Chicago Cares

On Saturday, June 12th  I spent the day painting a mural for the Chicago Cares Serve-a-thon event. The Harrington College of Alumni Association formed a team for this event...even though it was a small team, we still did a great job. Chicago Cares helps Chicago schools year round by using volunteers to do projects that help to spruce up the schools. The serve-a-thon is the biggest event of the year. I think I heard there were over 6000 volunteers and 150 buses this year!

We checked in at soldier field at 8am and we were assigned to a bus that drove us to the Elem/Jr High school to do our work. Teams were sent all over the city to do work in at many schools. They are able to get SO much work done in one day, its amazing.

The school we went to had lots of jobs to be done, painting walls in classrooms (lots of rooms) and painting murals. We (of course) jumped at the chance to paint murals, being designers and all.... :-)   The murals were painted on canvases, not on the walls at this school. The schools choose which murals they want, and they picked a really detailed sports themed mural and a couple other simpler murals. We jumped at the chance to do the complicated one. We traced the template design onto canvas using an overhead projector, then traced over that with a sharpie marker. Then we began to paint using a reference image. It was a fun day and our painting turned out great! The Principal and other women from the school loved it!

This was the first time I had been into a Chicago public school. I was very sad to see the condition it was in. The exterior was decent, but the interior was just really old and dirty. I don't even think it was one of the worst schools, but it was still sad to see how poorly kept up it was. It just seemed so run down, like a really depressing place to try to learn...

Here are some photos from the event... Thanks to everyone who donated to support our team! Click on the images to enlarge.

Happy Father's Day!!

Happy Father's Day to all of the Dad's out there! Especially to our favorite Dads, Greg and Dan!
Chloe and Louie think Joe is a pretty good Dad too! Happy Dog-Father's Day to him! ;-)
Hope everyone has a great day!

Yay, Dad!

Recently, my Dad got very sick with whooping cough... apparently older adults and young kids (due to not getting vaccinated) are catching this more frequently. At first the Dr. thought it was pneumonia, but it turned out to be whooping cough. I was alarmed when his wife texted me to tell me that he had been really sick. Apparently, he was coughing so hard that he would black out several times a day. Not good! He passed out at work and fell on his nose and got all cut up from his glasses. I am sure he gave his co-workers a good scare. He has been through several rounds of antibiotics, but his Dr. said it can take a while to clear up in older adults. Thankfully he stayed home from work for a while and rested because he was completely exhausted, which was hard for him because he is such a work-aholic. He does seem to be getting better though, so hopefully he will be back to normal soon! I am glad to hear he is feeling better, I was worried about him!

Some good things did come out of him getting sick though. He had all kinds of tests done on his heart, lungs, etc, and everything is looking OK. That always makes me feel better....I was wondering how "healthy" he was, so at least now we know.

AND.....

The BEST thing that came out of this is that he QUIT SMOKING!!!!!!
My Dad smoked when I was a kid, but quit "cold turkey" when I was around 7 years old. He picked it up again (unfortunately) when we were much older and has been smoking since. He wasn't ever a heavy smoker, but he did smoke. Everyone knows how I feel about smoking,... I have never been accepting of it for anyone, I'm just not cool with it, especially for my close friends and family because I worry about them too much.  I was always sad that my Dad smoked, but I am so so so glad to hear he has finally quit. I know he will feel much better and I will definitely worry less about him.

He has been smoke-free for 7 weeks now!! Nothing makes me happier than this.
Congrats Dad! :-)  I am so proud of you for quitting!
I love you!
He just turned 62 this past Monday...so Happy Birthday to him too!

Worrying about Parents

Since I heard the news about Joe's Uncle I have been thinking a lot about how someone can be taken from you so suddenly. I've been worrying about our parents and their health more and more. I've been thinking about my Dad and Joe's Dad and worrying about them a lot...especially since they are about the same age as Grady was. I guess that's a natural thing to do when someone passes away who was close to their age.

The scary thing is, you just never know when a heart attack or something just as serious might happen to someone in your family. I hope that our Dads (and Moms) know how important it is that they take care of themselves as they get older. However, I do know things can happen even when people are in relatively good shape. Like for Grady, I would never have looked at him and thought he would be at risk for a heart attack, so I guess you just never know. 

I always hear stories on the news about how men don't go to the Doctor to get check-ups as regularly as women do. They tend to go only when it's an emergency, which isn't always the best thing to do. I hope that as our parents get older they realize that they need to pay more attention to their health and GO to the Dr. for basic yearly exams! I can't imagine losing my Dad or Joe's Dad at such a young age, so I can't even imagine how Joe's cousins feel to have lost their Dad so young. :-(

Remembering Joe's Uncle Grady

On Friday, May 28th, Joe's Uncle Grady Baldwin passed away suddenly. It was very shocking because he went in due to heart attack symptoms earlier that week, they did heart surgery and he went home and everyone thought he was ok. He had chest heaviness again the day after he was sent home, they took him back to the hospital and he and passed away that evening. Turns out he had another massive heart attack. He was only 59 years old, turning 60 this June 14th.

He was a great guy and has a great family, 4 grown children, and he was a Grandpa to many little ones.
We weren't able to get back for the funeral, but his daughter, Joe's cousin Katie, posted the slideshow on Facebook from the funeral. It's such a nice way to remember him. I will share it if I can get a copy from Katie. He was a great guy and he will surely be missed by all of us who knew him.

Our thoughts are with his wife Kathy, their 4 kids, Cindy, Danny, Jamie, and Katie and and all of the grandchildren.
Love you guys!
http://www.millerfh.com/index.php?option=com_obituary&task=details&oid=4033&Itemid=