Krakow here I come

I often awake thinking of what I want to blog and then never get around to it. Today I woke up a 4 AM with my bladder per usual. When I was still awake at 5 I decided to do this blog rather than think about it. My summer has been overall good. I have had several near exposures to Covid and have not gotten it again – or at least been symptomatic enough to cause me to test. The heat/humidity in Nashville was horrible midMay to early August. For the past 3 weeks, it has been OK for summer. In June I took a car trip to Minneapolis and Iowa and was able to cycle in both places. It was spring temps in Minneapolis so it was a welcome respite from Nashville. In July I went to Seattle or 10 days and hit the weather perfectly. In my 10 days I caught up with 17 friends, had 4 wonderful bike rides and 2 hikes in the Cascades. I stayed with friends who are avid cyclists and I soaked up as much knowledge as I could. It was very difficult returning to Nashville. While I am an introvert and like/need a certain amount of alone time, I have had enough already.

My kitchen renovation is complete and I am still finishing getting settled. I did not unpack much of the stuff I packed 2 years ago until after the renovation. I am still going through things and trying to get rid of anything that doesn’t have a place/need and bring me joy. I have gone through so many photos – thrown away or digitized many. Pictures are hung throughout and it feels much more like home. Not surprisingly, I have decided I cannot wait to upgrade my bathrooms so I hope to do that before winter..

I continued to do my find woodworking with Harry at Nashville Tools for Schools. Below is one of the coffee tables we build from shop scraps. The tables we build go to organizations that move homeless to housing. I am gradually learning and retaining some of the principles of woodworking but I have a long way to go.

The rest of my time has been spent preparing for a 2 week trip to Krakow Poland with 3 other women to provide aid to Ukrainian refugees. We leave on September 10 and return on the 24th. You can follow the trip at 4women4URS.com While we are self funding our costs, we decided to fund raise to increase our ability to acquire goods for the refugees. None of us had ever done fundraising before so we learned a lot. We did not really have time to create a nonprofit. We were unsure if that would be a deterrent to donating. We created a bank account specifically for the money raised and had to figure out how to accept electronic donations. We needed a concise fundraising letter and we needed an identity.

Our identity became 4 women 4 Ukraine Refugee Support (4women4URS). A talented graphic artist donated time to create logos and we raised more money than we ever dreamed of. Donations are still coming in and we will exceed over $30K. The need really hit home for many and we are all so grateful of the generosity shown. If anyone still wants to donate, the best way is https://app.autobooks.co/pay/ukraine-refugee-support where the money goes directly into the URS account.

I leave Nashville on September 6 for Spartanburg SC where I will finish final prep and fly out of Charlette NC with Kay. We will meet up with Mary in Dulles and 3 of us will fly over together. The 4th, Teresa is a native of Poland and is flying over on September 6th to line things up so we can hit the ground running. We plan to do anything and everything we can to provide assistance to the refugees while we are there. I am sure we will gain more from the experience than we will give.