My BIG Dream!

I have been having so much fun making Chemo scarves! So much fun that I find myself thinking about fabric, ALL THE TIME! I love checking for coupons to JoAnns, and I especially love hunting through the bolts of fabric for some fun designs. At night I dream about these scarves, and while I sleep great ideas come to my mind. Idea's that make me super excited and make me want MORE fabric!

Originally this project was going to be only 17 scarves, one for each chemo treatment. That was an easy project to fulfill. I have since  made  around 76 scarves, and that's just the ones I've completed! I have about 30-35 cut out and waiting to be sewn!

So what's my Big Dream?

My big dream is to get my chemo scarves in all of the 50 States! In order to do this I'll need to find friends or contacts in each state and ask them if they'd be willing to let me mail them a package of 10 chemo scarves and they'll just have to deliver them to a chemo center in their town. That shouldn't be too hard, right? Before I start looking for a contact from each state I need to buy a map from Utah Idaho Supply. One that I can write the name and address of the contact person in their state.
My husband and I need to sit down and design a logo to put on the tags for these scarves. And I'm hoping the company I found will print my logo on their labels.  *Fingers crossed!*
10 scarves in 50 states is 500 chemo scarves! Holy! That's a lot! I'm not in a hurry to finish this project, I'll be ok if it takes me more than a year to complete. This project is about the process and getting FREE scarves onto the heads of chemo patients!
But how am I going to make this happen? So far I've been self funding this project, with a few friends who have donated (some super cute) Fabric. I'd love any suggestions on how I can get my hands on LOTS of fabric! I've thought of looking for businesses who would donate, but I'm not sure if I need to be a Non-profit to receive donations from a business. Anyone know how that works?
If you would like to donate fabric, or money for me to go pick out fabric, thread, etc, here's the breakdown of needs:
 Fabric:
28 inches makes 2 chemo scarves and 2-3 JP drain bags.
1 yard and 20 inches will make 4 chemo scarves and about 8 JP drain bags.
2 1/3 yards will make 6 scarves and 16-20 JP drain bags.
Thread- tan preferably. The stitches are less obvious with tan than white thread.
Double sided ribbon

(white)- 3/8in X 18 ft will make ties for 3 drain bags.
              - 1/4in X 10 yds will make ties for 5 drain bags.
I have found the  3/8in X 18ft ribbon at JoAnns for $1.99, and the 1/4in X 10yds at Michaels for FIFTY CENTS! And if you have a coupon it could be even cheaper!

If any of you have any suggestion on how I can make this project go, I'd love to hear your ideas!

Lastly, quite a few of you have asked if I'll teach you how to make these scarves so you can do them at home. They really aren't hard! But what I'm thinking of doing is, after surgery and I'm feeling pretty good, I'll organize a sewing night at my house where I can teach you 'HOW' I cut them out, iron them, sew them, etc. If you'd be interested in coming to a scarf sewing night at my house let me know, that way I know who to invite.

Cancer gets the blame!

I've noticed that I put the blame on Cancer for most things that go wrong in my life. If I get frustrated because my chemo brain is sabotaging my productivity, I blame Cancer. If I don't have the energy level to get my house work done, I blame Cancer. And when I struggle with my new self image I blame Cancer. Yesterday was a day where I blamed Cancer for something it had no relation to, it's pretty silly now that I think back on it, but at the time I was mad at the situation I was in and I just knew that it was Cancer's fault!
Here's the story-
Trying to prepare and get everything done before my upcoming surgery is causing me to feel anxiety and stress. I don't mind doing the chores and things that need to be done, but what I don't like is the pressure I feel to get them done in a certain time frame (before SUNDAY!)
The list I had for yesterday was not too crazy: 1) Pick up ladder from neighbor 2) Drop off van to the dealership to be repaired. 3)Wash the walls in my entry way. 4) Wash the ceiling fan in said entry way. 5) Mow the front and back lawns. 6) Edge both lawns and fertilize.
After coming back home from dropping off my van I mowed the lawns and did the edging before it started to rain. My timing was perfect! It literally started raining the minute I put my edger away. Mowing and edging only took me 2 hours! Coming in the house to start washing walls and the ceiling fan I realized I couldn't remember how to use the neighbors ladder. It's a tall one and VERY heavy. It took me a while to figure it out but eventually I did. Getting the ladder into a good position to climb and do the cleaning I accidentally scraped the paint off the wall. I was beginning to feel frustrated but I was still determined to get the job done. I climbed up and started cleaning the fan blades, it was looking so nice, but my rag was becoming all junked up, so I climbed down to rinse it out. After rinsing out my rag I glanced up to admire the nice clean fan and then my brain did the dumbest thing, I forgot that I was just rinsing my rag and needed to climb back up and finish cleaning the rest of the fan. I was admiring my work and feeling accomplished that I was done; I started cleaning up and awkwardly figured out how to take the ladder back down. Once the ladder was situated on the my landing all ready to be taken back to the neighbor I realized I really wasn't done cleaning the darn ceiling fan! But now I was worn out from maneuvering this heavy ladder that I didn't have the strength to put it back up and finish the job. Oh-Well! I moved on to the ceiling fan in my room and figured I'd ask one of my daughters to help me with the ladder later in the day.
Soon after my cleaning was done I got a phone call from the dealership telling me how much it was going to cost to fix my problems. The problems were going to cost more than I could afford so I told them I'd come pick up my van and come back another time when I could afford the repairs. The problems weren't new and I had already been living with them for a while so what's another couple weeks? The problem that was the most concerning was my ignition switch, the key has a hard time going in! And it's gets a little more difficult each time. By diagnosing the problem they messed up the tumblers within the ingnition, which meant when I tried to leave the dealership my key wouldn't go in and therefore I couldn't start my van and leave. I tried for a good 20 minutes. By this point I was starting to cry because it was obvious I was going to have to leave my van to be fixed. Which means trying to find a ride home, AGAIN! And figuring out how to pay for repairs. Ugh! I hopped out of the van to go find the service writer and explain that whatever they did messed up the ignition even more, to the point it was going to be staying for them to fix. Couldn't find the service writer. Where in the heck did he go?! After 5 minutes or so of looking for him I went back to my van and began trying to get my key to go in and start. 10 or so minutes later it started!! The tears started up again! I was so happy! The plan at this point was to drive it home and park it in the garage, with the key IN the ignition so when we're ready to get it fixed we can drive it to wherever it needs to go. As I was driving home I was quite emotional and I remember saying, out loud, 'Cancer, this is all your fault!' I'm sure it isn't really cancers fault, but it felt so good to give it the blame. Cancer should get the bad wrap for everything that goes wrong. The changes in me both physical and emotional because of cancer probably make handling hard and stressful situations that much harder. Nobody likes stress, nobody likes dealing with hard things. And I've never met anyone who liked cancer either.

If I need to find something positive in this I guess I'd have to say that there must be something to learn from it. If I'll goes well I'll have a pretty good idea of just how much stress I can handle. By the weight of the current stresses I'd say I'm going to be a body builder in no time!