Schoene Blumen

My mother-in-law called today to thank us for the flowers. Unfortunately, we didn't send her any flowers. You can read all about it in "No Sleep Makes Lori a Crabby Girl." This is a little postscript for those of you that got through that lengthy post: Both Fredi's mom and his godmother got these flowers (pictured above).

I'm not sure yet whether we paid for two bouquets. We weren't planning on it. After all, the whole reason we used the Swiss flowers site at all was because we wanted to save some money. Fredi's mom, Ruth, was a bit confused because the flowers came to her in my name at their address.

Ruth doesn't read or speak too much English, so she won't be able to read this, and hopefully Fredi's dad will never translate this part! Um, "this part," meaning the fact that we did not actually mean to send her any flowers. Mom, if you're reading this, we had decided not to go with flowers this year for Mother's Day. Fredi's mom got these accidentally. Doh!

In other news, I went to a gym today that didn't have towel service, which made me realize I'm a spoiled Manhattanite. I took a shower anyway after my workout because we were on the way to a birthday barbecue, and I tend to get sweaty in the gym. I used a blow dryer on my hair and body and stole a roll of paper towels out of a cleaning closet to blot myself dry. Worked so well I think this will be my new method for post-workout washing.

Ciao ciao for now.

Get Your Pink Wings Here!

Melanie, Me, Sedona, Nanette & Courtney

In 2002 when I was going through chemotherapy, I ordered a few small items from a web site called gardenpaper.com. To my surprise, when my order arrived, a check was enclosed for the Race for the Cure, a check in an even greater amount than my order!

Melanie, the owner of Garden Paper, had gone on my web site truelori.com, and she read my story. At the time I was raising money for the NYC Race for the Cure, and Melanie wanted to make a donation towards my fundraising. I was immensely touched by this gesture, and by the heart behind the people at gardenpaper.com. I didn't realize at the time that there were no Garden Paper "people," because Melanie runs it all herself. And I didn't know that Melanie, too, had a story. Her sister Courtney is a two-time survivor of breast cancer, and together they have been fighting breast cancer one order at a time. Courtney is the owner of pinkwings.com.

I never forgot Melanie's gesture and I continued to order little things from the web site from time to time. Finally in February at the Young Survivors Conference in Philadelphia I got to meet Melanie, who remembered me (!), her sister Courtney and their friend Nanette.

Melanie and Courtney give back ten percent of their web site sales to breast cancer walks and organizations, and for special events they give back 20 percent. Best of all, their merchandise is SUPER CUTE and they have designed most of it themselves. My favorite are the pink wings angel pins from Courtney and the new I Care design from Melanie.

A few weeks ago Melanie e-mailed and told me they would be in New York at the Revlon Run/Walk For Women. She was looking for volunteers to help out at their booth. I was excited to help them out, and my relative lack of sleep this past week didn't deter me from getting up this morning, hopping on the Metro-North train and meeting them in Central Park.

I met Melanie, Courtney, Nanette and Courtney's daughter, Sedona, in the park around 9:30 a.m. They'd been there since before 7 a.m. and awake well before that! I had a blast helping them out, but unfortunately it was a pretty darn depressing, rainy, muddy day and although we did a brisk business at times, sales were down because of the weather. Hopefully they made enough so they'll be able to come back next year! In the meantime check out their web sites (listed in the links at the right of my blog) because you might just have to have some of these adorable breast cancer awareness items for you and your friends. The girls generously sent me home with some sweet gifts from their stock, but I'm sure I'll be ordering again soon!

One of my favorite parts of the day was watching husbands with their wives, mothers with daughters, groups of friends, people who walked through mud and on crutches to get to our booth, and seeing how much they want to do something for the battle against cancer and for their loved ones with cancer. And knowing there is only so much they can do and only so many ways they can be there, they showered them lovingly with gifts.

And now for some sleep ....