatever.

And that's what I thought I wanted to do.

But.....

As I look at it, I think it would look much better as a queen-sized quilt. For that, I need 108 blocks. One more week of work on just blocks before I go further.

You've seen what the blocks look like. What do you think? Twin or Queen??

My Grandad's Name was Bill

My Grandad Herring's name was Bill, and he was tough. He rode and roped and ranched and farmed and raised three kids in a not-so-easy era.

Another Bill is out there right now, and it's looking pretty tough, too. Hurricane Bill is churning up the Atlantic, and we'd all better pray it stays out there. It's got to thread the needle between Bermuda and the East Coast -- and hopefully will do just that.

Hurricanes fascinate me. This 5-week Texas Hurricane season gets me all giddy. It's not that I want one to come here. Not at all. I like my air-conditioning, and our new generator isn't big enough to run it.

It's just all the wondering. With a wave coming off of Africa every few days, it's so interesting to hear all the speculation, to wonder what will come to fruition, where it will go.

This past weekend Claudette was an urgent reminder that we don't always get as much warning as we did with Ike. When we went to bed Saturday night, Claudette was just a puff of clouds off the coast of Florida. By Sunday afternoon, it was a tropical storm hitting Florida.

What a great reminder that storms can come up out of "nowhere" in the Gulf! And seemingly overnight. AND on a weekend when everyone has their guard down! YIKES!

If you live on the Gulf Coast and don't have your hurricane supplies together, you'd better get them ready. The GOM is a bathtub right now. Bill has gotten to a monster of a Category 4 storm without hitting any "warm" water. If anything gets into the Gulf, it's gonna be scary.

On Pins & Needles....

All right... Now that you have all your little strips cut, it's time to put them together. You want to sew 200 of your strips together -- by twos. Like Noah's Ark. I worked very hard to make sure I didn't sew two identical strips together. I'm not perfect, so I may not have totally succeeded in reaching that goal, but it was a goal.

It's very important that you do your best to match up your seams. I love it that the Amish say there is only one "perfect one" -- and that is God. The Amish actually make a point of having at least one "mistake" or Humble Square in each quilt.

I'm far from perfect, so I have lots of humble squares.

When you match up your seams, you want to squish them together so that they butt up against each other. Then, put the pin down through the seam on one side, and up through the seam on the other. And then hold your breath and stick your tongue out the side of your mouth and clench your jaw and pray that that's how the come out once they're sewn together.

Once you've got all your "twos" sewn together, marry them with other each other to make "fours." Once you're done with that, add the fifth row.

When you're done with all that, you should have 50 squares that look something like this:

Remember to press them. Back first, then front.

The backs will look something like this:

Now use your rotary cutter and tools to even up the outside edges. You can't sew a straight seam if you don't have straight edges.

Once they're trimmed, ideally you're outer rows will be 1 1/4 " deep. And ideally, all your inside pieces will be 1-inch square.

And you'll have lots of beautiful squares that look something like this:

Now.... You're caught up with me! We'll have the next installment in a couple of days! Hang in there!