Family Meeting, Vote for me.

Ok, family meeting.

TLDR (Too long, didn’t read): I need you to vote for me to win a contest. Vote below.

http://thesupermom.org/2023/betsy-larrabee

Or read on for more details because how random is that?

We have some items on the agenda.

Before we properly begin… hi. It’s been a hot minute. And by a hot minute, I mean that in February I was like, ‘oh yeah, baby, I am on a writing roll. This is my day! This is my month! This is my YEAR, baby! I am going to work on my writing every single day.’ and I actually did. I set-up a writing oasis in a spare room in the basement, spent a couple dollars on fancy pens and post-it’s, and mostly markedly, started a google doc entitled, ‘Book draft.’

You heard it here first folks.

Heard what?

I don’t know entirely. I think that I am admitting I would like all the words on this page to someday be bound into a book.

I spent the month at work. Using old blog posts as the bones, I copied over to the document 90,000 words.

90,000!

And that only got me through November 2020.

You know what happened in November 2020? Of course you do!

Relapse! The guts, the glory, what some may call the moment my writing took a turn for the better.

Ok, no one but myself has said that, but you get the idea.

I have >100,000 MORE words since relapse, which feels wild because a standard book has around ~100,000 words in total. But I am sure as I build out the entire frame, I will then go back and axe half of it. Whatever. The point is, there is a large file being built and February had me on fire for writing.

Then March.

You guys, I didn’t publish one damn post in March. I didn’t add one word to the book draft. I did ZERO things.

That’s not true. I did some things. Some really arduous things like taking care of sick kids because I SWEAR someone (and more often multiple someones) was sick in our house 3 out of the 4 weeks of March.

But that one week, that ONE week where no one was sick, that was the week that I did the most fun of all things: Reunited with Sweet Emily’s family for a ski vacation. I will write about that later (hopefully, unless “later” turns into March-energy and is filled with zero writing).

As a placeholder: BIG fun was had, hearts continued to mend, heavy mixed with pure. The both/and of life on this side of things.

I am going to drop this picture just to hold the space for the words that will come. This is my baby falling in love with Sweet Emily’s older sister. AND NO! MY HEART WILL NEVER BE THE SAME!

Then we came home and we all got sick, again. Last week, I had the flu for the first time in a decade and let me tell you, that was miserable. Far worse that my experience with the virus that shall not be named. Everyone is on the mend, still coughing more than I’d like and snotting more that I would prefer, but mending.

And now, we are here: It’s April! MY BIRTHDAY MONTH!

Ok, back to the Agenda.

ITEM 1:

Vote for me to win $20,000 and a weekend in Palm Springs.

(Yes, you read that right. No, this is not a scam.)

Ok, backstory.

The other day, my neighbor, knowing I’m a writer, asked me to help her formulate some answers she needed to enter a contest. I was glad to help. She gave me some words and I massaged them into prose. I love writing and do see it as a gift I have, that others don’t, so I love helping other people put their heart into words.

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Side note, I actually considered starting a business of having weekly calls with new cancer parents and journaling their experience on their behalf. So many people say, ‘Oh I wish I could write the way you do,’ and while that’s kind as a compliment, I also think everyone should have their beautiful thoughts as beautiful words. Anyway, Josh told me that business idea was a distraction from writing my own book and he is right, which is mildly annoying in the ‘we’ve been married so long I know you are right, but also for fucks sake can you not be right when I am trying to skirt around my life’s calling.’

So that’s on the back burner.

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Back to the part where I win $20,000.

I agreed to help my friend and she explained that she would pay me $100 if she won. She told me her heart and I put it into lovely words. She is an amazing person, it wasn’t hard.

What was the prize she could win I inquired? “$20,000 and a weekend in Palm Springs.”

Naturally, I thought to myself, ‘Well hot damn, I should probably enter this contest myself, too, bc if she wins with my curated words, I’ll never recover from my resentment.’

Not because I don’t love her and I don’t want the win for her, but because I am an enneagram 1 and my resentment rides HARD. Plus, helping her curate my answers, got me noodling on what I would write for myself.

So, there I was, without any forethought, entering a contest/fundraiser on the Internet. 😂

The fundraiser is for the Children’s Miracle Network- which is an organization that raises money for pediatric hospitals. You can read more about them here, but you’d know them if you saw the commercial. Sunday afternoon, network TV, Marie Osmond, sad music, and bald kids. See, you are familiar.

The contest centers on people voting for why someone is a 💫SuperMom💫 based on the mom’s short answers to a handful of questions   Votes can be made for free, OR purchased for $1/vote, which is what makes this a fundraiser and not just a popularity contest.

SO You can help me WIN by simply voting for me!!

You can cast one vote *for free* daily, and more votes if you want to donate to the Children’s Miracle Network.

Every dollar of donation tallies one vote.

To vote, you do have to verify you’re a real person- I suppose so that a Russian bot doesn’t win the grand prize. You can verify through your Facebook account with a simple click through. Or if you do not have FB you can verify through a credit card, authorizing, but not being charged!, for $1. That felt a tad scammy to me at first read, but again, the Russian bots…. 

If I get the most votes and WIN- I get $20,000, a 2-page spread in Woman’s World magazine, and a trip to Palm Springs. 

👇🏼👇🏼VOTE HERE! 👇🏼👇🏼

http://thesupermom.org/2023/betsy-larrabee

Can y’all even imagine what I would do with a weekend in Palm Springs? Right, neither can I.

I was chatting with a friend about the contest, a fellow cancer mama, and we remarked that we are honestly not sure which is the better part: $20,000 or merely a weekend away.

Cancer moms be tired.

All moms be tired.

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Ok, I am going to pause this family meeting because I wrote more than I thought I would and I know how family meetings go. If I get too deep in the weeds of things, people stop listening.

I’ll come back tomorrow and lure you in to voting for me again with another family meeting agenda item.

(Voting is open until April 13th (MY BIRTHDAY!!!!) and you can vote DAILY! Let’s do this team!)

http://thesupermom.org/2023/betsy-larrabee