P.D.C. - Amra's

Just after writing this post about how Red Hat was making a very festive (and pretty. darn. classy.) move with their holiday party, check out this email I just got from the Amra's family:

A gift for you, Happy Holidays from Amra's

Lisa,

This is Samson. Amra's is sponsoring Samson on behalf of our Amra's guests. Samson is a Rottweiler-Shepherd mix that is in foster care through Best Friend Pet Adoption. Our sponsorship will help cover the cost of his food and medical expenses for the next six months. Although we hope that he'll have a permanent home and family before then.

The holidays are here and for most this means a time of giving—finding those perfect gifts for friends and family as well as giving to charities, financially or donating your time.During these economic times many charities have experienced sharp drops in donations. One way to still be able to donate to your favorite charity and give a meaningful gift is by sponsoring. Click here or visit BFPA online at http://cts.vresp.com/c/?Amras/48f55554e7/64adddf889/6912f621d2 to see the 48 cats and 37 dogs available for sponsorship through BFPA. Just click the "View Cats/Dogs to Sponsor" button, click on their name to learn more about them and click the "Sponsor" button located in their profile.You can dedicate your sponsorship to someone, with your dedication text appearing on their profile. BFPA will also send an acknowledgement on your behalf via email or snail mail.
Happy Holidays,
Brian, Alex and Rommie Amra
amrasraleigh.com
919-828-8488They sure know how to win MY heart! Just look at that sweeeeeet face!

Adrianne and Joey - go get him for Sweetie! Then she'll have a Tank of her own :-)

The Faces of Lung Cancer

This aired on NBC a while back... a touching story that sheds some light on the (untold) story of lung cancer. You might even recognize Brittany Coppedge as one of the "Faces of Lung Cancer", if you're quick!

There's no code available to directly embed it, but please click through and give it a watch and spread the word if you can! Ask and you shall receive!



PS - The video doesn't show up in Google Reader apparently, so be sure to click through and give it a watch!

Best Holiday Party EVER

This seems like it'll be a hoot. Well worth a Saturday night in Downtown just to see this for yourself.

The Official Santa Rampage
Who can argue with a hundred Santas?

Time and Place: Saturday, December 6, 2008 at 8:00pm - Raleigh, NC
Street: Glenwood South

Dress in a Santa Suit. Go bar hopping. Spread cheer. BE 21 OR OVER.

Wear a Santa suit!!! Bring prezzies or little gifts if you want to. Bring cash for bar tabs. Santa does not pay cover. The more the merrier. Ho ho ho!

Santa apparel is mandatory. A Santa hat is not enough. Get a Santa suit. Make a Santa suit. Steal a Santa suit. Buy a Santa suit. If you don't have any money, be creative. If you don't have any creativity, slap yourself three times and ask your mom to help you. Glue cotton balls to red long johns. Already have a Santa suit? Make a spare so Santa can assimilate strangers.

Pay your own damn bar tab.

The answer to important questions that may arise:
Q: Who's in charge?
A: "Santa"

Q: What organization are you with?
A: "Santa"

Q: What are you protesting?
A: "Shitty holiday parties"

Q: How did you get here?
A: "A sleigh and eight tiny reindeer"

Q: Where are you going?
A: "I'm only allowed to tell you if you dress like Santa"Here's the facebook invite and a great New Raleigh article (with video). Put it on your calendar!

P.D.C.

Pretty. Darn. Classy. (if you ask me):

Red Hat cancels party; will feed needy instead

"Red Hat recently scrapped plans for a massive holiday party.

Instead, the Raleigh software company will donate the money it would have spent to a food charity chosen by employees.

The move comes as the slumping economy is hurting philanthropic donations and increasing demand among the needy.

"We felt it was the wrong time to be spending a lot of money on ourselves," said DeLisa Alexander, Red Hat's senior vice president for people and brand.

She declined to say how much money Red Hat will donate, but it's enough to pay for about 800,000 meals at food banks run by Feeding America. In the Triangle, the group runs the Food Bank of Eastern and Central North Carolina and the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle."Click through and read the whole N&O article on how this trend can help unite employees in a cause - a great thing when a slumping economy is always dampening moods - and how other groups are doing some good.

Special COUNTRY Concert Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, Sunday - November 30th, Buckhead Saloon will be hosting a special country concert featuring Warner Brothers recording artist Whitney Duncan!

Tickets are only $5.00 and the show is at 9pm... if you're a Carrie Underwood or Faith Hill fan you are going to LOVE Whitney so come join!

Check out her current chart-climbing single, "When I Said I Would":

And one of my personal favorite holiday songs, "All I Want for Christmas":
PS - RSVP "attending" to the event on facebook by midnight tonight and I'll enter you to win a pair of free tickets! Not on facebook? Leave a comment and I'll still include you in the drawing :-)

A Few Easy Ways to Help

I am so thankful for all the little things in life that can so often be taken for granted. I'm doubly thankful for always being surrounding (in college and out of college) by so many giving individuals, groups, and organizations!

Here are a few ways some of the NCSU Greek Life houses are making local contributions this week:

Pi Beta Phi
Our national philanthropy is literacy and the NC Delta chapter is holding a book drive this week to distribute among local partners that are making great strides in improving literacy in our community.

Any and all donations are welcome and will be accepted at the Pi Beta Phi house on Greek Court after this weekend's holiday break. (I'll be glad to pick up any donations from anyone in the area and deliver them, if needed!)

FIJI
The brothers of Phi Gamma Delta are holding a first-year event, Fiji's "Kill the Chill" clothing drive" to benefit local homeless shelters. The event will take place Tuesday, December 2nd, in the Brickyard.

Again, I'll be glad to drop any donations by for anyone who can't make it but would like to contribute.Please feel free to send any listings my way you'd like to share, too!

Talk Southern to Me: Manners > Etiquette

Just a little reminder:

"Don't confuse etiquette and manners. It's bad etiquette to use your dinner fork on your salad. It's bad manners to comment that someone used their dinner fork on their salad. Manners always trumps etiquette." -- The Hyper HomemakerFACT.

*Crosses Fingers*

I'm really hoping that this site will do the trick... hey, it's worth a shot! My friend Carolina forwarded this to me via email from a daily email tips newsletter from Ideal Bite - "bite-sized ideas for light-green living each weekday".

Stop Yellow Pages

This is the confirmation I received: "Your request to be removed from Yellow Pages distribution has been forwarded to the Yellow Pages publishers we have on file that serve your area. Lisa, for verification, we have sent you an email. Please click on the link in the email to verify your signature."

Like I said in the title, *crosses fingers*!

skirt!: Presents for the Pantry

Congrats to skirt! After Work for raising almost $500 at their November event for Triangle Family Services with their silent auction of tree skirts!

Go ahead and put their December event on your calendar now and bring some friends - it'll be a fabulous time:

Wear your favorite holiday skirt and bring your non-perishable food items to 518 West Italian Café on December 16th for skirt!’s holiday bash!

$5 naughtinis and nice-tinis will be available, and at the end of the night we’ll tally up sales and find out if skirt! readers are naughty or nice...The food drive benefits the Inter-faith Food Shuttle - a GREAT local organization!

Eco-Friendly Products for Pets

If you've read this blog for long enough (or happen to know me in real life), it's very easy to notice that I am a puppy lover (and that all dogs of any age, shape, or size are "puppies" to me).

This is a great line of eco-friendly products that my friend Caroline emailed me. This company takes plastic bottles (keeping them out of the landfill!) and turns them into a wide-range of consumer goods... for our furry friends!

Worldwise Pet Products





Maybe if Nick and I invest in a few of these, Tank will quit stealing my spot in bed! And yes, Tank is a big boy.This is Tank, being his usual lapdog self with Renee.

He's my (big) baby!

Tasty Thanksgiving Treats

My college pals and I had the 2nd annual weekend-before-Thanksgiving-shindig-celebration this past weekend and apparently, these drinks were well enjoyed.... especially by the pilot - a new addition to the party this year thanks to Matt and Amanda.

Spiked Apple Cider
Buttered Spiked Cider

Big hugs and kisses to Joseph for orchestrating this whole thing for two years in a row and to Adrianne for cleaning up after all of us (apple pie shots and all)!

Apple Pie shots (Joey adds whipped cream, too)
Hot Apple pie cocktails

I feel like the latter of the last two suggestions would be a good one to add to the line-up in the future. Maybe in place of the apple pie shots that can go dangerously wrong if you let Joey sprinkle too much ground cinnamon in your mouth (see last year's extremely attractive photographs - below - for example)?

Gobble 'til ya wobble, y'all!

Holiday TV

Even though we have a bunch of these on good ol' VHS (and some of the newer on DVD) at Mom and Dad's, there's just something about catching your favorites on TV.

Many thanks to my Aunt Deborah for this great link to pretty much any and all holiday programming you could want to catch on TV.

Christmas 2008 Holiday Movies, Specials, Favorites
http://www.chiff.com/home_life/holiday/christmas/whats-on-tv.htmPS - I'm still trying to delay the onset of the holidays a bit, but a lot of these will be airing this quickly-approaching Thanksgiving holiday week/end!

N.C. Children's Promise - The Final Number is...

...$960,377.72 as of 11pm yesterday!
$1,001,622.01
Updated as of 11:30 a.m. on November 21.

One million plus!!

Ho-ly-cow is all I can say. Over $160K more than last year - bad economy be darned!

I've always said NC people are good people - very good people.

I personally signed up for the $12 x 12 (many thanks to J.J. from QDR for dedicating it to Brittany and Brittany's Battle on-air at 4:30pm yesterday!!) and I want to sincerely thank all of my friends who have done the same. Amber even let me know last night that she passed it all around Carquest Corporate and Lisa S. double-checked to make sure she didn't miss the opportunity to give every month... thank you girls!!

Here's a direct link for any one interested.

$12/month may not seem like you're doing a lot, but $144/year can help families purchase custom strollers for their children who can't sit up in a standard stroller (one of the stories featured yesterday on-air) and provide for the care and treatment of children who are never turned away based on their family's ability to pay or not pay.

NC Childrens Promise - Post #2

There are two things I neglected to include in the previous post, which I wanted to share separately to make sure they get some good attention!

1 - Here's the online schedule for the radio-thon performances (pdf). Jason is on at 5:30pm, sorry for previously noting 3:30pm. The other artists are amazing, too: Heidi Newfield, Darius Rucker, Jo Dee Messina, and more!

2 - I got into quite a few bidding wars (with mom and dad's financial backing - thanks guys!) last year over some of the great auction items. I would love to go head-to-head with any of you over any of these items.

Check it all out!

Turn Your Radio UP Today!

This is one of the few days of the year I'll have the radio on in my office. Wait, that's not 100% true. I listen to XM (ahem - XM Sirius, or is it Sirius XM now?) because there are no commercials.

Back to the point, many thanks to Bryan for reminding me last night that today is the start to 94.7 WQDR's Childrens Promise Radio-thon, one of the most life-changing things you can ever listen to, visit, and support.

I believe Jason is performing at 3:30pm in the lobby for any locals who want to tune in or go check out the event. Here's the email from WQDR about today's event:If 94.7 QDR sounds a little different today, there's a good reason. For more than 18 hours we'll be broadcasting live from North Carolina Children's Hospital in Chapel Hill. It's our 7th Annual "North Carolina Children's Promise" RadioTelethon; that one day a year when we ask you to pledge just $25 to help sick, injured and disabled North Carolina kids.

Anyway, we thought we'd remind you just in case you'd like to make a donation. The phones will be open from 5:00 AM until 11:30 PM today at 1-866-9NCKIDS. Or you can log on to our website www.947QDR.com or www.NCChildrensPromise.org to make your pledge or to bid on some amazing music and sports collectibles we're auctioning off for the cause. This year, we have almost 50 celebrity auction items, including autographed stuff from Toby Keith, Jewel, Chris Cornell, Kenny Chesney, Coach Roy Williams and many, many more.

Even if you can't give us your money, we'd still love for you to listen. It's great local radio for a wonderful cause, and once again this year you can watch us live on Time-Warner Cable and News 14 Carolina.I will no doubt be crying all over payroll today, especially if Mrs. Coppedge or Jason starts telling Brittany's story, and every time they feature a mom and dad talking about their brave children. (Where are the tissues?!?!)

Which reminds me, I do hope everyone will either check out Brittany's Annual Angel Gala this weekend (I'd love to see you there!) or at least check out the eBay auction and consider supporting Brittany's Battle!



If you are planning to attend our Gala this Sunday and have not yet purchased you tickets, you can do so right now by going to our web site.

You can buy a ticket at the door, but buy early and save the money for bidding!

Also don't forget about our raffle for a week's stay at Shell Island in Wrightsville Beach, NC. The drawing will be at the Gala and you do not need to be present to win! Tickets are $50 each and we are selling no more than 100 of them. Buy yours now!

Attire is business / church appropriate.
There will be a full service cash bar available.For those of you not in the area, here's how you can still help!Ok, so you don't live in Raleigh or even NC for that matter ~ You don't have to miss out on the Gala fun! Be sure to check out our auction on ebay! We have some great stuff from the country music community for you to bid on including items from Jason Michael Carroll, Sugarland, Carrie Underwood, Rodney Adkins and many more. There is also some items from the NASCAR community and even something from a Gold Medal Olympian!

The store is now open and there will be a few more items added, so keep checking back! Bidding will end at midnight this Sunday, November 23rd. So visit our ebay store and bid on some great stuff for a good cause!We miss you Brittany!!!