a friend of mine went to kenya this summer and returned with this video...it touched me so much that i actually made the effort to try to figure out how to post videos on my blog and this is it

my thank you letter to those who donated but i wanted to post it as a reminder that today would be the day i completed my first 5k ever AND attended a justin timberlake concert (in just a couple hours!)

hi everyone - i did it!!! i can now officially say that ive participated in a 5k. my time wont set any records but i finished in a little under 40 minutes (by my unofficial count from my cell phone) and this was with my co worker with an infected toe! i honestly thought i would end up walking all of it since she could barely walk on friday but lo and behold we only walked for 14 minutes during the entire race. and for those that live in sf, i ran from the ballpark to the ferry bldg without stopping! ive never done that before.

i had so much fun and it was such a great experience and thank you all for supporting me and donating! :) i have never felt so accomplished in such a short time and it was awesome. yes i know its only a 5k but i get to bask in the glory of finishing for a little bit dont i?

i definitely want to do it again next year and hopefully youll want to join team wonderbras! we all got customized tshirts and they turned out really cute too as an extra incentive.

thank you so much i was definitely thinking of you guys during my run and how i didnt want to let you down!

i had the pleasure last night of going to dinner with my mom and some relatives and received the three (although i have four listed, i decided to break out personality and attitude separately for further clarification) key points when looking for a husband/wife and thought i would share my mom's wisdom with you all.

1) skill set - easiest way to put it is that they need to have some sort of skill that would be considered valuable by society standards and no that does not include surfing the net or sitting in front of the tv all day. the idea is that as long as they have some type of skills, this will hopefully ensure their continued employment irregardless of what the monetary gain is

2) personality - very self explanatory i would assume but do they have a positive outlook on life and are they fun to be with? after all you dont want to spend your entire life with someone who doesnt understand your sense of humor or laugh at the same jokes or enjoys the same activities. otherwise those years will stretch out to seem like an eternity and not the happily ever after we read about in fairy tales either

3) attitude - how do they treat those around them? are they only nice to you but treats their family and co workers the exact opposite? if the answer is yes the answer here is dump them. dump them now and get out while you can. you can thank me later

4) health - do they exercise? get regular checkups? take good care of themselves? all the stuff we never really worried about as a teenager but as we slowly start to creep up in the years, all the more vital. so if you are a smoker, i suggest you run out and buy your patch now and quit tomorrow. dont regularly floss? go to your local drugstore tonight and pick some up, i highly recommend purchasing the mint flavored floss and the citrus flavored mouthwash.

while these traits in a mate may seem to be fairly easy to find, i assured my mom that in this day and age it really is not as easy as learning your a b c's. its amazing how looking back to just a couple years ago, if she had told me the same thing i probably would of tuned her out but now that im older and wiser, im soaking up her advice like a sponge and if i get any other little nuggets of wisdom during her stay here, i will be sure to pass it along.

if you are a teeny bopper like me 9pm sunday was a must watch tv moment. i didnt dare believe it when i first heard the rumors but then when it was officially confirmed, i honestly thought this was it. the comeback ive been waiting for and i truly thought she could of pulled it off. the song surprised me, i found myself actually liking it, the beat was catchy, she looked as if she had lost most of the baby weight and the articles written about her rehearsals were positive. in fact they werent just positive they were absolutely raving about how great she was and how she was going to shock and surprise everyone...i was ready. so ready...its britney bitch!

but what the hell happened? i made sure to dvr the pre show, the show and the after show so i wouldnt miss a moment and holy bejesus as if you even need me to say it, all my dreams were crushed with that first shot of the back of her head. you would think for all the money that she makes, she could at least get some decent hair extensions but i could literally see holes where her scalp was showing through. ive seen pictures of her with just short hair recently and she should of just came out with that, she would of looked so much hotter.

and her outfit...where the hell was her publicist? her manager? why werent they there to get her to cover up her belly at least. i literally had to watch her performance with half my eyes covered and i just felt so embarrassed for her...i wont even go into the dancing or the lip syncing but supposedly one of her heels broke off during the show so i went back to go watch it and couldnt really tell if it was true or not. at this point i have watched it five or six times and the shot of 50 cent's face halfway through pretty much summed it all up. it would of been so great if she came out and blew everyone away.

damn what a disappointment. she danced better during her rehearsal video than during the show! as if britney wasnt bad enough, the entire show itself was a big letdown. i didnt get to catch most of it last night so i watched it on dvr today and the only decent parts were chris brown, alicia keys and timbaland and jt at the end and that was it. it took me less than 30 minutes to watch the entire two hour show and i hated that half the show took place in the suites. i know they were trying a new format to boost ratings and all but if i wanted to see half naked girls writhing around a pole id go to a strip bar. i want to see full on performances complete with laser beams and set backdrops and choreographed dancing with backup dancers ...i want the works isnt that the whole point of an awards show? none of this singing in a hotel room crap.

ill stop now but boy was i feeling let down after this although i havent completely given up yet. im still secretly hoping shell shock everyone at some point and make a career comeback, it will be the best thing ever. maybe her video will do it...i just want the old britney back!

you know you are getting old when on the morning of your 29th birthday you find yourself sitting in the office of a hand specialist getting a steroid shot directly into your inflamed tendon as a result of a bowling night more than three months ago. yes you heard me correctly...bowling. not the most glamorous of reasons right? imagine everyone asking you why you are wearing the wrist brace and having to explain that it was from bowling. usually the first question after that is along the lines of just how long were you bowling for? and the answer to that is four games of which i bowled damn well for and was the top two scorer for each of the games. at least it wasnt for nothing but that one night of bowling has caused me more pain and trouble in the past couple months than i would have ever imagined.

i was diagnosed with de quervain's tendonitis a little over two months ago with strict orders to wear a thumb spica splint 24/7 for a month and if things didnt get better, the next possibility was getting a steroid shot. the only problem with this was that the brace they gave me was so big and bulky that it was pretty much damn near impossible to type at work so i would only wear it at night. stupid i know but when your job is number crunching and excel is your life, not typing is pretty much out of the picture. so i would wear it while sleeping only to wake up in pain each morning as soon as the brace came off and the pain just got worse and worse so i went back to my doctor who referred me to a hand specialist and that is where i found myself this morning.

at this point i would of pretty much begged for that steroid shot but when the doctor actually told me he was going to give me one directly into where it hurt the most, i was starting to have second thoughts but before i could fully process everything, within 5 minutes, the needle was going into my wrist and boy did it hurt like hell and then continued on for the next couple hours. i could barely move my wrist but i was told that the pain should be gone in three or four days but i would still have to wear a brace for a month to give time for the tendons to heal. this time, im following doctors orders to the tee. i told him about my typing dilemma and he outfitted me with a much slimmer and dare i say fashionable one where my fingers are actually free to type. after all i am blogging am i not? not even a little tendonitis can keep my away from updating this thing for my faithful readers.

when i initially got the brace, even though it was pretty cumbersome, i thought it was pretty damn cool that i had to wear one since ive never had a brace of any kind before. ive never broken any bones, never needed a cast for anything so this was pretty much the closest ive ever gotten to having a real injury. sure it may not sound so cool once people find out its from bowling but i felt like i was a tough chick walking around with that thing. although i really should learn how to embellish my stories a little better in person and sound convincing at the same time so that i could get away with some much better reasons, bar fight, skateboarding accident, you name it. although im not sure how cool it is once you see "the hand center" logo plastered on my brace.

a great start to my last year in my "20's" but rest assured that ill be following doctors orders and wearing this thing all the time now because i certainly dont want to have surgery and ive been warned that would be the next step although only 10% of the people even need to take it to that next level. so lets hope this works and that you will be seeing me back in a bowling alley in the near future.