October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Yes, it's true...I am a dog with a bone.  Your regularly scheduled "green" environmental educator has turned true and total "pink" since my 3 Day Walk experience.  I've got pink and breast cancer awareness on the brain. 


But, figuring I'm an educator, I figure if it's all in for education (with a side dish of activism), perhaps it's all okay.


October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 

With that, here are some vital resources that will help highlight that fact, bringing greater awareness closer to hand:

❤ Lifetime Television is airing a montage movie called "Five" with 5 stories of women and their experiences with breast cancer.  Each story is directed by a different big name in Hollywood:  Jennifer Aniston, Alicia Keys, Demi Moor, Patty Jenkins, and Penelope Spheeris.  Air dates to set the DVR for:  Mon., Oct 10 at 9 p.m., Tues., Oct. 11 at 1 a.m., and Sat., Oct. 15 at 8 p.m.

 

 

❤ For a great infographic about the facts and fiction of breast cancer in the United States, check out Lifetime's link here (pictured below, but minuscule!).

❤ For tips, facts, webinars and more about Understanding Breast Cancer, go to Komen's "Understanding Breast Cancer" page.

❤ Another site filled with a bounty of information:  The National Breast Cancer Foundation.

❤ Given 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, take the time to do what you can for early detection:  get regular mammograms and do monthly self-checks. 

❤ There is a 98--100% 5-year survival rate for those who are diagnosed and treated during the earliest stages of breast cancer (numbers vary depending on the source).  Given that, early dectection is KEY!

"Five" Movie logo from http://www.eventnow.com/article/user-feature/%E2%80%9Cfive%E2%80%9D-lifetime-movie-premiere-and-after-party/6521
Breast cancer infographic from http://www.mylifetime.com/movies/five/article/breast-cancer-united-states
Video from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QKxsiRYC9Q

Still More Pink Than Green

Here, a week after participating in the Susan G. Komen 3 Day, 60 Mile Walk for a Cure for Breast Cancer, I'm still feeling more pink than green.  I am marvelling, especially as I've been going through a lot of my pictures, as to how much this accomplishment and experience have become a part of me.

In honor and memory of last Friday's opening ceremony for me & DC...and it being October 1st, the start of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.. I'm including Komen Spokeswoman Dr. Sheri Phillips and her very similar, very powerful speech from Boston's 3-Day.  View Part 1 and Part 2 here, or below:

33+ Stats, Facts, & Observations of My 3 Days Walking 60 Miles



Opening Ceremonies @ National Stadium ~ Powerful!

This past weekend, I participated in this year's Washington, DC's Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure for Breast Cancer on September 23rd, 24th, and 25th.  Here, 24 hours after being home (and  spending a lot of time relaxing & recouping & definitely napping), I'm still so filled with so many emotions from taking part in this event.  Perhaps the best way to start would be with some of my personal statistics of the experience: 



♥ 3 days

♥ 60 miles 

♥ 20 pitstops

♥ 5 of us "Green Chicks 4 Pink" teammates

Day 1 "Green Chicks 4 Pink"

♥ $11,692 our 5 "Green Chicks" raised for breast cancer

♥ 1 de facto "Green Chick" we met along the way and adopted as one of us

♥ Countless other walkers we met, shared smiles, stories, and encouragement with along the route.
♥ 100s of people along the way who cheered for us, honked to salute us, had baskets of candy for us, & sprayed cooling misty water at us  

♥ 1 pink tent in a sea of tents in a pink tent city

♥ 2 nights

♥ 1 mudfest
♥ 2 amazing dinners that were devoured lickety split quick
♥ Countless water bottles full of Gatorade and water

Tent City and our camp:  Green Tree Frogs 4 Pink.

♥ 2 pair of shoes

♥ 9 pairs of socks

♥ 4 resulting blisters

♥ Copious amounts of bandaids, "2nd skin" gel cushions, & pieces of moleskin

♥ My Day 1 steps Friday:  41,014
♥ My Day 2 steps Saturday:  51,616
♥ Day 3 steps Sunday:  40,893
♥ 3-day total pedometer count:  133,523 mind-blowing steps

♥ Numerous slap happy silly moments
♥ More than a handful of emotional teary moments

Walking the Walk!  Day 1, downtown DC.

♥ Billions of raindrops that fell on us Friday

♥ Millions of prayers gratitude that the weather was dry yet cool on Saturday and Sunday.

♥ 2500 walkers covering a lot of real estate in DC, Bethesda, Potomac, & Chevy Chase, Maryland

♥ 425 crew members encouraging us on
♥ In total, over $7 million DC walkers raised for breast cancer because "everyone deserves a lifetime."
♥ Every 69 seconds, a woman dies globally of breast cancer 

Day 2:  Downtown Bethesda, MD about 1/2 way to 60.

After taking part of this experience, this 3 Day Walk, I am changed. I am achy, blistered, and tired; yet, I am awed, inspired, proud, and changed.  Seeing women who have battled cancer and are survivors and those who are still battling cancer walking, I am humbled.

Walking alongside me, there were women much younger and much older. Women of all shapes and sizes. Women with jitters and uncertainties...yet with hearts, compassion, courage, and triumphs. Now I am one of them.  I feel honored to be in their company.

Remembrance Tents for those who passed.

I feel doubly proud of our team, "Green Chicks 4 Pink."  I feel blessed to be part of my amazing team with our roadside addition of a 6th very special member we met along the way. I am proud of the money our team has earned for this cause. I am thankful to all of our friends and family members who helped with their both their monetary and emotional support.  Without them, none of us could have had the courage and ability to go forward and do this sizable accomplishment.



Day 3: What "We Made It" Looks Like!
Green Chicks 4 Pink!

While our team walked, we found inside of us strength we may or may not know we had.  Alongside that, we discovered an inner-current of perseverance to know how hard to push forward...and river of self knowledge to know when we had to step aside and rest.  While our blisters grew, so did our capacity to love and care for each other, and humankind.

Will I do it next year?  Um, let's not go crazy with that yet!  But this cause will always be important to  me.  A question asked often: "Why do you walk?"  Among my many reasons, a major one: "I walk for my daughter...so she won't have to."



My credentials

As an environmental educator, I feel strongly about the fact that little actions we each can take can make a monumental difference. Feeling the energy of these 3 days, despite Friday's downpours and the mud squishing through my toes in our pink "Tent City" that night, I feel the re-conviction of that sentiment. Yes, individual actions make a difference.  All of our little steps led to 60 miles. Every donation dollar led to an amount over $7,000,000.  My credential badge serves as a reminder of the power of one...as do the picture and memories I will always have.

  

Day 3: Closing Ceremonies ~ We Made It!
Raising the Shoe to tribute survivors!

To learn more about breast cancer, click here to discover more stats and facts, like: 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with invasive breast cancer in their lifetime.

Click here to find out more about the Susan G. Komen 3 Day Walk for the Cure or to donate to a wonderful, important cause.

Pictures from my camera!

Things I've Learned While Walking

For the last 6 months, I've been getting ready for the 3 Day/60-mile Susan G. Komen Walk for the Cure. I'm coming up under the wire...the walk is right around the corner, this weekend: Sept 23--25th.

Am I ready?   I wish!!   I've earned my required $2300...no small feat (pun intended). My team of 5 "Green Chicks 4 Pink" has earned over the required $11,500. ($11,692... to be exact.)  Definitely no small feat!! 

Do I feel proud of that monetary fundraising goal? You better believe it.

Other emotions are surfacing as we're here, right up under the wire. It feels a little scary...a little awesome. One of my 3rd graders the other day said there's a word for that: "Scawesome!"  Yes, it's a bit "scawesome!"

In my prep (and associated shoe-conundrums and training-turmoils), I learned a lot while walking: 

Things I learned while walking:

1. $20 Shoes from Target can be your best friend...until the treads are gone.

2. Target rotates their shoes too quickly....The shoes I love and long for no longer exist. Very sad but true! (Yes, there was a moment of wanting to scream at the tops of my lungs in the Tar-ghzay shoe section!)

3. Expensive shoes can still hurt your feet, even if you do all the proper analytics to get you the "good" and "right" shoes.

4. A new pair of shoes that don't work can jack up your knees in a matter of days.  This is bad...very bad!

5. Numb toes are NOT a good thing.

6. Sometimes it takes 6 pairs of shoes to get to the right pair of shoes (or at least the "right enough" pair of shoes)....even after 3 months of perfect training in cheap Tar-ghzay shoes. (Add in, you need 2 operable pairs of shoes for THE Walk!)  I opted for the New Balance 860s  which were designed for the walk, and truly wish that I would have gone that route mid-June to avoid the quest I embarked on instead.

7. Shoes only have an odometer of 400-500 miles before you need to get a new pair.  For the price, it's sometimes mind-boggling.

8. Blisters hurt like a son-of-a-gun.  Avoid them at all costs.  When you feel that hot spot coming on, stop then and there to take care of it!

9. Walking is good therapy when someone you love is sick.

10. Walking is good therapy when someone you love goes on to heaven. (Well...sort of...is there ever good-enough therapy for that?)

11. Walking with buddies makes the time go quicker.

12. It takes a very long time to walk 10 or 20 miles. Patience most certainly becomes a virtue.

13. Fundraising is easy when the cause is good, but equally hard.   I don't like asking for money.

14. People are so incredibly generous.   I am soo incredibly thankful!

15. Doing something bigger than yourself feels good, even when the flip flops and cute sandals no longer do.

16. Cancer is an overwhelming, horrible disease that mutates into so many forms. Whether breast or bladder...I hate it.

17. Walking most certainly slows you down to make you better able to "smell the roses" and gain greater perspective. 

18. It's easier to walk in the springtime breezes or amidst the cool fall air than it is during the summer humidity.

19. Teaching in tennis shoes to save my feet for the walk is sooo against my aesthetic sensibilities, yet so necessary an evil.  So you learn to color coordinate.

20.  Having your family and friends behind you is worth its weight in gold!!

I normally have a tendency to get caught up in my work, and the hustle and bustle of all that needs to be done.  I have a feeling that during these 3 upcoming days, I'll get a grand opportunity to live in the moment. Regardless of what the weather holds.  I have a feeling the ripeness of the moment will be easily in reach.  I think it'll be a pretty phenomenal experience.

Catch you on the flip side! 
(Hopefully, the feet are functional on that side!!) 

Pic from our "Green Chicks 4 Pink" T-shirts graphics (names & logo listing for all of our team's $100+ donors), http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3651/3416001461_1e41d2ea26.jpg and 

Earth Day 2K11: Let Bay Week Begin!

 Anyone who has followed this blog over the long term knows that the week of Earth Day is a big deal at the school where I teach.

"Bay Week" is a time honored tradition here at Eagle Cove School as a way of celebrating and commemorating not only our Earth, but even closer to home:  the Chesapeake Bay.

Just as in years past, we've got a pretty progressive Bay Week Schedule here at our li'l "green" school.  And it doesn't matter that it is a mere Monday, we jump right in!

Today, author Jennifer Keats Curtis, author of Multiple children's books, joined us at ECS.  She started her morning with the PreK & Kindergarten students by sharing her latest book Saving Squeak The Otter Tale.  In the book, Squeak is a lonely, lost otter that gets found in the park by a li'l fellow named Braden.  Braden connects Squeak with a wildlife rehabilitator who eventually hooks Squeak up with a new otter Buddy, Bubbles, at the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomon's Island, Maryland.  Oohs and Ahhhs over the darling illustrations by Marcy Dunn Ramsey filled my class of 3rd graders as I read the book this morning!  I'm sure it was the same for the PreK'ers and Kindergarteners!

 

1st and 2nd graders then descended upon Jennifer Keats Curtis, where they talked about 2 conflicting animals in the Bay:  crabs and terrapins.  The 1st graders traditionally have raised terrapins here at ECS, and they release their duo out into the bay near Poplar Island, MD in the spring.  Well, an unfortunate piece of trivia was revealed this visit:  Terrapins are going into crab traps for food, getting trapped, then drowning.  So, as a group, first and 2nd graders compiled a cumulative letter about how crab traps (and crabbers) needed to enlist the help of "BYRDS:"  By-catch Reduction Devices that allow the crabs in, but keep the terrapins out.

3rd, 4th, and 5th graders visited not only with Jennifer Keats Curtis, but also with KABMan (Keep America Beautiful Man).  A tad on the snarky side, KAB Man is out to fight the nepharious "Improper Recycling Habits." 

http://www.kabman.org/

After some chuckles at watching KAB Man, we talked about the extensive reach of Anne Arundel County's Single Stream Recycling, but how that isn't a perfect system.  Our bins our heavy and without lids, which create issues, especially at our school where the Magothy River is basically at our doorstep.  Recyclable waste blows into the waterways, and animals and ocean are polluted with plastics. In fact, a statistic that Jennifer Keats Curtis shared:  1/2 of the big litter results from packaging;  51 BILLION pieces of litter on the US Roadways come from packaging!!  Additionally, 91% of packaging is from the "little stuff of trash."  This stat comes from the National Visible Litter Survey.  Armed with that info, 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders used that ammo to address the Director of Public Works and the County Counsel Executive in persuasive letters.  There's no surprise that impassioned letters followed!!
This is Monday!  No"bay grasses" are growing under our ECS feet!  Amazing things are happening, letters are being written, activists are being formed.  Not too shabby for a Monday afternoon.  Who knows what the rest of Bay Week holds!!

http://www.jenniferkeatscurtis.com/

GTG's One Year Anniversary ♫

I'm not sure when I became an activist.  However, given that fact that within the last year I've started an environmental blog & a companion GTG Facebook, I've signed up for the Susan G. Komen 3-day/60 mile walk for Breast Cancer, and I testified on behalf of Earth Hour and House Bill 223 last week at the Maryland House of Delegates, 
I think those four items right there are enough to tip the scales for "activist."

Not to mention I've been known to tote our compost bucket to the mini-golf place for my daughter's bday party or dress like Michael Recycle or in a dress of 200+ Capri Sun juice pouches for the school Halloween party.

Yup...activist it is.

Again, I'm a bit befuddled as to how or when it happened... especially given how (as a general rule) I was pretty darn apathetic in both high school and college.  Perhaps it comes with becoming an adult, a mom, or just solidifying any opinionated tendencies.  Perhaps it's a mere offshoot of "every little action, when combined, culminates into a lot of action."  Everything does indeed add up to make a big difference. 

No matter when it happened, it has seemed to make life a little more exciting, a little more meaningful, and a lot more informed.  Hopefully my sharing of environmental tidbits has done a little bit of all of that for you too.

One year, and it's  "♪ Happy ♫ Anniversary ♫  to ♪ GTG  ♫ ♪ ♫."  It all started the weekend of February 20th, 2010, with the first official blog entry on Feb 26th.  Thanks for everyone along the way who has been there!

Images:  GTG logo; and cake pic from www.ihartcupcakes.com .

Green Chicks 4 Pink

One of my favorite quotes is from Dewitt Jones, National Geographic Magazine freelance photographer, speaker, and author of a number of books on leadership and creativity:

"Take yourself to your own edge."

Today I did just that:  I stepped (or perhaps dove head first) outside my comfort zone, and perhaps right over my own edge!

But I think my pedometer shall be pleased, as I embark upon my new adventure.  I have joined a team of outdoorsy gals who have decided to find their own edges for the sake of a worthy cause.  It's official ~ we've signed up as "Green Chicks 4 Pink" to take part in Washington, DC's "Susan G. Komen 3 Day Walk for the Cure" for Breast Cancer.  Come this September 23rd to the 25th, we'll be donning our pink shirts, our walking shoes, our pedometers, and hopefully our padded donation envelopes to tackle the 60 miles trek to work to eradicate breast cancer.  

 

 Funny.. it is either the 7 months to the event or my own naivety, I'm not so worried about the walking itself.  I have decent endurance, and I'm not running (oh, the horrors that would be!).  My hope is that hefty training (and a lot of willpower) will help with that as well...not to mention helping to shed a pound or two.

It's the $2300 funds that I need to raise in order to participate that leave me feeling a tad daunted.  However, a former teacher friend of mine told me it was kind of like "Field of Dreams," in that it was one of the best experiences that she's ever had, DO IT, and everything else will fall into place.  

It's at that place where you start to leap.  And with gung-ho partners in crime, how can you help but  do anything other than leap?

Here's a powerful video speaking vividly of Breast Cancer Awareness that I placed on my fundraising webpage:  http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/2011/WashingtonDCEvent2011?px=5774986&pg=personal&fr_id=1623

Video from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QKxsiRYC9Q

Stay tuned periodically while I'm leaping over here with my "Green Chicks 4 Pink." I see it as my own personal quest and invitation for outdoor education!  (Perhaps it should be Richard Louv's sequel:  "No Moms Left Inside.")  I'll keep you posted...and with any luck, have pictures galore from my September adventure for a very important cause.

In the meantime, keep this quote in mind:

"Approximately 1 in 7 American women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime, and more than 2 million Americans are living with breast cancer today."  

~ Sheryl Crow, singer, songwriter, environmentalist, breast cancer survivor

Pink ribbon image from http://www.thedarkersideofpink.org/.

Pink pedometer image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/knit_anon_k/1543419232/.