Shop Therapy

I don't know how this happened, particularly with former roomates that are so thrifty, but I am definitely all about the shop therapy lately. A couple of weeks before Heart Walk, after a particularly stressful week, I bought myself a pair of shoes. Not so bad, you think? Well, I won't even post how much these shoes cost as I don't want those thrifty friends to find out (j/k!), but they were more than I have EVER spend on a pair of shoes. My favorite moment was as I was trying to justify them to my brother in the car. As you have probably guessed, most of his responses were basically, "Cool." "Oh." "Grunt." Not a very productive conversation.

Well, this week (beginning on Saturday with Shop for a Cause at Macy's - shout out to the AHA's Go Red for Women program!), I have been on a rampage. I have a new bag for work coming in the mail today. I definitely have some new make-up and jewelry items as well. The problem? I have a new philosophy to save up and then buy quality to start to replace all of the I'm-in-college-so-who-cares-how-long-this-lasts-because-it's-cheap that clutter up my life.

As a disclaimer, I would also like to insert here that all of these items were on sale when I purchased them - which is why I can't find any more good pics of them - darn it! Lol.

It's Genius!

Just a little shout-out to Sarah and Tricia who have both commented to me or on their blog about the new Genius feature on itunes! It's like Pandora but with your own music - and suggestions for new music! Loving it - although still addicted to Pandora. Tricia recommended The Weepies station and I am definitely digging that. Thanks, ladies!

Oh, Pandora, How Do I Love Thee...

Okay, so I know that I still need to write about the alarm story - which you should all be waiting for, let me tell you! The thing is, I am working on pulling an Awards Reception for 250 with a sit-down dinner on a little-to-no-budget in the next couple of weeks, so by the time I get home I have serious adult ADD and don't want to devote the time to write out the whole story. I will work on it, though, I promise! In the meantime, I just wanted to mention something that I am recently loving.





I know Pandora is not new news for anyone, but I am only recently playing with it and loving it. Unfortunately, I can't listen at work due to no speakers on my computer as well as the fact that we have the world's worst server and if anyone streams anything, the internet slows down to negative 25 miles an hour for everyone else trying to work.

Anyway, I have been listening at home while I'm working on the computer. My favorite station right now? Mirah. Pretty much loving it...it might take me a while to experiment with any new ones for a while since I enjoy this so much!

Oh, wow.

Wow. The Heart Walk is over. Well, not really. People always ask me if I can now take time off, but there is still an awards ceremony to plan, money to enter, purchase orders to fill, thank-yous to send out, follow-up meetings to set, reports to run, files to organize, items to return...you get the idea.

My whole body aches and I feel like I haven't slept in weeks, which, really, I haven't. The event went really well. I wanted to include some links to some of the pre-event stories that have run in the newspapers and on news stations for you to look at if you would like:

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/heart-stroke-catalano-2156901-years-underwent

http://cbs2.com/video/?id=76984@kcbs.dayport.com

I haven't seen the post-event stories yet, but there were a lot of photographers and video cameras from the various news stations, so we will see...

We have between 5000 and 6000 people attend, and (from what they could tell), it went really well! I was stuck to my head mike the whole time putting out fires, but I have heard a lot of really good feedback. We are continuing to raise money toward our $1.3 million goal, and so far have raised more money than any previous year (this is the 28th year). Money is still coming in and if you are curious, you can check out our rolling total at www.ocheartwalk.org.

So, there was a definite lack of sleep last week. Usually about 4 hours a night, and then on Saturday I got to bed at 1:30am and had to get up at 3am to go finish setting up for everything to start at 7am.

Involved in all this lack of sleep are some pretty funny stories. I think my mental capacity was severely threatened because of the extended lack of sleep and the many details that I had to keep in my head for the event.

One morning, I was freaking out and getting ready for work at about 5am (some early mornings!) and I couldn't find my bra. I looked for it for about 10 minutes before I realized that I was actually wearing it.

That's not all...

We had an employee in the office who had her birthday coming up. I pretty much talked to her about it every day. When the office card came to me to sign, I filled up almost half of one side of the card with a really funny and personal message. The problem? I wrote my Happy Birthday message to the person in charge of getting the card, NOT the person who would be receiving it. Yes, we did need to buy a new card.

There is another great story about me on Saturday and the office alarm system, but I will save that for another day when I have caught up on more sleep. Definitely some seriously good times!

It is good to be coming back into the land of the living. I will definitely post pictures of the walk as soon as I get some.