Welcome to Blogathon '09!

Good morning, lovely readers! Here starts a full 24 hours of blogging nonsense for a good cause. For starters, I will tell you a little about me and the event.

I'm an (obviously) unbalanced 23-year-old who works in retail and is a graduate student in an MBA program (and I'm *holding up pinky and forefinger* this close to finished!).

I am engaged to a wonderful man who loves catching bad guys for a living. We are currently looking for a house to buy before we are married in October. And we enjoy things like going to the gun range, playing Halo online, and cooking what we consider to be gourmet meals (but can mac 'n' cheese be gourmet? I'm not sure.).

I have a child named Panther. He's one and a half years old. And he's furry and hyper, and trying to get in my lap as I'm typing this. I'm sure he will be my steadfast companion throughout this event.

You can learn more about the blogathon cause by clicking through the tabs at the top of the page. This blog will be updated every 30 minutes for the next 24 hours in order to help raise funds for this wonderful cause.

Thanks to some very wonderful people, at the start of this 'thon, we are already $15 up. You can keep track of this by watching the bird there on the right move closer to our $1,000 goal. I will update it as often as I can when we receive donations. You can donate simply by clicking the rose to the right that has the donate button. It will allow you to pay through PayPal or with a credit card.

For the readers: Those of you coming over from my blog at Note to Self, thank you for stopping by! Those of you coming from a blogathon blog, I am so glad that you came! I hope you will find this a worthy cause! Those of you tripping over this blog by accident, welcome! I hope you will stick around, be inspired, and donate.

For the bloggers: Every hour on the hour, I will post a writing prompt. They are, of course, optional and are simply for use if you have writer's block. During the 'thon, I will probably link some of your posts here that I find interesting and feature each of you at some point throughout this time. Get writing!

So here we go!