The Who.

No, not the band. Sorry.

Anyone fully vested in the scrapbooking industry would probably recognize the name Rhonna Farrer. She not only posts funky, fun layouts of her own on the number one scrapbooking Web site, twopeasinabucket.com, like this:



but she also designs products for Autumn Leaves, like this:

and and digital kits for Two Peas, like this:



Pretty cool, huh?

Her products appear in scrapbook shops and even in your local Target. She conducts creative workshops all over the world and works with Scrapbooks, Etc. and Creating Keepsakes, two wildly popular scrapbooking mags.

So when I asked her about some of her product that I'd used to create that "Go, Kyrie, Go!" message, she offered to create a t-shirt design for us! She offered! As nutty, crazy, busy as she is with a husband, three kids and international design work, she offered!

Rhonna really took to heart the symbolism of Kyrie and what the rest of us are trying to achieve in her honor. I told her that it would be great to have a cool design that attracted someone to buy a t-shirt before he or she even knew what the message was about.

I can't wait to show it to you all tomorow! (I'm a stinker, aren't I?)

Something a little exciting!

We've enlisted the help of a popular and talented artist who agreed to work on a t-shirt design for us. I just saw a sneak peek, and it's very funky, cool. I cannot believe she agreed to help us!!! Such an honor. I'm so excited, I'm about ready to squeal!

So stay tuned for the deets on the Who and the Design! And ... I'm getting ready to put in an order, but I need a handle on how many. How many of you would buy a, say, $13 t-shirt for you or for your friends/family?

Ears as the patio doors into the soul.

Eyes might be the windows, but ears have entry to the soul, too.

My friend Melissa sent me this song. Whoa. For me, it softly whispers, "go, kyrie, go," meaning I'll pick up my broken heart and keeping going forward. I'll keep going, come what may, until He says I don't have to anymore. Whatever you're battling inside or whatever you're battling outside, I hope this song finds a way to swaddle you and inch you forward.

If You Want Me To

by Ginny Owens.

p.s. Today I am thankful for vocal chords and pianos.

Someone else needs your help.

When word made its way around about Kyrie's diagnosis, one of Chad's cousins in Council Bluffs, Iowa, passed it on to someone who knew pediatric brain cancer all too well. Marcy is the mom of Ethan, and Ethan was diagnosed in 1999, when he was five years old, with the same cancer that Kyrie fought. She spoke with Jordan & Lacie early in Kyrie's short battle, offering her hardwon advice and support. Jordan said that Marcy was a tremendous source of comfort when both he and Lacie were submerged in shock and tears.

Ethan's family has fought a long, tough fight, trying new treatments & ideas right & left with reasonable success. The first line of treatment that Kyrie received wasn't even around when Ethan began to fight his cancer. When Ethan was 11, he was also diagnosed with leukemia, a result of experimental treatments years before. He is now 13, and for the past two years, he has been, luckily, fighting the leukemia more than the PNET. Until now.

His latest MRI shows "seed" tumors in his spine. I'm hoping you'll make room in your prayers today for Ethan, his family and the medical team surrounding them. For more info, please visit Ethan's Caring Bridge site here.

Even more reason to raise funding for PNET research, no?

Some day Kyrie's blog will be full, from top to bottom, of joy. That vision is why I love hearing about all the goodness that you are doing, no matter how small. Coloring books and birthday cards and friends committed to regular gatherings and people taking jobs to do good and handmade quilts for fundraising, even just a thoughtful comment or a quiet prayer for someone else--all of this matters.

The strangest thing about giving is that, at first, we think it will cost us, that we will lose something: time, money, energy. But after helping someone (even anonymously), have you ever really felt like you're "out" anything? Oddly, don't you feel full? Don't you feel satisfied, even energized to do a little more?

We who are well, we who are able, have a mighty calling to care. Today, perhaps you can care for Ethan.

Ever thought of ...

Donating an old cell phone? Yep, you can visit care.org and find out how to donate that old-skool cellie to humanitarian staff in the field of poverty-stricken countries.

Donating old luggage? Old backpacks or dusty luggage in a closet? Visit suitcasesforkids.org to find out how you can donate your luggage for kids in foster to use.

Donating old prom dresses? Yes, this, too, can benefit someone else. Check out operationfairydust.org for info on donating the gowns that you'll never wear again.

Interesting how much stuff we have that could benefit others, huh? And this is just the extra, peripheral stuff, not the marrow of God's talent within you. Just think what you could do with that!

When it comes to donating, I hear plenty of people say that they have so much to give away, but they never quite make it to the Goodwill. I've been guilty of this, too, but for the last two years, I've made it a priority errand. This means every season Chad & I go through our closets and the garage looking for items that we haven't used or items we joke about, like white elephant Christmas gifts ... Do we really need an 10-inch candle shaped like a bridal gown? How about those Cliff Huxtable sweaters? A framed poster of an American eagle? I know someone somewhere is looking for one of those. It's not fair that we have it all to ourselves. ;)

So we begin bagging up items and collecting the bags in a corner of the garage. When we have four or five Hefties and maybe a dinky file cabinet or an orange, tweed, ruffled, hide-away couch to go with them, we make a run. Better yet, some organizations come and get your stuff, too! Here in K.C., Missouri Council of the Blind and Big Brothers, Big Sisters make scheduled pick-ups. Cool, huh? The orange, tweed, ruffled, hide-away couch got a chauffeured ride on the town courtesy of Mo. COB.

And not only are you helping organizations earn money, but you're freeing yourself of unnecessary stuff—the stuff that keeps you dusting or laundering or putzing instead of thinking and doing and soaring.

I'm with motherof2 in her comment on the previous post. I'm just thinking of what I can do next! Go, Kyrie, Go!

Once a mother, always a mother.

Here we are. Mother's Day. Often times when people hear of tough situations, as a means of comfort and sympathy, they say, "I can't imagine what you must be going through." This may be true for some, but for me, I can imagine. I can imagine what it would be like to wake up as someone else and take on their day, their packages of pain or pride.

Today, I can imagine a mother whose child is a happy angel, always together yet not an earthly minute goes by where she feels whole again. I can imagine the mother who would burst with glorious joy to have a hug or to hear a giggle. I can imagine a mother wanting to wake from a nightmare that never seems to end. I don't know about where you all are, but here in the Midwest, it was a beautiful, warm, summery, spring day. I think that was Kyrie's gift to Lacie.

Leah left a wonderfully encouraging comment on the previous post. Good to know even though weeks have passed that you're all still front & center.

One of my favorite mothers of all time is Erma Bombeck. Erma's writings characterized a mother's wit and wisdom in fantastically universal ways. In fact, when our "Go, Kyrie, Go!" cry started, I remembered a quote of hers that really applies to how, I think, we should go forward. What do you think?

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'"

Family Ties.

Kyrie's Aunt Manda & Uncle Ryan are somewhere near Hays, Kansas right now with their two dogs and two vehicles packed with stuff. Today they are moving from mountainous Colorado Springs to soggy Kansas City, a plan put into motion by Kyrie herself.

Being a lead-footed, eight-hour drive away has meant compromising around the holidays and missing out on good, ol' Thome fun. And then there's the not-so-fun stuff, which is, frankly, even more important. When we were all in the hospital waiting room during Kyrie's first surgery, Aunt Manda was booking an emergency flight into Wichita. That day, gravity started pulling a branch of the family tree closer to home.

It was also during Kyrie's first stay in the hospital that Manda & I hatched a little plan to donate our hair. Manda's is shoulder length, which means growth would take awhile, but as soon as she got back home, she started taking prenatal vitamins to make her hair grow faster. I started deep conditioning mine.

Locks of Love only needs 10 inches, while Wigs for Kids needs 12. The good thing is that even if these organizations can't use the hair for their own purposes, they can sell it, which still helps their cause. Anyone done this before? Have a recommendation?

I've lost count of how many people have said, "I wish I had your hair!" My grandmothers, my friends who smelled like permanent solution, my coworkers, men in the aisles of Wal-Mart, women on planes, the balding, the braided, old, young, children even—they've all said this to me. My 'do is naturally curly, and as curls go, I think they're kinda nice, too, though I've just recently come to this decision. Junior high was a frizzy nightmare. I got this hair from my dad. Jordan got it, too, but when Jordan grew his out in 2004 (just in time for my wedding), he looked kinda like a buffalo.

So when I think about lopping off these locks in a month or two (or three, depending on Manda's vitamin intake), I feel good knowing that I wouldn't really be doing this if it weren't for a pretty little angel that we all know. And ... for all those people wishing for this hair, well, someone will finally get their wish granted.