Sunday, January 31, 2010

SuNDay BLooDy SuNDay, PaRT IV, JaN. 31

ADDED: IF YOU DID DONATE BUT HAVE NOT SEEN YOUR PHOTO/INFO UP YET, PLEASE READ THE COMMENT SECTION FOR INFO/INSTRUCTIONS. I'M HAVING EMAIL PROBLEMS. THANKS --

In an unexpected and very disappointing turn of events, I have no entrants for this week for the MaNiC MoMMy Virtual Blog for Blood Drive. I know a few of you tried to donate this week, but because of low blood pressure or your local blood center being closed at your arrival, you were unable to donate, and I thank you so much for you attempts.

It makes me sad that my efforts are not working this year. IF you do find that you have time to donate to the cause, the blood drive will run through the end of February and I am still giving away a Southwest ticket to one grand prize winner, gift cards to Target and Starbucks, and also a Suave beauty basket with their latest line of products.

For all the details on how you can donate blood which will help save three people in need, and also be a gift to their whole family, please go here: Got Blood? And if you can't donate, please share the link on your own blog or tweet about it - the more people who know about it, the more people who might donate. Thanks so much!

PeaCe uP!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

SuNDaY BLooDY SuNDaY, PaRT III, JaN. 24

Well, the donors have been coming in slowly but surely this month. What is it folks!? Is it too cold to go out and roll up your sleeves for a very great cause? With the tragedy in Haiti, and people here close to home in need of blood, what's a mere hour out of your day stopping you from donating blood? If this is the first time you're stopping by, and you have no idea what I'm talking about, hop on over to Got Blood for all the details on the 3rd Annual Virtual MaNic MoMMy Blog for Blood Drive!

This is our third week of donors and I want to give a special shout out to some of you who can't donate but are doing what you can to help spread the word about the drive:

A special thanks to Shelley at I Miss My Sanity. Although she can't donate she helped spread the word by blogging about the blood drive! Stop by and see what her blog is all about and send a big heartfelt thanks!

And on Kids In the City, Melissa Chapman shared the info with her readers too! Thanks to you gals for telling your readers about the blood drive! I truly appreciate your efforts to help spread the word!

Here's my good friend Jackie. I am pretty sure this is her second year donating in the drive. We went over to Heartland on Wednesday and she took one for the team! Thanks so much Jackie! Of course we then had to go out to lunch after cuz donating blood makes ya hungry, and taking a picture of a friend donating makes ya hungry too.


Next up we have the donor duo!

If you haven't already heard by now, crazy chicks Melisa with one S. (Yes, THAT Melisa!-my Original Blog-Stalker!) and Weaselmomma teamed up and we all went over to Heartland on Friday after I got to be a part of their live chat show Suburban Wow! on Friday. And the whole day was a blast with Melisa and Barb.

The two were first mistaken for "partners" (and I'm not talking "lab"), and then they decided to race to see who could "GET ER DONE" in the "bag-o-blood-fill-er-up-fastest" competition. (There's a timer on the blood drawing machine). I was rooting for Melisa (sorry Weasel - I shoulda known!), but Weasel beat her by SIX SECONDS!


Anyway, to hear it like THEY like to tell it, check out the day's events according to Melisa and Weaselmomma HERE: Blood, Weasel Style, and Blood, Melisa Style.

Thanks to Barb and Melisa for a great day Friday. Thanks also to the great crew at Heartland for always making donating blood so much fun! Elka, Gloria, Udho, Tami and the rest of you guys are awesome!





Also, on a personal note, a very, very dear friend has undergone some major unexpected heart surgeries this past week, and I don't know how many pints of blood was used during these surgeries to save her life, but she did almost die. To those of you who donate, thank you so very much. And for those of you who pray, and have some extra space in your hearts to pray more, please keep her in your hearts so that her heart can continue to heal. She has a long, long road ahead, and it's because of a miracle and the grace of God that she is alive right now.

Please consider donating.

Got Blood? I know you do.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Me, a SPeCiaL GueST oN SuBuRBaN WoW!!!

UPDATED:
Thanks so very much to Melisa and Barb for allowing me to be their special guest on SuburbanWoW today! It was so much fun! Please, if you can spare a pint of your blood, take an hour out of your day to donate some blood!

Here's the show:

Watch live streaming video from suburbanwow at livestream.com


Nothing like waiting til the last minute to break out some very exciting news but there's been a little bit of drama in my own suburban bubble that I won't go into detail here, but tomorrow, I'm going to be a special guest on SUBURBAN WOW!, which is an interactive chat show, livestreaming from the Chicago suburbs directly to your computer monitor (and yes, I stole that phrase directly from their website since I'm so clueless when it comes to computer logistics!)

Good news is that you don't have to live in Chicago to view the show! All the details can be found at SUBURBAN WOW!, so jump on over to check out how you can see me chattin' it up with the awesome Melisa with one S at Suburban Scrawl, who just happened to be my very first official live stalker, and also generous giver of tiaras, and Mrs. Weaselmomma, blogger wonder and beer drinker, also close pal to Greta-I-never-know-how-to-say/spell-her-last-name!

We'll be talking about the fun stuff they always talk about and then I'll chime in when they kick me under the table to tell you about the blood drive that I so desperately want you to roll up your sleeves for. Okay? Okay. Good. And after, I'm taking them to the vampires and they'll take one for the MaNiC MoMMy team and get stabbed for me! Sounds fun right? Come on and join in! Check it out! There'll be lots of laughs and fun, and maybe I'll practice drawing their blood while I'm there!

Live stream address: http://www.livestream.com/suburbanwow. For all the fun details about tomorrow's interactive chat, go to SUBURBAN WOW! right NOW!

Monday, January 18, 2010

SHoeS




What's the first thing that comes to mind when you see these shoes? Leave your comment here.

Then, don't forget to go Got Blood? to read all about the Virtual Blood Drive where you can donate a pint of blood and win great prizes, including a Southwest Airline ticket, gift cards and more! You'll save lives and MAKE A DIFFERENCE! Now, what do you think of those shoes in the photo?

Sunday, January 17, 2010

SuNDaY BLooDy SuNDaY, PaRT II, JaN. 17

Here's our next batch of amazing blood donors, and you could be next! All you have to do is find your local blood center, and you can do that by checking out the American Red Cross at RedCrossBlood. For all the details on the MaNiC MoMMy Virtual Blog for Blood Drive, check out Got Blood?





Here we have the awesome Mrs. 4444, who I had the pleasure of getting to know a bit at BlogHer this past summer. Interestingly, she had already written about donating blood before she knew about the MM drive, and was planning a blood drive of her own where she got her own friends and family to donate blood instead of giving her birthday gifts. Our amazing pal, Melisa with One S, who is an alum donor of the MaNiC MoMMy Blood Drive told Mrs. 4444 that I was just kicking off the 3rd annual event, so Mrs. 4444 jumped in!

Here's her experience: When Being Negative is Positive. Stop on by and tell her thanks for saving lives!



Hello Ms. Incredible Susan Hines! Susan got stabbed on Wednesday! I met Susan through Twitter! Read her truly amazing story about getting transfusions and then paying it forward here: ShinesSite. Thank you so much Susan, and I'm so glad that she's OK, and that she's now able to help others in need!




GINA
This is my beautiful friend Gina who donated this year and also last year. Sometimes her iron is low so now to make sure she's got good iron before she donates, she eats a whole can of black beans the night before she donated blood. Hmmm. Do you have any idea what a whole can of black beans would do to ME? Yeah. But not Gina. She is all lady, all of the time. How on earth can she handle bein' friends with me? I do not know! Thanks Gina, for tappin' that vein for us! You look great doing it!





MaNiC MoMMy's MoMMy

Hello to my mommy! She donates for me every year! But my dad is too chicken. He passes out, but not my mom! However, she has to send me a real life photo and I take a picture of that to upload onto the computer cuz she's not too sure how to do that kinda stuff yet. Thanks Mommy! But I did razz her a bit because in this photo, I can't see the tubes and BLOOD and all that stuff, and when you send in YOUR photos, I do want to see that, if possible, OK guys? But it's not a deal breaker if you don't have a full-on bloody photo, just do your best. Thanks to my mom, who will be visiting very soon, and we all can't wait! 1-4-3 Mommy!

So that's it for this week! Would LOVE to double the amount of donors for next week! Are you up for the challenge? I am offering a roundtrip ticket on Southwest Airlines to a grandprize winner and other great prizes for your efforts here! Please consider donating an hour of your time and a pint of your blood to save three lives! All the details are right here at Got Blood?

Sunday, January 10, 2010

SuNDaY BLooDy SuNDaY, PaRT I

Hey everybody, it's the first installment of MaNiC MoMMy'S Virtual Blog for Blood SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY where I'll be featuring the awesome blood donors every week! Since this is the first official week of the blood drive, it's a little slow, but let's help spread the word! We do have two awesome donors who stepped it up this week to offer up a pint of their lifesaving blood!

The first donor is Royal! Yes, Royal is his first name, and he's a fellow blogger, and I like to call him Royale with Cheese, like from Pulp Fiction, cuz that's just what Royal reminds me of! He wasn't feeling all that great this week but when he felt well enough, he went and gave his pint! In my book, he's quite royal for giving blood and kicking off the blood drive! Thanks very much and also for sharing the info on your blog, http://www.afewfriesshort.com/

And our second donor is someone near and dear to my heart, Mr. Manic. Of course, I had to drag his ass to the blood center, kicking and screaming, but I got him to give his pint, and looky here, as you can tell, he didn't want to do it at all. I'm sorry honey, that I dragged you to donate and that it was so difficult for you, but you did a great job, and thanks for taking one for the team!*

You can still donate to this awesome blood drive! Take your photo in the blood chair like these guys here and email it to manicmommy@comcast.net along with your name, email, city and state and a little info on why you donated. There will be fun prizes at the end of the drive, which runs through Feb, including gift cards AND a Southwest airlines ticket for one grand prize winner! All the details can be found at http://www.tinyurl.com/gotblood

Please help spread the news on your own blog, Facebook and on Twitter!

P.S. Mrs. 4444 -- Where are YOU?!!?
*He really didn't mind and flirted with all the women there and even the guy taking his blood.

Friday, January 08, 2010

uNHiNGeD

This is how I'll feel if you won't donate a pint for MaNiC MoMMy's Virtual Blog for Blood Drive!

Unhinged
Thanks to Rick at Organized Doodles for suggesting this might be someone I could relate to, and for allowing me to Copy & Share, if I Dare! Check out his awesome doodles at his blog, organizeddoodles, and while you're there, tell him to DONATE SOME BLOOD TOO! And by the way, WHERE'S YOUR PINT!

Don't make me come UNHINGED!!! GIMME A PINT OF BLOOD! PLEASE! All the details are HERE!

Monday, January 04, 2010

iN THiS BeD

In this bed I have lain for almost a decade.

I have not made any babies in it, maybe one, but probably not, as the third child was probably procreated on a family room floor, or a couch, far away from the cries of the smaller children, in a moment of hurriedness where I said, “Strictly clinical! Baby-making sex only!”

This bed has held sick childen.

It has nursed hangovers.

If only I could count the hours in which I have slept.

It has lumps. It is uncomfortable. I wonder if I have spent more hours in it than out of it in the past ten years? Probably so.

Today, we put this bed out to pastures. For a new one.

I wish I wrote this when I first thought of writing this. When I first woke from the bed I was sleeping in, when it was fresh in my mind, what I wanted to say about the bed I had slept in for so long. This companion of mine who will be mine no longer. It departs today. For a new lover comes.

My Westin Heavenly Bed.

Complete with 12-3/4 pillow-top. Oh how I will roll around in it. How I will luxuriate in its pillowiness. Is that even a word? I say it is! I am afraid to share the new bed with my family. I guess I will have to share the new bed with my husband right?

The old bed came along about the same time as my daughter. I spent 11 long overdue pregnant days with Tukey laying in that bed, waiting for something to happen, for a contraction, for water to break, for that baby to come.

Nothing. For 11 days. I lay there. Convinced that baby would never come. I remember the one day I didn’t leave that bed at all except for the one time I went downstairs and ate 3 or 4 Dunkin Donuts, then trudged back up to that horrid (not so horrid back then as it was new) bed, and got in.

I stayed there the whole day. Waiting for a baby to come. I stayed there and read. Probably cried. But mostly waited and slept. Waited for a baby who was 11 days late to get out of my belly.

Then, after that baby came, nine days after, I was back in that bed. Again. Crying. Crying about buildings that had crashed. Airplanes that had shattered the glass and steel, the world, that day. I lay in that same bed again. Crying. Holding that baby. In that bed. Wondering what the purpose would be to ever get out of that bed. Why bring a child into a terrible world like this, I had wondered.

And since then. That bed. That bed has nursed children to health. Has held crying babies. Has cuddled and nurtured and snuggled and tended when nightmares have been so bad there’s just no sense of sending them back to their own rooms now is there? When it makes more sense for someone else, someone much bigger and less scared to go sleep in another bed just this once, because this one tiny little child might just need this comfort tonight.

This bed has done that for these children.

So, while it is lumpy and crappy and there has been nightmares and sleepless nights, there have been memories and a safe haven in that bed that we are sending out.

There have been dreams and chats and laughter. There have been tears and quiet fights and lovemaking, sometimes loud, mostly quiet, oftentimes silly, because it’s us, and we’re silly and we laugh, and this is our life and it’s our bed, and we’ve made it and we’ve lied in it, oh, no we haven’t … we’ve never lied in it, but we have laid in it. We don’t lie in our bed. We tell the truth in our bed.

And, our new bed will arrive today, and I’m going to embrace it like I’ve never embraced a piece of furniture, and I’m going to love it like a dog lover loves a new pet, and I’m going to care for it like a florist cares for its peonies, and I’m going to treat it like I want it to treat me!

With respect and kindness and goodness! No jumping on this new bed please! No wrinkling of the new sheets please! Do not sit on the comforter the wrong way please! Shower before going to bed please!

We will make new plans in this bed; we will continue to raise our family from the foot of this bed. This bed will be the cornerstone to the future of what is to come. Yes, no babies will be made here, but dreams will be hatched.

Oh yes, dreams will be hatched!

Friday, January 01, 2010

GoT BLooD? iT'S THaT TiMe aGaiN!!


Welcome to the New Year, New Decade and the Third Annual MaNiC MoMMy'S Virtual Blog for Blood Drive Challenge! I can't believe this is the third year of the blood drive and I wasn't sure if I was going to do it again, but something pulled at me and here I am! Thank YOU for taking the time to consider participating! I ended 2009 by donating my pint yesterday, and I've been bulking up on the iron and came in at 15.4 for my iron count! That's like a MAN's iron count! Been eating a ton of red meat lately now that I'm not eating SUGAR or Diet Coke any more!

If you're new to this, thanks for stopping by, and here's a quick explanation: In 2008, I had a carload of 6 kids and drove past a Heartland Blood Center and decided to stop in to see if I could donate on a whim. With SIX KIDS in the car. We all went in, I donated, and it was SO EASY! I blogged about it, then thought, if that was so easy, why isn't it this easy for everyone else to do it?

Then I thought to make it fun, I'd put some money into it, and give away prizes. Some other awesome bloggers came forward, donated their time and money toward prizes. The next year, a company donated a trip to Florida, and we had even more great people give up a pint of their blood for the cause.

ONE PINT OF YOUR BLOOD WILL SAVE THREE PEOPLE. Some of you have a blood type that can save up to FIVE BABIES. But my mom said it best. Your blood saves more than just three people or five babies. It saves their whole FAMILIES.

To participate in MaNiC MoMMy'S Virtual BLog for Blood Drive, all you have to do is head to your local blood bank and donate a pint of blood from now through February 28. (Make sure you've eaten enough iron-rich foods and have had breakfast and that you drink water before you go.) Have someone there take your photo WHILE YOU ARE DONATING BLOOD and email it to me, along with your name, email, and city and state. Tell me what motivated you to donate. Every Sunday I post the photos calling it SUNDAY BLOODY SUNDAY.

Email photos to: manicmommy@comcast.net.

At the end of the drive, we'll have great prizes to give away, some of them yet to be determined, but I am ponying up like every year, $3 per EVERY DONOR of my own cash toward prizes ($1 per every life saved - up to a total amount determined by me).

A grand prize will be a ROUNDTRIP SOUTHWEST AIRLINE TICKET for one random winner so if you're looking to head somewhere warm, and if you've got a pint of blood just flowing in your veins that YOU DON'T NEED that maybe someone else COULD USE TO LIVE, you might consider giving it away!

I'm trying, desperately, to entice Ellen Degeneres to give a pint to the cause on her show - wouldn't THAT be fabulous? Or maybe SHE would let a winner come visit HER in California? I've been emailing and tweeting her trying to get her to notice my blood drive efforts, but I know she gets thousands of requests every day, but just as she wanted to be on the cover of Oprah magazine, she didn't quit, so I'm not going to quit bugging her on my quest to get her to at least give me a pint of blood. In fact, wouldn't she look GREAT donating a pint of blood?


All you have to do is donate a pint of blood and have your photo taken. If the staff says you can't get your photo taken in the chair, that's NOT true. See all the people who have had their photos taken: Last Year's Donors! Don't they all look awesome--and they're ALL full of SMILES!

SHOW the staff the photos from the above link! If they still won't let you take a picture, give your pint, and take your picture outside the establishment and take a picture of your "Be nice to me, I donated" sticker, or a picture of your paperwork you fill out, or your bandaged arm. Photos will be considered at my discretion, and I do prefer the photo of you in the chair, but if they're being sticklers about it, do what you can!

Remember to EMAIL your name, email address so I can contact you, city, state, and what motivated you to donate to: manicmommy@comcast.net. Photos will be posted every Sunday!

If you would like to consider sponsoring part of the drive, or donating a prize, those opportunities are also available as well, just email me! Any gift at all is welcome and appreciated! But most of all, the gift of your pint of blood is what we want most!

Thank you very much and if you have any questions about anything I might not have covered here, please leave them in the comment section! Below is a photo of some of the awesome staff at Heartland Blood Center in Naperville, Illinois! Thanks Tammy & Chez! And we'll be seeing the other Tammy and Gloria soon when I bring Mr. Manic in for blood later this week!

How about it, Got a pint to spare? It's a great way to start off the New Year! Happy 2010!