On the Subject of Spare Change.

I've turned my spare change jar into a collection jar. It's one of the giant Gallo wine jars, and it's still got the sticker on there from when it still held Chablis instead of my loose coin - haha, no, I didn't empty it myself, thank you!

Anyhow it's got a lot in there right now and it'll only keep growing through the year. Today I put the change from my lunch in there:

A dime.

Not much, right? At some gas stations nowadays you'd be lucky to get a couple pieces of Bazooka gum or a Fireball. Or if you find yourself at a Cracker Barrel, an old-fashioned Peppermint Puff, or a sugar stick (if you buy ten of them, that is).

It's that time of year again where the pink comes flying out of seemingly out of nowhere - in some parts of the country some cities have done or are gearing up for their 3-Day walks. Our local craft store has scrapbooking supplies, feather boas and blank shirts, foam visors, and bandannas ready to be embellished and personalized with glitter glue and fuzzy pom-poms and anything and everything a very craft-gifted person could think of to work with. Cards, cookbooks, jars, and fliers start popping up on message boards in various places around town - other runners/walkers pushing for final funds (or like myself, getting a jumpstart on next year!) and support. I've been sparingly checking the internet the past few weeks as I've been super busy with the new job, but I've been averaging about 2 or 3 new emails from all the awareness organizations I've been following now, and it's like this every year! (It really should be like this year-round but I'll spare you that tirade and say one day I hope we'll get there.)

But anyhow I found time to do a little bit of grocery shopping this week (where the pink reusable shopping bags are now out, too for just a buck or two!!) and to my surprise, one of my favorite  annual fundraising events has started: the Yoplait "Save Lids, Save Lives" run!

I don't know what it's like around the rest of the nation but these are limited time runs in our grocery stores where the distributor, Yoplait yogurt, decks out their yogurt cups in these pretty pink lids. Peel them off, clean them up, stash them until you're ready to mail them off, and lick that stamp like it was covered in Mixed Berry or Key Lime Pie. Each lid sent in generates a donation of ten cents to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. Yoplait has pledged to donate up to $1.6 MILLION dollars (they guarantee at least a minimum of $500,000 anyways, which is still really awesome) through these little pink pieces of foil.

For more information, head on over to the Yoplait website. :)