Pasta (bread, salad, beer, and handmade craftery) for Breast Cancer!

I signed up for my next 5K!  It's the Komen Race for the Cure which benefits Breast Cancer.  Several people I know have been diagnosed with Breast Cancer in the past year, including my mom (she is doing well though-thumbs up), so I thought this would be a good one to do.  As the captain of my team, I started receiving tons of emails and even a personalized letter about how important fundraising for this event is.  I am pretty much the worst person at sales and fundraising.  I hate asking people for money.  I sucked at selling Girl Scout Cookies.  When I worked at the salad bar in college, I was always in trouble for not up selling enough fountain beverages as opposed to the free water. Anyways, I decided this was worthwhile, so I decided to have a fundraiser at my house as opposed to just asking for money.

I have been doing some crazy couponing for the past couples months and have managed to stock up hardcore on pasta noodles and spaghetti sauce so I decided that would be a nice cheap meal to make for my friends and then ask for $5-$10 donations for the Race.  I also decided to give away some of the earrings I've made.  I was hoping to raise $100 at the most.  But guess what.....I made over $300.  I was amazed.  When I went to tally up the money there were a bunch of $20s in my jar and some people who couldn't make it sent me checks in the mail.  So, yeah I guess I'm pretty good at fundraising after all.  Plus my sister came with two of her friends from Kollege and they sent me an Edible Arrangement.  It was awesome.  And Beezus5 made a stellar Banana Pudding Pie.  Plus people brought handmade items like headbands and mittens for me to giveaway as door prizes. 

And since this blog is about Making Stuff, here is a quick recipe for dinner parties that's usually a hit.  Buy one of those refrigerated packages of tortellini or ravioli and cook it per the directions.  Then mix it with marinara sauce, top it with cheese and bake it until the cheese is melted.  People like it and it's easy.

I forgot to take a lot of pics but here are a few.

Baked Spaghetti with Pepperoni for the non-vegetarians
before I added the cheese

B and Hobie were in charge of bread and beer.

An Edible Arrangement=Awesome.

Banana Pudding Pie!

Headband door prize.  This is my look after I went running
so I may not be showing the headband in the best light
because it's a pretty awesome headband.  (Yeah I'm
wearing my Bayside High T again; it's my current inspirational
running t-shirt.)

In conclusion, people are nice.  Sometimes I forget that (like when I'm complaining about people chewing too loudly or clipping their nails in meetings).

And if you want to check out my team page or info on the Race for the Cure, you can click that big pink square on the top right of this blog.

How To Make Easy Inspirational 5K T-shirts....

I had such high hopes for the 5K "Club Shannon" t-shirts.  I was going to use new methods (transfer paper, fabrics, etc) and make them awesome.  But I dropped the ball.  So I ended up just using fabric paint.  My method was not the best but it ended up working out.  In the past I have used stencils and fabric paint to put words/phrases on shirts.  But that was annoying.  So this time I decided I was going to use stamps instead of stencils.  This was also kind of annoying because the stamps that I bought didn't work that well.  Anyways, this is what I did....

1. Buy t-shirt from Michael's (or wherever, they were $2.50 each when I bought them) and fabric paint
2. Wash the t-shirts
3. Lay a ruler on the shirt or mark the shirt with some sort of sewing marking pencil/pen so you know where you want your words and so they stay centered.

4. Stamp the shirts with the letters.  Do your best to keep everything centered or how you want it laid out on the shirt.
5. After you stamp each letter go over it with a paint and a paint brush to make sure the letter is all the way filled in.  I had to do this because my stamps did not work that well.  The stamps sort of just made an outline that I filled in with a paint brush. 
6. Let these dry and present them to your friends on 5K day.  It will make them super strong and ready to meet the challenge of running a 5K.

How to Make It Through a 5K Without Stopping...

1. Start training about 5 weeks before the 5k.  Training includes slow jogging as far as you can outside.  For me this was 1.5 miles at which point I got a serious cramp and nearly collapsed.  For other people this included doing a modified Couch to 5K program (you can google that). 

2. Pick a great 5K team (or join one because you don't want to be left out).  Motivate each other with facebook, gchat, email updates and tips on your progress.  My biggest tip is that if you don't run a lot, then just slow jog as slow as you can (slightly more than a walk). 

3. Use 'Sparkle Cup' or a sparkle cup to drink water before and after your training jogs.

I am so hott!  (not temperature wise)

4. Carbo Load the night before (not Michael Scott style aka not fettuccine alfredo) with a nice veggie pasta.

5. Wear/make a special homemade t-shirt.  Then do some stretchy/weird moves like this to get your body ready.

6. During the race start at the back of the pack.  Quickly pass the 30 kids in front of you and then slow jog at a steady pace.  Stay away from everyone you know and just try to focus on yourself.

7. Finish the race and pose for photo (try your hardest to keep your eyes open).

8.  Brunch it up!

OK but seriously none of us in the top picture were strong runners (joggers?) 5 weeks ago (some of us I'm pretty sure had not jogged/run since high school) but we all trained and successfully completed the race.  Special shout out to Shanzie for deciding we should do this, Mrs. Acorn for telling me I have a nice Kaboose while running, Beezus5 for proving she's a true athlete (especially after the roller skating debacle of 2005), and Curly J for achieving her goal of jogging non-stop the whole time.  That was also my goal and now I can cross that off my 30 for 30 list.  Woohoo.  Now I just need to work on speeding up my slow jog a little bit.