Heinz 57

Jennifer and I quickly are learning that the work involved with writing a book doesn’t end when you send it to the printer.

It’s just beginning.

Fortunately we received word from the printer early last week, and our book, Despite MS, to Spite MS, is right on schedule. We will have them available for our Sept. 15 book release party from 6 to 8 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Library in Mount Pleasant. Please join us if you can!

We’re excited with the support we’ve received with the pre-order sales of our book! We are less than 20 books away from our goal of 100 copies pre-ordered by the end of August. Visit the book’s website to learn more about it and how you can order your own copy. Portions of the book’s proceeds will benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and Camp Courageous.

And we were humbled and honored when fellow blogger Judy Williams from Peace be With You on the MS Journey, whose inspirational haiku-style poems also are featured in our book, wrote a poem about us and our efforts. Please see what Judy had to say here.

While we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on our book, other interesting news over the last few weeks include:

HealthCentral honored

Early last week we received some incredibly exciting news about HealthCentral, the nationwide blog for which we are regular contributors.

HealthCentral was named as one of America’s fastest growing companies in 2011 via its recent inclusion to the prestigious Inc. 500/5000 list. With this distinction, HealthCentral joins the likes of past winners and business icons such as Microsoft, Zappos, and UnderArmour.

HealthCentral’s more than 35 sites provide clinical resources and real-life support to those with life-changing conditions and serves more than 16.4 million visitors each month.

Congratulations to everyone at HealthCentral, and we are grateful that such a valuable resource has provided us the opportunity to share our stories and experiences with others living with MS.

Click here to read our most recent HealthCentral post, “Does MS Control Your Life?”

CMU Disability Awareness Fair

Jennifer is excited to have the opportunity to be involved on the committee that’s organizing the third annual Disability Awareness Fair at Central Michigan University.

This is a valuable one-stop event with resources that are both informational and entertaining for individuals and families living with various disabilities.

The fair will be the highlight of the university’s monthlong effort to increase disability awareness this October. It will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 29, in Finch Fieldhouse on the CMU campus.

New blogs added

In our surfing of the web we discovered two really engaging blogs and have added them to the blog roll on our website. Their writing and storytelling are so insightful and enjoyable we wanted to call attention to them and encourage you to check them out:

• Gracie’s Mum: A Story of a Mum with MS

• My Odd Sock

Hope you enjoy them! Do you have any other blogs you enjoy reading? What are they, and please tell us about them.

Why Heinz 57? See this blog? It’s in there 🙂 And yes, the title was all Jennifer’s idea…