Diabetes is a circus

Managing diabetes sure can feel like a 3-ring circus sometimes - the carb tracking, the supplies and equipment, the interactions with a host of interacting adults, the updates on the latest in research and clinical work, and, oh yeah, what's Shelby want to do with her life!  Actually, having only three rings might be a welcome streamline!

But really I'm talking about the theme for this year's walk.  It's going to be a circus theme!

For those of you who know our family fairly well, you know that a circus theme - particularly if there are clowns involved - is a true test of our devotion to the JDRF cause.  You know that Shelby, in particular, is deathly afraid of clowns!  Still we are gamely pressing forward!

To celebrate the circus theme, we are doing RED Team Shelby shirts this year!  In the past, we've done blue, yellow, burgundy, white and, perhaps our all time favorite, the Aloha shirt! This year, its RED.

We're still working on pricing details (usually they are under $20 each), but we need to get your sizes.  So e-mail in your size today (teamshelby@yahoo.com) and how many shirts you'll likely need.  We'll confirm the other details shortly.

Let's Get It Started!

Can you believe that it's mid-September already?! Seems like it was just the start of summer, but school is back in and the Halloween candy is popping up in the stores.

That means that the JDRF Walk to Cure Diabetes is just more than a month away! Time to get really serious about the fund-raising! As you can see, we have freshened up the website, and stocked it with all the tools you need to get the word out and the donations in.

With the challenges of the economy, it's going to be more important to ever to focus on education and eliciting lots of small donations. We've always found this to be the best strategy, anyway; and we've almost always been blessed with unexpectedly generous donations.

Hook back with us often or use one of the tools to subscribe to the main blog. We'll get the Team Shelby Research Corner up and running again, too. We may even get political (it's presidential election, time after all).

Keeping It Simple

You can really outsmart yourself with computers and all the terrific web-based gadgetry out there!

I know, it happened to me! We created a really cool Team Shelby website two years ago using our Mac, which is fantastic. But we could only get to the website or make changes through our Mac. Well, life isn't always that convenient.

So, we are going to meld a couple of different platforms into a single web experience that we hope will keep you informed, entertained and linked to Team Shelby. We'll be including an easy way for you to subscribe to website updates and fun ways for you to talk back to us.

With that, we're up and running with our updated site here at teamshelby.blogspot.com!

Keep coming back for all the latest on the Oct. 25, 2008 Walk to Cure Diabetes at St. Supery and Peju, Napa Valley.