My Doctors Without Borders fundraiser is continuing to reach new milestones with $1,650 raised so far. That means I have a bit of a queue of activities to do. The next one was to be a cooking challenge in the spirit of “Chopped” but with trips to the grocery store limited in frequency and not wanting to buy things that we may not use later we have postponed this one. And that means we’ve moved on to the next one – the $1,000 milestone: Karaoke.
When I first imagined doing this I thought it would take a long time to reach this milestone and so I would end up going to a karaoke night at a bar somewhere in Toronto once everything had re-opened. But we are still not anywhere near that possibility. So today we decided to record a video montage of several songs submitted by friends on Facebook.
What you might not know about me is that I’m really self-conscious about singing. About the only time I sing is when I’m verifiably alone. For example, if I’m on a bike ride in a remote area and I see that nobody is nearby I might let a quiet verse or two pass my lips. But otherwise? Nothing. So this felt scary and vulnerable. But I feel the best thing to do with irrational fears is to face them – especially if it helps a good cause. And so in I dove:
In the end it went so well and I even had a bit of fun! And I learned something. The more one commits to anything – even if you’re not feeling confident. The better it goes – and the better it feels like it is going and the better you do because your confidence increases. This is true no matter what you’re doing in life.
I’ve got a few more tasks to do to catch up including re-creating a piece of artwork, karaoke again (this time in Hindi – any suggestions for a fun and relatively easy songs I should try? A friend has requested Kaike Paan Banaraswala by Kishore Kumar – what a challenge! But I may do a medley like this last video). There’s also a socially distanced dance duet coming up with a friend in Bangalore and then, when I hit the big goal of $2,000 raised (only $350 left to go!) Sage will shave my head, leaving the bangs and dye them bright blue like her hair. If you want to help make that happen, the link to donate is below – and if you can’t donate, I’d love it if you shared to get the word out. All funds go directly to Doctors Without Borders.
Click here to donate and/or share the fundraising page. Thanks so much!
Go Outside Today 
Nice singing! Wish you all the luck in this endeavour of yours…
Thanks! I’m almost there. People have been very generous. I’m at $1650 of a target of $2,000 raised for Doctors Without Borders so it’s only a matter of time. I hope it’s soon, though. I need a haircut! 😀
You sound just like Kermit!! Well done. Great variety of voices. You can sing much better than you think. But Todd–the chopped challenge must go on!!
Thanks so much! It was really fun though I still can’t watch it without cringing.
The challenge will definitely go on – but when shopping trips are easier. We’ve got a small bundle-buggy for shopping and we’re trying to go as infrequently as possible. We literally limit bulky things like bread because we haven’t the room to bring it home easily and want to avoid doing unnecessary trips.
Once things get a bit better it should be easier. I did just order a large bicycle trailer as well so I may have some better options for curbside pickup. Right now I just have four panniers. Workable but those can’t even carry as much as we can carry in our cart.
Fetching food without a car was never a problem before – I’d often go 3-4 times a week, grabbing a couple of necessities on the way home from work. But now it’s not so easy. I could do a car share or Uber but then there would be other challenges as well.
Honestly I thought the fundraising would go slower and the lockdown more quickly – so quickly in fact that I thought I’d be doing karaoke in a bar and cutting my hair in mid-summer. But now I’m just $350 away so it could happen any day now! (This is good. I’m getting pretty shaggy!)
I am happy to wait. I know that the cooking challenge was going to be impossible at the moment. Just think. If Sage colors your hair there will be more blue!