Colors of Today :)

Today was quite the colorful day. After all of the ruckus from yesterday, it was a nice change of pace [and a welcomed surprise] to see some bright pops of orange and yellow, complete with the simple but elegant grass decorations which I'm totally hacking.... :) Plus, Nancy brought in some itty bitty onesie kimonos that she still has as part of her online shop inventory. It kiiiind of made me want to have a small human again to wiggle into this thing for the sake of pure cute overload. We shall see....

flowers from diana (:

baby kimonos. cuteness.over.load.

Work ended in its usual fashion; I headed straight for Fairview Heights to grab Sydni and stop at Target before our evening dwell at the Relay for Life Wrap-Up Celebration potluck. It was wonderful to see some of those familiar faces again, but more importantly a great night of recognition for the ACS and Team Towerview!! We officially get to trade in our Silver Level fundraising sign for Gold Level, because we have, at this point, surpassed the $5000 mark. NOT a bad way to kick off our first year of participation in Relay! (:

relay for life wrap-up!

Oh, and we [Team Towerview] earned the award for the Heaviest RFL Fundraiser [aka, the TIRE!] for this year. Christine decorated it with the shot of Mo, Becky and me "sleeping" in and on it during relay. Pretty funny stuff - very thoughtful!! 

Joe's back in town. That means Eric will be here tomorrow through the weekend. Never a dull moment in the Dills' house! 

xo | cmd

Dude, I Am... TIRED.

I am beyond the point of slap happy. I am somewhere in a new, previously undiscovered dimension of total exhaustion. Time seems elusive to me at this point, but I have to admit that in all of my sheer weariness, today was another great day.

Oh, and I'm far more descriptive at night. I learned this in college when I found myself repeatedly, at the fault of my own procrastination, left writing entire essays and term papers 5 hours before they were due in final draft. Mehhhh.

Anyway, I've sufficiently manage to distort my sleep schedule enough that my body has completely rejected any suggestion that we're doing okay. I've had a headache for most of the afternoon - the parts of it I spent awake, at least.

Let me start with this morning.

The closing ceremony for the 2012 Relay for Life happend around 7:00 AM this morning. We were a frazzled but enthusiastic lot; those of us from various teams that had braved the night hours and were still conscious at that time gathered together for the last remarks from Christine, Tracy & Steve, along with awards and the recognition signs for the top fundraising levels for each team. By the way, WAY TO GO, TOWERVIEW!!! $4878.75 [so far] earned us Silver Level this year. I'm bent on Gold for next year.. mark my words.. haha. :)

Sooo, anyhoot, while my husband did grace us with his presence for a significant portion of the event last night, he made it back home to get a decent night's sleep in the bed. After snagging at most an hour's worth of shut-eye on the ground in a sleeping bag at Relay, I was more than ready to have all noise come to a halt and do nothing but sleeeeeeeep.

Instead, I -- Well, actually, you can just see it for yourself:

welp.... 

So basically, I woke up post-nap to find my phone blinking incessantly with notifications on comments on this. I have nothing to say, other than that while it did happen, this was the dramatization, but it was worth every bit of it :)

I managed to pull myself together enough for a double date with Jimmy & Mo; I couldn't for the life of me tell you which hibachi restaurant hosted us for the evening, but I can say it's the first time I've been to one and had the table chef flip a whole egg off the table on accident. Haha. He was a good sport, and it was certainly a fluke. Silly as it was, its comical value was absolutely paled by the fact that Jimmy, Mo and I were giddy beyond control. It was our original intention to go and watch the new Batman movie after dinner, but by the time we were stuffed full of rice and ready to leave, we opted out for fear that Joe may be the only one left awake by the middle of the movie. As a substitute, we headed back to the house where Jimmy configured our Wii for Netflix, and rented Transformers instead. We're a daring bunch, I tell ya.

I must get some sleep tonight if I expect half a chance of proper functioning tomorrow.

See you at the Tower in the morning!

xo | cmd

RELAY FOR LIFE 2012! [& Office Mini Golf?]

It is finally upon us!
This is definitely post-dated! :)

Hello, Relay for Life!

It was an extended day to start with; I showed up to work a full hour early in hopes of leaving 9 hours later. Today marked our office's 6th birthday, so the bosses decided to celebrate by buying us all lunch. No argument there. We feasted on Applebee's for an hour, until we were challenged by one of our owner's to choose our own pecking order and proceed to follow him out into our office. We were greeted by a homemade, indoor mini golf course, complete with star-shaped post-it tee-offs and Express logo cups serving as the destination holes. Seven holes in all. We weren't sure what to think of it all, but I will say it's been a long time since I've laughed like that.

Here's a taste of what it looked like in the office for about an hour's time:

christine. cori. nancy. courtney.
that's right... office golf, ya'll...

When 4:00 hit, I was out the door in a flurry, headed straight down to Belleville West. The Warrens were already there, with their tent and table set up; I caught them just as they were headed off to the survivor dinner. I was left to my own devices to decorate our space from top to bottom in Italy, for lack of a better term. It wasn't long before the rest of our team came trickling in to lend a hand. Even sooner it seemed from there, we were all rallied together on the track for the opening ceremonies, survivor lap, and then full swing into Relay 2012! 

team towerview!
[thanks, jackie for the awesome painting!]

We had this posted up outside our campsite. Many thanks to Jackie for painting this for the team, and for all the helping hands who came and contributed tents, tables, chairs, and decorations for our site!!

cheerleaders - reminding us how to fight back against cancer

^ Opening ceremonies. It probably doesn't make the most sense just looking at it, having not been there to hear the accompanying narration, so I'll try to paraphrase...

The center shot - encouragement to continue in the FIGHT BACK against cancer. They proceeded to highlight words found within the phrase as elements of available methods to fight back against cancer. 

Cig: Don't smoke. Fat: Eat healthy! Fit: Exercise. Gab: Spread the word! Hat: Protect yourself from sun. Act: DO something today to make a difference for tomorrow! :) 

[just part of ] team towerview!
shirley. jimmy. john. greg. betty. ron. diana. cori. mo. ron.

Our team this year was absolutely incredible. There were many people who were unable to make the actual event, but I wouldn't dare for a split second discount their efforts, contributions, and support. This picture was taken early in the evening and is still just a small taste of everyone that did make an appearance at some point for the night. I am so impressed by the support and action that everyone put into this :) I'm so proud!!

sleepin' in the infamous tire!
becky. cori. mo

Haha. There are so many memorable pictures from this event, but none quite like that of us pretending to sleep in the famous traveling tire. If you were there, you would've heard that strangely enough, none of us hated sitting inside this thing. It's actually pretty comfortable. Is that weird? Haha.. Probably, but either way, if I ever find myself deserted in the midst of abandoned farming equipment, my first choice of refuge is gonna be one of these things. Chyeahh.

This is backdated, durrrrr.. and I'm still exhausted. What an incredible event!! [There will be plenty of pictures to come. Stay posted, darlins...]

xo | cmd