I am so happy to announce that TEAM CHRISTINE raised $10,945 for the Lupus Walk!!!! Thank you everyone for your donations and support! As, of now we are the top fundraising team for this walk as we have been for many years. What a great legacy and tradition. We still have some checks comin in– so hopefully we can reach for that $11,000 goal. If not, we are SO proud of how much we raised and our continued positive spirit as a team. We couldn’t do it without all of your support and donations!!

You can still donate here: http://www.firstgiving.com/cdonato

Sometimes when it rains, you need to make rainbows!

Unfortunatly, yesterday was a downpour in NY! We worried all week what we were going to do, and hoped the storm would shift. It didn’t stop raining. I was just getting over a cold… and as we all know I have lupus. I didn’t want to chance getting sick. It was hard to make the “smart and safe” call to not walk since my family has been walking in this event for 15 years. It is hard to be an adult sometimes. So last minute, right before the walk we quickly made phone calls and decided to have an impromptu “Happy Lupus Walk Day” party. We had over 30 people on our team, so we had to make calls, ask other people to make calls, we texted and emailed everyone. Frank I quickly cleaned the house, pulled together some brunch ideas, and the party began at 10am. That is the same time the walk would have started for us. The walk actually did still go on, rain or shine in the park.

Before we knew it, family and friends filled our house despite the rain. Everyone who came brought something for the brunch. I went from thinking noone would come out in the rain… to having close to 30 people in our house. I worried all morning about having enough food, and we had more then enough since everyone helped. At one point I looked around the room and took a moment to “breath in the love”. We were laughing, chatting, eating and even dancing silly with my daughter. It looked like a party, and it was. We always use the lupus walk to celebrate another year of me living a good life with and despite lupus.
This year was an extra special year for me, since last year I was completly bald and very weak, due to lupus and harsh medications. I look at pictures from a year ago, and I don’t even recognize myself. I am happy, filled with love and hope, and healthy. Now that is something to celebrate!

Since we didn’t walk at the park in the rain, I made everyone put on the walk t shirts and we walked around the kitchen and living room! Instead of laughing at me, or saying “no” everyone did it. They marched in a parade formation and had fun. Sometimes it is good to be silly and make the best of a rainy day. This will make a great memory for this year’s walk.

This year we even had 5 “virtual spoonie walkers”. These were people who know me from bydls.com and lived too far away to come and walk with us, but still wanted to be involved and help. They signed up online, made a free fundraising page and contacted their friends and family to donate. What a cool idea! What made it even better was that it broadened our reach to not only let more people know about lupus, but to gain possible donations from new and different people.

I can’t thank you all enough for helping make another Lupus walk year a huge sucess.

Remember, sometimes when it rains, you need to make rainbows!!

Thank you!

-Christine

butyoudontlooksick.com 2009