My Fundraising Page

My Fundraising Page

Good evening morning everyone!  I am writing to you from my cozy bed, having fully recovered from my training run on Saturday.  All I can say is, wow, autumn in Seattle has come upon us in full force.  That was the rainiest, windiest run I've been on in awhile.  I guess I better get used to it!  I completed 110 minutes of running along West Seattle's Alki neighborhood, which on sunnier days is lovely!  Not this past Saturday, however.

Click here for the details of the run, just in case you want to replicate it.  If you want to get the full experience, wait until the weather is the worst you've seen all year and then go run for nearly 2 hours.  That'll get you in my world.  

In any event, I figure it is good I got a terrible run out of the way so that I can focus on closing the gap in my training between where I am and where I want to be by the time the half marathon comes on December 1st.  It's all uphill from here, so they say.

Speaking of closing the gap, thank you to those who have donated to my campaign!  It's awesome to see support for lil ol' me and I torture myself in the name of finding a cure for cancer. 

So if you haven't already, please click the link above and donate to lil ol' me and in the name of my grandfather, my friend Nancy's mother, my friend Mavis' 24 year-old cousin and countless other whose lives have been impacted by cancer.  Thanks in advance.

If you have donated, continue to follow my progress!  I will keep on running, you can count on me!

Thanks to everyone for donating, following me and for being who you are.  It's awesome to know so many amazing people.

Muah!
Sarah

Welcome to our Team's Homepage

Welcome to our Team's Homepage

Team Panda in the house to raise funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma society!!  We will be running the Amica Seattle Half Marathon on December 1, 2013 and our goal is to raise $8,000!!  Wow, that will make a huge difference in the fight to eradicate many forms of blood cancer.

Thank you for your support!
Cheers!

Team in Training!!! I'm running the Amica Seattle Half!

So check out my LLS donation page here:
   http://pages.teamintraining.org/wa/Amica13/SeattleTeamRocks2013


And thank you for your generosity!

Holiday Greetings!

The year is winding down, ever so slowly.  But like any determined foe, it's not going down without a fight.  I thought I'd put the TKO on this year and the miseries it's brought.  But no, it's hanging on for dear life.  So, join me in drinking myself into oblivion so that I am drunk/passed out through the rest of this gawd-awful year.  Like the song says "I'm gonna make it through this year if it kills me." 

Clearly, I'm not the only person with the year-end strategy of drunkenness-as-survival-mechanism.  See this video for an insight into how Seattle-ites 'celebrate the holidays' (yeah right, they're trying to best 2010 just like me)

I love this video, and am glad to find a news source that will help me cope...with humor.

And so, kiddies, while 2010 isn't technically over for another 9 days, I can still drink myself into a coma turn that frown upside for a week and a half.  Meanwhile, I've got to get through Christmas with my family.  Oh lord, here it comes.

So raise your glass and tip it back.  Here's to 2010, may you rot.

Vegetarian cooking...controversy

I've loved Deborah Madison's "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" since I discovered it a couple of years ago.  And now, thanks to the Seattle Public Library I've got this veritable encyclopedia of vegetarian cooking in my grips....until September 30th.  Great. 

A Google search of "Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone" yielded not the copious accolades I was expecting alongside links to booksellers offering to sell me this gem for a screamin' deal.  Rather, I found loads of *gasp* detractors!  "Foodies", or so they call themselves, stating that they weren't "inspired" by the recipes in VCFE (this short-hand is thanks to these commenters, who I can only imagine are pulling from loads of experience crafting Kraft Mac n' Cheese).  Many commenters claim that Mark Bittman's "How to Cook Everything - Vegetarian" is a better cookbook.  I'll wait for you to catch your breath.  Ready?  Ok.  Whatever, I'm going to buy it from Amazon from a used bookseller in Spokane, so you self-righteous jack-asses can suck it.

Myers-Briggs results...

ESTJ - "Administrator". Much in touch with the external environment. Very responsible. Pillar of strength. 8.7% of total population.

Take Free Myers-Briggs Personality Test

Back in the Hizzouse!

I'm back in VA from my trip to NYC and Boston. I must say I really enjoy being away from here. But my 5 days gone tired me out, so it's good to be back home, relaxing in the barrio and combating the cold that has descended upon the region inside my own place.

This photo reveals just one of the many reasons I love New York. Where else can you dress up in a cowboy hat and tighty-whities, play guitar and take photos with giggling tourists and most likely make a ton of money? Only in NY, only in NY! America really is the land of opportunity.

It was really good to see Lisa and Alexander, even if it was just for a few days. Here is a photo of them in Central Park on what was a truly unseasonably warm day in November. We weren't wearing jackets! It was a just perfect day to take photos in the park as the leaves were turning and falling to the ground, blanketing the ground with a beautiful golden color. Gorgeous!

We also got to see the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center being set up, several days before they light it up for the crowds to see. It was dusk, so we couldn't see everything very well, but we were lucky to get to see it at all! I took this photo after we had gotten off of our bus tour. We got to see all of downtown Manhattan. I really liked what we saw, but Alexander confessed that he wasn't as impressed with New York as he'd hoped he'd be. But I called him out and told him that he only likes Hamburg! He complained about Frankfurt when Erin and I were there and he picked us up from the airport, so I think he's just biased.

Here's a photo of a store we passed on the bus tour. It has specific relevance to me! It's not the best thing I saw in NYC but it certainly ranks up there as one of the funniest!

So I love New York and was sad to leave, but Boston was fun...er, interesting. I always like to see my family, and fortunately I got to see my Grandma, Mom, great-aunt, great-uncle and 2nd cousin and his family. So it a family-bomb if you will.

So, I'm going to sign off, but this was just a snippet of my trip. So I'm glad to be back, but also very glad to have gone.

Random musings

So, I've recently been told by a little bird that I'm not very good at blogging. Well, I think that's true. I noticed that the time between posts had previously been 2 years. I'll attempt to rectify that serious neglect of this blog by posting today. Just a little update about what I've been doing; completing my peace corps application, checking my email every 2 minutes, reading websites about organic cosmetics, doing chores and running errands.

I've found a good website that sells organic cosmetics www.saffronrouge.com. I like it for the range of products, though I do think some of the prices are a little high and it is light on editorial content about the products themselves. The website features "Kristin's blog" and "Kristin's favorites", both of which detail new organic beauty products and the founder's favorite products from each of the lines sold on the site. I would like to see more articles about advances and happenings in the industry. Other sites that accomplish that come off a little too hippie-dippy (see http://www.organicconsumers.org/bodycare/index.cfm). So I think there is a need for a website that marries the purely marketplace aspect of Saffron Rouge and the activist slant of Organic Consumers.

My interest in collectives in Latin America is being piqued lately, ever since I read this article in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/dining/05choc.html?_r=1&ref=americas&oref=slogin

It details how an indigenous group in Ecuador is leveraging it's access to cacao and translating that into greater income by learning techniques of processing cacao into chocolate. They're being supported by leaders in Swiss chocolate-making techniques. I think it's a real sign of progress towards greater income stability for a historically marginalized group.

Okay, I gotta finish packing for my trip to NYC!!! Bye for now.