A dog's breakfast of a post wherein I just throw it all out there.

Wednesday morning, it dawned on me that I still had approximately 12,000 details to take care of before my big fundraiser this weekend. I basically called off work and went to get a little mermaid help before embarking on some serious List-Making Action. So! MANY! THINGS! The list got very long, and I went home determined to cross some stuff off.

I set up an Excel spreadsheet for everyone entered with their e-mail addresses, what days they were entered, dog's names, how much money I had received from them, etc. I have 27 dogs entered on Saturday and 28 on Sunday and have received a little over $400 in entry fees. A few more people might enter on the day of the run.

After that was done, I turned my attention to the raffle scene. I am having TWO different raffles: one is a 50/50 raffle, and the other is a traditional "Ooh, neat shiny gift certificates and stuff!" raffle. I needed two different colors of tickets and found this handy raffle kit at OfficeMax. (Seriously, a raffle kit? Who knew such a thing existed?)

It has two ticket rolls inside and a little box with a slot in the top where you can put the tickets in!

And there's even a little cardboard thingie you stick in the top to show people what the heck the slot is for! The finished (partial) product:

The day got away from me, and soon it was time to finally meet the mysterious Kim and take a Pilates class from her Wednesday night. Much to everyone's delight, class was not canceled! I asked if I could take her picture for the blog, and she let me, though she thought it was kind of weird. But luckily for her, it didn't turn out very well, so I'm not going to post it.

Kim was great and I liked the class a lot. I was expecting slower movements, with more emphasis on control and good position, but the hour flew by because I was simply so busy doing stuff. If I hadn't done the Pilates video a few times prior to this class, I would have had a much harder time keeping up with the moves.

At the end of the class, she said to the whole room (though I felt it was very much meant for me, the newbie), "Make sure you drink plenty of water tonight. It'll cut down on the soreness tomorrow."

After class, I went over to Steve and Betsy's to do (what else?) more fundraising prep. We printed out TNT and LLS logos to put on a coffee can (oops, no picture, sorry) and cut a slit in the lid. The coffee can will be for random cash that people might feel like throwing in there. I'm going to encourage people to make bets with each other. :-) Then we (well, 99% Steve and 1% me) built a double jump, which I also don't have a picture of yet because I stupidly forgot to bring my camera. You'll see it later, though, never fear. It's PURPLE. It is truly awesome.

And then it was 11 PM and I realized there was going to be no blog entry. I fell into bed at midnight.

This morning, I decided to run my four miles outside, as I told you earlier. Boy, was THAT a mistake. You know those old Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny cartoons where the hero's getting chased by something, passes a huge fan, and whips it around to blow on their pursuer, and the pursuer is literally blown away? Yeah, it was kind of like that. From mile 2.5 to about mile 3.5, I swear I had a 15-20 mph wind whacking me right in the face. What really ticked me off was when it changed direction after I turned a corner so it could harass me some more. And I was running too fast, but it was COLD and I wanted to get warm, and my heart rate went too high, and it felt pretty lousy (no surprise given my lack of sleep) -- just one of those bad runs you try and get through while wondering if you'd be better off cutting it short. Despite all that, I ran 4 miles in 43:45 for a 10:56 pace.

This afternoon, I went out to get the last of the supplies I'll need for my fundraiser. The outing included a trip to the LLS office to pick up banners for the front of my raffle tables. I bought plastic purple tablecloths to go with them.

Tonight was more frantic work on details for this weekend. Stress makes for an exceptionally messy desk (I was working on the yellow sheets here):
I also made little certificates for the "cool stuff" raffle prizes that I can just tape to the raffle table. They're in page protectors so they don't get messed up.

The box at the left corner of the picture is the "Throw everything in that you want to be sure and take with you" box. It's getting pretty full.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to run SIX MILES! After today's wind debacle, there's no way I'm doing it outside. Six miles on the track is, um, 38.4 laps. I'd better make sure I have my lap counter with me!