Time Marches On....

It's March! Spring is slowly creeping into the air. I heard a rumor that while we are supposed to get almost an inch of snow tonight (nothing compared to what we've had this year), it is supposed to hit the 60's later this week!!! I am tired of looking at gray skies and bare trees. Even with my pollen allergies, I am longing for spring.

We have a lot going on with CJSTUF this month. First of all, I announced in the last blog post that we are holding an online Pampered Chef sale for CJSTUF until March 20th. Susan Ferguson is hosting the show and Jessica Pittman is the Pampered Chef consultant. 15% of sales will go to CJSTUF. You can order online by going to the link above (www.pamperedchef.biz/jessicasapron). Enter CJSTUF as the host.

Of course, at the end of the month (March 27th) we will have the Monument Ave. 10K. We are already getting some donations trickling in from runners. Keep up the great work. I understand there may be some special prizes for those that bring in $$$!! Even if you can't run (or walk), come on out to cheer on Team CJ.

Speaking of Team CJ...I am excited to announce that we received the TEAM CJ race shirts yesterday. Drum roll please...

Front of the shirt

Back of the shirt

If you can't tell from the pictures (sorry, not the highest quality pic), the shirts are light purple. Everyone running and raising money for TEAM CJ will get a shirt. If you are cheering for TEAM CJ at the race, you can have a shirt for $8. Any extra shirts will be available for a minimum donation of $10. We will let you know when we have shirts available.

We have more merchandise in the works and on the way. The board has been very busy working on designs, pricing, etc. and we hope to have the CJSTUFF (online store) up and running by April. (Fingers crossed). Special thanks to Madison Fairburn for the t-shirt designs.

Roger has been busy shuttling back and forth from MCV helping to care for our friends, the Berry Family. Wesley had a brain surgery last week. He is still in the hospital and on the mend. We have had some generous people donate meals and Roger has been helping with the coordination of that effort.

I think that the pervasive sadness has reared its ugly head this week for both me and for Roger. We are settling into our new life and new routine and it is both heartbreaking and surreal (there's that word again). We were having dinner last night and talking about Charlotte and the entire experience. Again. There are times when it seems like a dream. A nightmare. Something that happened a long time ago, in another lifetime. Sometimes I think that if I didn't have the pictures, videos, and other memorabilia to remind me, I would wonder if I didn't just dream her existence. Her life on this earth was so short and yet strangely full and complete. It amazes me when I think of all the lives that she touched with her grace, beauty, and charm.

There I go waxing poetic again. I feel like I'm repeating myself and if I do, I apologize.

Anyway, this weekend I have the opportunity for a much-needed retreat. Thanks to some friends, I am headed off to a cabin in the woods for some rest BUT I actually have a very focused task. Many of you have mentioned putting our experience into book form. Not far into this process Roger and I agreed that we wanted to do this and the constant support and encouragement from our rabid fans have convinced us to move forward with the effort. Thanks to our blogs and some more work I have done over the past year, the bulk of the memoir is actually complete. I need to find some time to sit, without distraction of email and work, and actually flesh out the rest of the book.

I am not sure what we will do in terms of publishing. I know that we could always self-publish (go-getters that we are, what's one more thing on the to-do list?). We have also been talking very informally with a local publisher in Richmond but that's about the extent of our progress in this effort. If anyone in our network has resources or connections in the publishing world and you think they might be interested in our story, please have them contact Roger or me directly.

So I am going to a non-profit leadership class at VCU on Friday and then I will be retreating to the woods until Sunday evening (no Henry David Thoreau references, please). Much thanks to Roger for covering my shifts at the store on Friday and Saturday. We have a full weekend of parties and classes at RNR and he has agreed to take that on so I can be distraction free.

Ok, so I will close this now. I just got a call from Roger that he just finished a post himself so you will get 2 for the price of 1 today. Hopefully we weren't too repetitively redundant.