Well, it would appear that I have made it through hell week. Yay! And the good news is that it wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.
Traditionally, our local Relay For Life is always held the second Friday in April, so for the last year we have been working on organizing this cancer-fighting event. We have known it would be this weekend for more than a year.
A few months ago, when I went to work for Habitat for Humanity, the annual Raisin' The Roof fundraiser was added to my calendar for this weekend, too.
About a month ago, we decided that the radio station I work for, QX-FM, would do a remote broadcast from the Rusk County Electric annual Home & Garden Show on Thursday evening.
Also about a month ago, I auditioned for and was cast in "Steel Magnolias" at our local theater. We have been rehearsing every Monday, Tuesday and Thursday night.
Then, about 3 weeks ago my grandmother passed away and my uncle scheduled her memorial service for this weekend.
So what should have been a relatively relaxing weekend became a test of endurance and energy. It's almost over now and I'm still here and still relatively intact mentally ;-) (Relatively speaking, of course, since some people would argue that I'm NEVER mentally intact).
I wish I had had more time to visit with my extended family members at Mamaw's service. Some of them I had not seen since I was a small child. Some of them I have seen through the years but never really had a conversation with them. One of the highlights for me was sitting with my Aunt Chris, who grew up in Normandy and was a little girl during World War II. The cousins gathered up their children in my uncle's living room while the men sat in their outdoor "man cave" and talked about their man-business (I don't even want to know what that entailed) and Chris told us about the Germans taking all of their food when they occupied the area around her childhood home. She and her cousin survived on a cup of milk a day that they would get when their grandmother went to milk the cows at the neighborhood castle. She talked about a Canadian airman who crashed near their farm. Her grandfather hid him on their farm while he recovered from his injuries. A local collaborator told the Germans there was an injured serviceman in the village, so the Germans lined up 100 men, women and children and mowed them down with a machine gun as an example of what happens to those who tried to resist their occupation. Chris's grandfather was in that line and was shot in the leg. He only survived because they thought he was dead and he laid there until the soldiers left. The Canadian did eventually escape. Chris's father and uncle were sent to concentration camps because it was thought they were Jewish. Her father was in Auschwitz. He was sent to work on a farm supplying food for the Germans running the camp. Someone on the farm discovered he wasn't Jewish and helped him escape. Chris said she had not seen her father since she was 9 months old. One day a tramp came to the gate and she ran inside to tell her grandmother there was another tramp to be fed. Her grandmother went outside to see and turned around and slapped Chris and told her that was her father, not a tramp.
This was my first "Raising The Roof" event and we had a wonderful time. Aryn and I are already planning what we're going to do with our tables next year. We've already decided on our theme and have started looking for ideas. I can tell you that it will be over-the-top and that our diners are going to pampered and feted to an extreme degree, so I recommend that you just go ahead and call the Habitat for Humanity office Monday and ask to sit at our tables next year. Those seats are going to go fast ;-)
I've now had 11 hours sleep so far since Friday morning, have blisters between my toes from wearing new white flip-flops to wait tables last night, and a bruised knee cap from banging it the first time I climbed out of my loaner Gator during Relay (thanks to Lowe Tractor for loaning it to us, even if I did practically knock my knee off in it, lol).
But we've raised $50,000 for the American Cancer Society, I don't know how much for Habitat for Humanity, reunionized with relatives from all over the country, blown up and tied and handed out several hundred balloons for the radio station, and have lived to tell the tale. Hell week is over. Whew!
Can't wait to do it again next year ;-)
