Pi(e), Sunshine and Bowling

First off, I would like to wish each and every one of you the happiest of Pi Days. Today, March 14th, is also 3.14. In honor of Pi Day, I convinced OfficeMate that we needed to stop at Kroger so I could procure the necessary ingredients to make chicken pot pie. I have made one other pot pie since moving to this apartment; it was a Kraft recipe and I am not proud of it. Why Kraft feels that cream cheese is an acceptable substitute for a rue is beyond me. This time, I went the legit route with butter and flour. ...and premade pie crusts. Don't judge. I'm still lazy.

Hello, lovely! Thanks for letting me celebrate a punny day!Second of all, Sunday was Daylight Savings - that thing we love in the fall and hate in the Spring. I went into it all optimistic yesterday (the 70 degrees helped) being all, "Hooray for sunshine!" I even went for a run! I know, I know!!

It was this morning when my alarm went off that I automatically subtracted that hour that had been stolen from my life and cursed Eastern Standard Time with all my being.

That being said, I welcome the sunshine. It is 7:20p and the sun is just now setting. I no longer feel the need to eat dinner at 5:45p with the old folks. I can come home and go for a run (ha) in the sunlight as opposed to telling myself, "Let's make this a short run because it's getting dark (and you're tired because it's been a whole five minutes)." With the sunshine comes warmth, green, life, flowers, and allergies. I bought Claritan the other day, but keep forgetting to take it.

Also, I have a ridiculous sneeze.
...It sucks to be my coworkers.

This past Saturday one of our clients, Big Brothers Big Sisters of SWVA, whom I made a shameless plug for here, had their annual Bowl For Kids Sake. Essentially, many teams go, bowl, and raise money for BBBS. All the folks at the office decided to get together and form a team, some even luring their spouses under what I can only assume were false pretenses. Many thanks to my gracious parents who donated $10 to my team. I, not being gifted with much athletic prowess, bowled an impressive 123 my first game (my second game's score isn't important). I also won a door prize, which is impressive if you know my family's lack of skill when it comes to winning prizes (for more information, ask my poor parents about years and years of Catholic Schools Week bingo). So, now I have $10 to a seafood restaurant located about 40 minutes away. Is it tasteless to use it at the bar? Maybe I can take OfficeMate and myself out to a dinner of an appetizer. Fancy!

That's neither here nor there. Here is our lovely team; photocred goes to the BBBS staff who was taking team photos. Except, the man in the red shirt wasn't on our team. He just wanted to be within a decent radius of us in an attempt to absorb some of our awesomeness.For more information on a great organization, check out their national site here. Hooray for shameless nonprofit plugs!

Also, a final aside, I assure you. I am over halfway through my AmeriCorps term. That is surreal. 'Tis all.

Enjoy the sunshine and pie, folks.

January is Mentoring Month!

For those of you who are unaware, January is in fact Mentoring Month

Big Brothers Big Sisters of SWVA spent yesterday and today hosting a wonderful event known as "Big for a Day" to raise awareness about mentoring in the valley. Fourteen prominent leaders in the community were selected to have a "little" spend the day with them, shadowing life in the corporate world. Some of these kids got to do things I'm frankly jealous of, like the kid who got to see all the trucks before the Monster Truck Rally this weekend. Each participant was challenged to raise $1,000 - or how much it costs to provide one child with a mentor for one year.

For more information, check it out at the BBBS of SWVA website.

We've been planning this event for a few months now, and I'm giddy with anticipation to hear about how it went come Monday. Mentoring is such a simple way to make such a big difference in the life of an unlucky kid. It's something I hope to do when I've stabilized my life.

And while we're on it.... The office has a bowling team for the BBBS of SWVA March event... Bowl for Kids' Sake. If you're feeling generous, throw a donation my way here! All proceeds go directly to BBBS of SWVA, which in turns helps match at-risk kids with mentors.

OfficeMate mocks me and says my blog is morphing into shameless nonprofit advertisements. He may be right. For now, enjoy this awesome video for BBBS' new campaign: Start Something.