Friday, April 27, 2012

Happy National Donate Your Hair Day

The day has finally come!!!!! This afternoon, I get to donate my hair to Pantene Beautiful Lengths Program. When I cut my hair 2 years ago, I said that I wouldn't cut it again until it was long enough to donate. I have reached that goal! I'm so excited that I could barely sleep last night.

I'm doing this because there are so many people battling cancer and I just want to do what I can to hopefully put a smile on their faces. I have had many people close to me be diagnosed with cancer. People from my dad to my grandmother to my brother's Godmother (that I think of as another aunt) to one of my best friends. I'm doing this for them. I'm doing this for all of the people that come into the pharmacy daily that are suffering or have suffered from cancer.

Donating my hair is not the cure to this awful disease, but it may be the cure to making a woman that has lost her hair feel better about her appearance. God has blessed me with some pretty amazing hair if I must say so myself. It is now time for me to pass on that blessing. When I found out Granny had lymphoma, I told her that if she lost her hair, I would shave my head bald in support. She told me I couldn't, but I would have any way. Luckily, she was fortunate and didn't lose any hair while going through chemo. Some women are not as fortunate and that's why National Donate Your Hair Day is so important to me.

bye bye hair!
Live.Love.Laugh.Sing.Dance.

Sunday, March 25, 2012

The Ignorance Behind "I'll Sleep When I Die"

I've been wanting to do a post about the phrase "I'll Sleep When I Die" for quite awhile now. THAT IS THE DUMBEST THING EVER!!!!!!! I think it has come to the point that people say it just to be cool. Well I hope you're real cool (pun intended) when you're lying in the morgue with a death file that says, "Died from lack of sleep." What are you doing that requires you to miss out on sleep?!?!?! You must need to get a new "hustle." Yes I understand that some things do require staying up late at night, but is that necessary all the time? 


Lack of sleep will cause death so eventually your "I'll sleep when I die" statement will come true. It can also cause heart disease, diabetes, mess up your immune system, and many other problems. Not to mention your life expectancy is shortened.  You won't be able to focus while at work or on the road. Now you are involving others. You decided to stay up the past 3 days because you're trying to become the next best rapper, then all of a sudden you're sleep at the wheel of your car, run into a van carrying a family that's going out to celebrate a birthday and the parents are killed.


WAKE UP!!!!!! Listen to your body folks! It talks to you and tells you what it needs. My body tells me when I'm not drinking enough water or when I need to just sit my butt down and chill out. So while you're up all night doing whatever you do, I'll be in my bed dreaming about my fairy tale life and how I plan to live to be 114 years old.

Live.Love.Laugh.Sing.Dance.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Donating My Hair: The Decision

For many years I wanted to donate my hair to Locks of Love, but I never did. Early 2010 I decided to cut my hair off like I had been doing every year. The only difference is that this time, I set a goal for myself. Grow hair out until it is long enough to donate to an organization that makes wigs for people that have lost their hair due to medical conditions.

Over the last couple of weeks, the urge to cut my hair has been growing stronger and stronger. Last week I googled "hair donations." Of course Locks of Love, being the most popular was listed in the search results. They have always been my chosen organization to help me accomplish my goal. But after doing some research, I have now decided to not use them. The main reason is that they charge the children that receive the wigs a fee based off their parents' income and I think the wigs should be free (more on that another time). I continued to research. I finally came across "Beautiful Lengths," a program created by Pantene that works together with the American Cancer Society to donate real hair wigs to woman.

After dreaming about cutting my hair all last night, this morning I went back to the Pantene website to read about Beautiful Lengths again. This time I saw on their blog that they, along with Seventeen magazine, announced yesterday that April 27th will be National Donate Your Hair Day. On that day, I will pledge to make a difference in someone's life by donating the 8+ inches of hair that I have been growing since April 2010. I encourage anyone that wants to do the same, to read up on the Beautiful Lengths program and join me at the hair salon on April 27th.



Live.Love.Laugh.Sing.Dance.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

I Didn't Deserve It

For the past 5 years I have worked my ass off at work. I like to think that I am a great employee. I do have my days where I don't want to do anything and may only give 75%, but I still do my work. I have never looked for rewards for doing my job. My reward comes when I get to talk to my favorite patients about their kids, grand kids, pets, vacations, jobs, etc.

But when I was just recently awarded "District Team Member of the Month," I was proud of myself. I felt good. Wow, all my hard work has been noticed by the people above me. Then just like that, every happy and proud feeling was taken away by just a few words from someone that you thought appreciated you. "You didn't deserve it." That hurt. It's not even about the gift card that I was supposed to get, but I'm not getting. It's about those 4 words. We need to start being conscious of the words we say to people. Even I am guilty of saying hurtful things. You never know how what you say to someone can affect them. You don't tell one of your best employees that they didn't deserve to be recognized. When I heard that, I immediately put up a wall and tuned out the rest of the conversation. That sentence has been playing in my head since this morning. I shut down. My first thought was, "That's it. Don't ask me to do another thing. I'm going to come to work, do what I need to do and go home. I'm no longer going above and beyond." Then my crazy side kicked in (everybody has one) and I said to myself, "Karma is a bitch."

I think today was the answer to my prayer. "God take away my fear of stepping out on faith." I've just been looking for something to give me that push and anger me enough to want to change. God is also answering my other prayer: Move me out of my way. Being told, "You didn't deserve it," is just what I needed to hear to light fire to my butt and get me moving. Carol is pushing Carol aside and moves are about to be made. I can no longer continue doing what makes others happy. I must now take care self first and everyone else second. (I can't just take care of self and say eff everybody else. I love other people too much to just leave them blowing in the wind. I have a very strong nurturing side that I can't let go of and never will.)

Although those 4 words did hurt, I'm not going to let them take me down. From here on out I'm going to tell myself, "YOU DESERVE IT!" Self-motivation is the best motivation. 

Live.Love.Laugh.Sing.Dance.