T-shirts for One and All

Before last year’s race, I fell in love with the idea of a t-shirt to help promote galactosemia awareness. Unfortunately, I left it until the very last minute and ended up ordering a single printed t-shirt from an online company and let’s just say the quality left something to be desired. So this year, I decided to get an early start and plan on having several printed for friends, families, and supporters.

Thanks to a recommendation from my lovely friend Erin, I contacted Artistic Imprints in Camp Hill (who prints the shirts for her family’s nonprofit, Running for Rachel). The quality of those shirts is excellent, so it was really a no-brainer!

After working with them on the design and pricing, we have the final product (pictured below) ready to go!

Logo design: Shauna Powers T-Shirts: Artistic Imprints

Logo design: Shauna Powers
T-Shirts: Artistic Imprints

For anyone interested, the shirt alone is just $20 BUT if you are kind enough to donate $50 or more to our Team CHOP campaign for galactosemia research, we will send you a shirt for FREE! We have quite a way to go on the campaign and every little bit helps.

Please contact either John or myself through the website, email, phone, or social media with your sizes or we’ll be in touch if you make a donation through CHOP (please just make sure your name is visible to us on the back end).

Orders due by August 31, 2017. Thank you as always for your love and support!

xoxo

13 Weeks to 13.1

Thirteen weeks might sound like quite a bit of time to train for a half marathon, but with the added challenge of simultaneously trying to raise money for galactosemia research, we figured we could use all of the extra time we can afford.

First *official* long run of training was yesterday (July 16, 2017)

First *official* long run of training was yesterday (July 16, 2017)

In an effort to raise awareness and dedicated galactosemia research funds for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, I have again signed up for a half marathon and we are asking for the support of our friends and family as part of Team CHOP. We have more than doubled our goal from 2016 and are aiming to raise $2,500 in 2017!

This year, I will be running the Hershey Half Marathon on Oct. 15. If you are able to contribute to this cause so near and dear to our hearts, we would be forever grateful. Whether you are looking for a use for the spare change in your couch cushions or you have a larger amount in mind, no donation is too small! Every little bit will help propel us over the goal line and we know we will not be able to get there without all of your love and support.

Please visit our donor page HERE or click on the “Make a Donation” on the right side of this page.

Check back here for updates on my training progress (spoiler alert: the key to my success is a lot of four-letter words) and for updates on fundraising progress. If you have any questions at all, please let us know!

A Thousand Times, Thank You

Today seems like the most appropriate opportunity to express our undying gratitude to everyone who contributed to our Team CHOP fundraiser for galactosemia research. Thanks to all of you, we exceeded our $1,000 goal! I cannot think of a better way to honor Oliver’s first birthday than by raising this money.

I have a secret to share with all of you: I am terrible at asking for help in my personal life. Even if I am truly in need of rescuing, I tend to feel burdensome and vulnerable (two things I have a really difficult time with). Most of the time, I would rather just carry the burden of whatever I am facing by myself, or by leaning on John. I think it stems from a fear of rejection or a fear of appearing weak to others (I suppose that’s for me and my therapist to sort out though).

By way of example, John and I had decided to board our dogs at their favorite kennel starting the day before my due date last year and had expected to pick them up some time the following week, in hopes that Oliver would make his debut and we would have a little time to get settled in with our newest addition before adding two wild beasts to the mix. A week tops, we thought. But Ollie came a couple of days later than expected and then we found ourselves in Philadelphia so we needed to extend their stay. We knew they wouldn’t mind since they consider it a home-away-from-home and more akin to doggy paradise than a kennel. But I knew they would be running low on food very soon and we didn’t know when we’d be back in town to drop some off. I agonized over what to do and finally, despite my feelings on the matter, we asked our very dear, sweet friends, Erin and Ethan*, if they would mind dropping some by. I am pretty certain my text to Erin contained repetitions of the phrases “I’m so sorry to bother you” and “I promise I’ll reimburse you for the food as soon as I can” and “If you can’t, I totally understand.” Did I mention how bad I am at asking for help?

Anyway, this is just my long-winded way of telling you all that it was not and is not easy for John and I to ask for your help in our cause but we are so very glad we did. We still cannot believe how amazingly generous and thoughtful each of you has been! I do not know if I could say thank you enough times to adequately cover just how thankful we are, but I promise I’ll spend my lifetime trying to!

Most of all, we are just so grateful to have ALL of you in our lives. To know that Oliver has a tribe of such amazing people in his corner is more than we could ever ask for. It warms our hearts to no end. You are all kind, loving, wonderful people! Thank you, thank you, thank you! A thousand times, thank you.

Happy Thanksgiving and thank you for giving the Lucy family that more much to be thankful for this year!

*Just a little note about our friends, Erin and Ethan: they are two of the most giving, kind and loving people we could ask to have in our lives. A blessing, truly. And I feel 100 percent confident in saying our hesitation in asking for help had nothing to do with us thinking they would be unwilling to help us out  and everything to do with our own neuroses 🙂