Quite the giveaway!

Care for a chance to win an instant digital polaroid camera and some other cool prizes? Who doesn't! Check out this giveaway from oh, hello friend: you are loved. Great blog to add to your list as well!

I'm asking for your help.

So. Definitely have been absent from this blog for quite some time. What has fueled my return to the blogging world as a blogger (I've never left as an avid reader and occasional commenter) has been to ask for help from the (few?) people who may have been readers my blog.

You see, my cousin Terri was diagnosed with stage IV metastatic breast cancer in November of last year. My family and some family friends are banding together to organize a benefit to help her financially deal with the weight of this diagnosis. Alone the diagnosis is heartbreaking enough, but looking at the past few years of Terri's life, the unbelievableness of this whole thing is just beyond words (clearly as I have to resort to making them up.) Here is an excerpt from the press release our committee has put together:

"In December 2009, Terri Luanna DaSilva, her husband Heron, and their then 6-month old daughter Marisa, put their lives on hold and moved from New York City to Vancouver, Canada in order to care for Terri’s mother, Jeanne Robinson, who was battling late stage bile duct cancer. Terri and her family lovingly supported her Mom, and baby Marisa was the light of her grandmother’s life, bringing countless moments of joy into a life ravaged by cancer.

In the aftermath of Terri’s mother’s death in May 2010, Terri and her family moved to Dartmouth, MA to be with Jeanne’s family while her husband searched for employment. Finally, in July 2011, Heron landed an electrical engineering job at Honda in Ohio where they eagerly embraced their new life.

Now, a short 5 months after leaving Dartmouth, Terri is faced with her own cancer battle in a new state where she has yet to develop a support network.  The goal of this committee is to raise funds to assist Terri and her family with mounting medical bills, transportation, travel and child care costs, accessing home supports, and providing her with the most cutting edge treatment available."

So. My "big sister" (we always used to tell people we were sisters as she never had any siblings) is literally fighting the battle of her life. For her life. I am asking if any of you would like to help support Terri. Also, if you have a blog, if you'd be willing to feature her and her struggle in the hopes that more help and positive thoughts can be sent her way.

To make that easier, Terri began a blog to follow her experience kicking cancer's ass. It's ridiculously inspirational. She has to most amazing attitude despite what she faces. Please visit her blog, comment encouragingly, support her in this struggle, and spread the word of her struggle so that we can all help in her battle.

Her blog: gracefulwomanwarrior.com

We've also created a page where you can go to get more information about the benefit we're hosting to help Terri, Heron and little Marisa. All the information you may need to help in any way you can is located here: gracefulwomanwarrior.org

As a parting gift here are some great pics of Terri and I from recently:

Surprise!! Celebrating Terri's 37th birthday back in NYC (she didn't know I was coming!):

Surprise #2- Nicole (Terri's BFF from high school) came down from Toronto to surprise Terri on the streets of NYC!!:

(I still tear up when I look at these)

Out celebrating that night at Cafe Wha in NYC:

We're going back a few years here. Terri and I attended New Kids on the Block on their first reunion tour and had THE MOST FUN EVER. We went together to see New Kids when I was little, maybe 7 or 8 years old back in the late 80s/early 90s so of course we were going when they got back together after 15 years!

(baby Marisa was in Terri's belly- her first concert!)

 (Let's equate the fact that I look like I just ran a 5k in this pic with the amount of fun I was having. And maybe the amount of wine I consumed. Maybe.)

And here we have a crappy iPhone photo from last May when Marisa turned two, and Terri, Heron, Marisa and Nicole came to visit Massachusetts. This is Nicole, Terri, myself, and my sister Erin out and about:

So that's it for now folks. Please see Terri's blog for updates on her, check out the committee's website for information on how to help. Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have. Thank you so much in advance. She's going to beat it, there's no other choice. 

This is kind of rude

But I'm posting today to mention an AMAZING contest that's been posted on the blog Oh Happy Day! Um, it's a free trip to Paris.

No that wasn't a typo- airfare and hotel. Seriously.

So here's one of my entries- a blog post about the contest. Even though I don't want more people entering because that lessens the likely hood of me winning! :) Joking.

Mostly.

Good luck!

Oh, and it's rude because I've been slacking in the blogging department as of late. And of course I return to post and get an extra entrance into an amazing contest. Feel free to judge me. I'm judging me.

Who doesn't love a challenge?

I am taking on this challenge.

Welcoming suggestions for restaurants, not too local but not too far- it is a school night!

Guilt!

I loved the video Anthology magazine posted on its site that showed a bedroom wall covered in vintage book pages. I decided to do something similar in my guest room. I figured I'd put painter's tape in stripes along the wall and then on top of that put double sided tape so that I wouldn't ruin the walls. Then stick the pages to the tape.

I found a book at our local antique shop, didn't know anything about the author or book but I loved that it had photographs and renderings throughout the pages. It legit took me a few days to start the project because I felt really guilty about tearing up a book, nevermind one almost 100 years old.

Enter today's snow day and I figured I had no more excuses. I started tearing it up and stuck it up to the wall. I love how it came out. We'll see how the tape/pages fare in time, but then I thought about the book. Pictures to come soon.

Then I don't know why but I google searched the author and the book. Enter more guilt. He was a well known photographer and his books are fairly well know as well. I paid $30 for the book, so I knew it wasn't just any old book, but it was one of the only one I like the pages inside for the room. Eek.

I just ordered another copy of the book off of amazon.com because I feel so guilty about tearing up a book published originally in 1938 and it will be prominently displayed in the room once I finish all the other decorating. Who said interior decorating was easy!?

In more important news

than whether I accomplished the goals I set for myself to accomplish before my 29th birthday, I finally won the last issue of Domino magazine that I needed to have the complete set!

Nothing like starting 2011 off with a bang!

Goodness gracious. Sometimes I wonder about myself, like really, am I sane? Does a normal person react the same way I do to certain things?

For example.

This morning my cell phone rang, my parent's house was calling. Well, someone from their house was calling. I answer my new iPhone (thanks Mom and Dad for the early bday present) and put it on speaker because I'm still in bed and it's just easier. It's my Mom, except she sounds weird.

You know those voice changer things that people speak into and it changes their voice to sound like something else? Well. My Mother sounded like she was sick, losing her voice and speaking through a voice changer. She sounded like she was whispering. I couldn't understand a word that she said.

I asked if she was sick? Was she alright? And then panic mode set in- what was going on? For some reason my mind automatically jumped to the sane (doubtful) conclusion that my Mother was hiding under her bed, whispering into her cell phone because she/my family is being attacked. I keep asking her if she's alright but I can't understand what she's saying to me.

Then she hangs up on me.

I now go into uber-panic mode. Jump out of bed. Throw on a sweatshirt. Grab my car keys, impatiently wait for my newly installed garage door opener (thanks Dad, last year's bday present, installed about a month ago, no worries, better late than never) to open and then I drive like a maniac to my parents house.

On the way I called my parents house and my Mom answered. In a normal voice that was not all Darth Vadery. I yell out, are you alright????? She's like, yes, I'm fine! Something was wrong with one of our phones, I was just about to text you.

I pull over and immediately start laughing and crying hysterically. She's fine. My Father is fine. My brother is fine. Everybody's fine [well, maybe except me] and no one is under attack. I couldn't stop laughing, or crying for that matter, because I had worked myself up so much. Jeesh.

Am I going out on a limb here to say that I may have a problem? This isn't normal, right?

The plot thickens: [actually, you could argue it becomes crystal clear]

When I did return to my parents house later in the afternoon under normal circumstances to tell my Dad about a new house project for us to build (a C table for my living room) and ask to see my Mom's laptop so I could show him the plans. He promptly proceeds to pull my Mother's laptop out from underneath the couch.

That's where they're keeping their computers from now on.

If someone breaks into the house, the thieves won't look there but if it's sitting on the kitchen counter where she normally keeps it, she's shit out of luck.

Somehow to me, this seems insane, while my reaction earlier in the day seems utterly normal under the circumstances....Thoughts? Advice? Phone numbers of therapists for me to begin seeing?