Walk for Animals, May 2nd

I have not even started fundraising for all of my annual charity events I participate in every May. I know I have to do this part, but I hate asking people for donations but if I don't, animals and people suffer.  I will be participating in the Animal Humane Society's Walk for Animals again this year for my 6th time.  It's a 5 mile walk in Golden Valley on Theo Wirth Parkway.

If you can spare any funds and love animals, please donate to the cause.  

Please donate to my personal page here!

Please help me reach my goal!

I will be participating in the humane society's 2009 Walk for Animals. With five Twin Cities locations, they care for more than 35,000 unwanted, abused and neglected animals each year. Please support me with a donation by selecting the " Support Me" button above the thermometer or "Make a Gift" below the themometer. Our efforts will help make a big difference!

This cause is dear to my heart. This the 6th annual walk for me. I adopted Fuzzer from the Coon Rapids Animal Humane Society in 2003. I also adopted Powder from a different agency in 2004. We also lost our cat Barlow in March 2008 to leukemia so we will also be walking for him. Despite it being a tough economy, I am hoping everyone one of you can donate something. $1 is better than none at all. On behalf of all the animals, we appreciate your kindness.

Love, Dana Sterner

Because I support 3 other causes during the month of May, I will be creating a post for each separate cause and will be listed below this post.  Pick the cause dearest to you and donate.

May 2nd: Walk for Animals

May 3rd: MS Walk

May 10th: Race for the Cure

May 17th: AIDS Walk 

MS Walk, May 3rd

Only one day after the Walk for Animals each year, I will participate in the MS Walk. It's an 8 mile walk through Minneapolis and this will be my 5th year. Michael and I have joined as part of a team called Walk Walk Revolution. Please donate to our team, specifically through my personal home page as listed below.

Click here to visit my personal page and make a secure, online donation.
To send a donation:
Make all checks payable to:
National MS Society
Please note my name and Walk MS on your check.
Mail to me:
Dana
674 County Road D E
Saint Paul, MN 55117-1255

Race for the Cure, May 10th

On Mother's Day I will be participating for my 5th year as walker for Race for the Cure, benefiting the Susan G. Komen Foundation.  It's a 5K walk/run around the outside of the Mall of America. Please check out my home page and make a donation!

My home page!

AIDS Walk, May 17th

The final walk I participate in each May is the AIDS Walk.  I think I have been doing this one for 4 years.  It's a 10k walk through Minneapolis, starting and ending at Minnehaha Park.  Please donate on my home page HERE!

Biggest Loser: Week 2 Weigh In

I weighed in again this past Tuesday at work for the biggest loser contest.  I tried very hard this week (or so I thought) and I came up not that big of a winner, (or loser actually) but am very consistent.  I lost the exact same percentage as last week, -.62%.  Considering this was Easter weekend and treats and food all over the place, I think I did ok.  More people gained this week than last and I would imagine it was because of Easter.  Overall, everyone lost much less weight (%) than the first week.  I am posting these statistics which kind of embarrass me because I am not doing the best but I want to keep at it and see my improvement.  I never cared about winning the money but I would love to finish between 5-8th place if not better.  We'll see.  Here are the statistics for everyone this week: 

Total 1st place female: -4.51%

Total 1st place male: -3.76%

Total Me:  -1.24%

# of people who did worse than me this week: 6 females and 4 males

Average weight loss for week 2: -.49% female, -.63% male

Where I rank with the females: 13 of 19  (last week 15 of 19)  Remember, I am only competing against females.

Total weight lost for week 2 collectively: 

Female: 15.2 lbs

Male: 19.8 lbs

Total weight lost since start: 119 lbs

Slow and steady wins the race?!  Maybe that's me.

The Loop

I'm playing a little bit of catch on blogging so what better way to start with this past Monday.  I met my friends Catha and Aaron for happy hour and a bit of food at The Loop in Minneapolis.  Since I was weighing in on Tuesday morning for the biggest loser contest at work, I kept it light.  Happy hour consisted of water and lettuce wraps.  Catha didn't participate in drinking any libations either because she is pregnant.  Catha and her husband Ben are expecting their first child in October and they just announced it just recently.  It was good to see Aaron again as I have not seen in since October 2007, when we got laid off from the same job.  I can't help it that he doesn't smile in the picture.  It was on purpose.  Aaron, I'll bring your books to you in June!  

Happy Thursday

Hi everyone,

I'm popping in to say hi. I haven't had much of a desire to blog lately, even though I've had the time. I have a handful of things to write so stay tuned and enjoy the weather!!

More coming really soon...

Happy Easter!

Today I went to my aunt and uncle's house in Somerset, Wisconsin to celebrate Easter with my Mom's side of the family.  It was hard being around all the good food and soooo much candy.  I tried to be good and ate 1 piece of chocolate and tried to not to gorge myself on all the delicious food.  I do have to weigh in on Tuesday.  My aunt and uncle live on a hobby farm so they have a rooster and hens, a horse and a cow.  The cow (steer) is just a young little thing and he is so cute.  (I'm not going to tell you what happens to him down the road)  I took a lot of pictures of the animals and food and realized that I hardly even took a picture of a human.  I did take a few of my nephews though.  Oh, I also made some candy this weekend.  Do you remember when I made M some V-Day candy?  I decided I would try and make some candy for Easter also.  I made it yesterday afternoon and it was a lot more detailed than last time.  I used 4 different colors of chocolate and I think for the most part, they turned out good.  I put sticks in the molds to make it like a chocolate lollipop.  I made 3 large "lollipops" and gave them to my Mom.  She loves chocolate and candy.  Hope you all had a great Easter weekend spending it with the ones you love.

The candy I made

My aunt made a "nest" out of carnations and hard boiled eggs

The sunflower cake my sister made 

Cute baby cow and Sasha the horse

Don't they look like statues?  They're real

Digital TV

M and I seem to be the only people on earth that do not have cable or satellite TV, hence the need for the digital converter box.  I picked up 2 of these and paid little out of pocket thanks to my government sponsored $40 coupon.  It was a hassle to even buy this thing.  I went to Target and their systems would not accept the coupon, which looks like a credit card.  Target says they've had nothing but trouble with these coupons.  After literally waiting 10 minutes for the transaction to be complete, they were nice enough to give me 2 $3 coupons for the store for being so nice during the issues.  I was patient that day and I guess it paid off a little.  Because I barely watch TV, I had no interest in installing it right away.  I finally did it last Saturday and it was a pain.  Part of the reason was that I didn't read the instructions correctly.  (I shouldn't have read them at all like a guy would do and probably would have figured it out faster) I finally got everything to work after 30 minutes or so.  We went from 13 channels to 20 channels.  Most of the "new" channels are duplicate channels of what we already have however they are in HD.  Oh, we got another weather channel too. (I like that--and my Dad would like that I like that.  Follow?)  What I didn't realize when setting this whole thing up is that the TV still needs to use an antenna.  I thought the whole purpose of this thing was to eliminate the anntena but I guess it's just for the signal itself, not the reception.  Whatever.  The bad thing about this box is that now I have 2 remote's for the TV.  I have to turn on the box with the one remote, which also changes the channels but then to turn on the TV and adjust the volume, I have to use the other remote. Again, whatever.  The good thing is the size of the box.  It's pretty small but has a nice bright red light on it when it's off and it bothers me just enough in the dark when I'm trying to sleep.  Whatever. 

Biggest Loser: Week 1 Weigh In

33 of us all weighed in at work yesterday after our first week of the Biggest Loser challenge. I am happy to say I did lose a little bit of weight but we are competing against the percentage of weight lost, which for me was a measly -.62%. I am happy with any weight loss result but I am going to strive to do better for next week. I was not at the bottom of the list for the women who lost weight (or even the men for that matter) at least. There were 3 women and 2 men that stayed the same and 1 woman and 2 men that gained weight. The highest percentage of weight lost for women was 3.41% and for men, 2.93%. Between the 33 of us, we started at a weight of 6,361.8 lbs! Isn't that crazy? After week 1, we have lost 84 lbs collectively!

Let's Play Ball!

M and I went to see the Twins in the Metrodome on Monday night.  It's been M and I's tradition to go to the home opener each year and this was our 6th year.  Of course this year it's even more special as that was the last home opener in the Metrodome for the Twins.  They will be moving to Target Field for the next season.  For 3 of the home opener years, we have had to mourn the loss of someone affiliated with the Twins organization before the game.  In 2005, it was Bob Casey, longtime PA announcer of the Twins.  In 2006, it was Kirby Puckett and this year was Carl Pohlad.  There was a tribute for Carl Pohlad that included 95 different people from 95 different organizations/charities that the Pohlad Family Foundation supported.  

I didn't eat anything at the game.  I take that back.  I didn't buy any food at the game.  I wanted to but because I weighed in at work for The Biggest Loser today, I couldn't afford to eat a Dome Dog on the eve of the weigh in.  Or nachos.  I did however bring in 2 100 calorie snacks to eat.  (Yes, you can bring in food to the dome)  They weren't as good as dome food but it worked.  Oh, I did have 2 of M's cheese curds on the plaza before the game.  How can you pass up cheese curds?

As far as the game, it was fun but we lost 6-1.  I'm sure they were just getting used to playing for real and working out all the bugs and it won't be any indication of how the season is going to go, right?  That's what I'm hoping for at least.  

All the people on the plaza

Jeff Passolt and Robyne Robinson



Bullseye, the Target dog throwing out 1 of the first pitches

Introduction of the teams

The 95 organizations

Baseball on my lunch break

Since I work for a Pohlad Family company, we had the opportunity to purchase season ticket packages for the Minnesota Twins for a reduced deposit price.  Even though it would be fun to have season tickets, I can't afford it.  Supporting another Minnesota team all year is enough.  But as a way to drum up some excitement for the Twins, we had a little rally at work last week.  Members of the Twins organization were there to sign people up for Twins season ticket packages.  You could also enter a drawing for numerous prizes including Twins tickets, autographed hats and baseballs and bobbleheads.  TC Bear was also there and so were 2 former Twins players, Ron Coomer and Terry Steinbach.  Both seemed very nice but Ron Coomer was extremely nice.  I got an autographed baseball signed by each of them as well as a picture.  The picture didn't turn out the best.  We were in the atrium so the sun is shining down on my face plus the picture is a little blurry.  You get the idea anyways.  To top it all off, I also ended up winning one of the prizes, a bobblehead.  It wasn't delivered to me until the next day but when I received it, I was MORE than happy.  I ended up getting 4 bobbleheads!  I won the following bobbleheads: Joe Mauer, (sorry Ang, I'm not going to give it to you) Gary Gaetti, Michael Cuddyer and Justin Morneau.  What a good way to get me pumped for Twins baseball season!

The Biggest Loser

This past week at work, we started a Biggest Loser contest/challenge which I decided to sign up for.  It was a $5 entry fee and a little over 30 people also signed up.  My company will be giving $50 to each male and female winner. Our $5 entry fee also goes towards to cash prize.  Weigh-ins are every Tuesday at 11 am until June 2nd, when the winner will be declared.  We each got "before" photos taken of us from the front and side profile.  I had already started losing weight before the contest.  I have lost 9 lbs in less than a month but I have hit some sort of plateau already, of course the same week that I started this contest! I gotta kick things up a bit I guess.  It would be embarrassing to stay the same or even gain weight the first week of the contest!  I guess the shrimp linguine with pesto cream sauce for dinner last night probably didn't help.  Oops!  I'll be keeping you posted of my progress as well as my competition's progress throughout the next two months.

Germans and Psychos

I went out with Chris, Tanya and Kelley last night.  I hadn't seen Kelley in over 10 years so it was fun to reconnect with him again.  We spent a little time over at Tanya and Chris's before we decided to venture out in the rain/snow mix.  We first went to Gasthof's/Mario's Keller Bar.  None of us had ever been there before but a place all of us wanted to try.  We didn't stay long.  It was packed and the atmosphere was like you were in the downstairs of a frat house, people and all.  The crowd was just not our thing.   We decided to go to Psycho Suzi's where we spent the remainder of our night.   If you haven't been there, they have a bunch of different fun drinks that are served in different ceramic glasses that you can buy.   I had a drink in a coconut and a pineapple.  I also got a cute little monkey that was hanging on the drink.  He was so cute that Tanya gave me hers too.  It doesn't take much to amuse me or make me happy. 

Eat your Veggies

Congratulations to my friend's sister, Amber, who beat out over 1,000 candidates to be voted 2009's sexiest female vegetarian.  Over 200,000 people voted and her prize is a trip to Hawaii, courtesy of PETA.  Learn more about Amber here!

Seal

On Tuesday night, Tanya and I went to Rock Bottom Brewery in Minneapolis to eat and drink before heading across the street to the Orpheum to see Seal in concert.  We had front row tickets and the seats were as close as I've ever been to the stage for a national act.  Seal played for a little over 2 hours and it was a great set.  The highlight of the night was when Seal bent down to me, took my hand and sang inches from my face while looking directly in my eyes.  He sang to me for at least 20 seconds but I can't quite remember because I couldn't believe what was happening.  He happened to be singing one of my favorite songs too, "The Beginning".  I took a TON of pictures, just relishing in the moment.  And in case you don't know, Seal is married to one of my favorite female celebrities, Heidi Klum.  

Hello? Hello? Are you there? I'm here

I have probably lost all of my readers, the small amount that I actually do have, due to my lack of blogativity.  I made up that word, just like George Bush makes up his own words.  I hope I am back blogging on a regular basis now.  I am going to try at least.  Sometimes life gets the best of us (or worst in my case) and blogging just isn't a priority.  I don't want to say much about my situation but for those that have reached out, thank you.  I'm healthy so no health scare or anything like that, just some shifting in my life situations.  For someone who is quite candid about my life, I feel I would like to keep this issue personal.  That said, time for new change and getting rid of the ugly Kelly Green and St. Patrick's theme and on to something a lot more spring-like!  I have some posting to catch up on so expect multiple posts in the days to come. Here's to April, better weather and fun times!

Photo Hunt

Hi Everyone,

I know I have been MIA for awhile. Lots going on in little Dana Leigh's life, good and not-so-good. I might elaborate later. As for this post, I want to announce that I am going to be doing a photo hunt, as created from my friend Kristi. Please feel free to participate by letting Kristi know by clicking here. The contest starts today and runs through the end of the month. Look for my pictures to be posted in another post at the end of the month or as I complete the list. I hope you participate, good luck and the list is below.

1. Cool or interesting architecture

2. A sign of Spring/Autumn (So. Hemi)

3. Something musical

4. Something sweet

5. Something metallic

6. A landscape

7. An interesting doorway

8. A reflection

9. A cemetery

10. A pair of shoes

11. A body of water

12. A drink

13. A mosaic or mural

14. Rain

15. Classic car (1970 or older)

16. A work of art

17. A church

18. A statue

19. An interesting sky

20. Something in motion

21. Lights at night

22. A silhouette

23. Something historical (pre-1900)

24. A shot from an unusual perspective

25. Flowers

26. Self-Portrait