Pooh Who? Yet another epic by Mag1/Mag68

 

A few months ago, I received a PM through the FanFiction.net boards from a reader called, truelovepooh. Little did I know that when I clicked to open this email it would change my life. Like a few others I have been blessed enough to hear from, Pooh opened herself up to total stranger cloaked in the safety and security of cyberspace. What she didn’t know, and a few of you have learned, once your in my life, like Luke Danes, you’re in my life forever. She’d review my stories, and I’d check in on her. If I didn’t hear form her in a chapter or two, off went the PM, asking her to check in. She didn’t know what she had gotten herself into, because messin’ with Mags is a whole new ballgame.

 

Unfortunately, the past year has been an entirely different ballgame for Pooh and her family. Last March, Stacie “Pooh” Holeman was diagnosed with both stage 2 ovarian cancer and breast cancer.  Because Stacie was diagnosed while she was still in the 90 day probationary period at her new job, and her husband is an independent truck driver, they suddenly found themselves in the frightening position that so many Americans today are. And just like that, the thirty-four year old wife and mother of three found herself ill and completely without health insurance. She had to give up her work in order to juggle the rigorous schedule of radiation and chemotherapy treatments that she was set to undergo on top of trying to care for her family while her husband is often on the road, trying to keep things afloat.

 

It was while undergoing these treatments, that a friend (and a true friend indeed!) gave Pooh the Season One boxed set of The Gilmore Girls to watch while she spent so much time in bed. I don’t have to tell any of you Gilmore Junkies what happened next. That’s right, Pooh was able to escape for a little while into a tiny town in Connecticut where the natives are wacky, talk is not only cheap but fast, mothers and daughters can fight and still love each other in their own way, and the coffee is almost as tasty as the local inn and diner owners. From there her addiction took its usual course, through all seven seasons on DVD, to the forums and chat rooms, until finally, she hit the proverbial rock-bottom of TV addiction, fan fiction. And we were very glad to have her drop into our little corner of the world!

 

Pooh has been very open in sharing her story with us and with her friends in other fandoms. She wants to raise awareness about the disease that she is battling and wants to make sure that we all know that you are never too young, or too old, to start getting regular preventative medical check ups such as annual gynecological exams and mammograms.  Unfortunately, Pooh’s progression is now at stage 3 breast cancer and stage 2 ovarian, but she has every intention of fighting on. She is just finishing a round of treatments, and will be taking a break for a couple of months in order to give her body a chance to rest and recover before she enters into treatment again. That is why we have planned this Gilmore Girls Fan Fiction Chat-a-Thon as a celebration of her determination.

 

This website, SupportStacie.org, was created by her friends as a way for their internet community (Roswell) to support her throughout her treatment. Among other things, they have sponsored a healing story fan fic challenge in order to keep her supplied with uplifting reading material. We blatantly and unapologetically swiped the chat-a-thon idea from them. They did it as a fundraiser and silent auction to help Pooh offset some of her medical bills, we’re doing it in hopes that you all will get to know Pooh as we have. They have done some really great work with it, so please take a look around, and be sure to share your comments and compliments.

 

Pooh will be the first to tell you how rough this past year has been for not only her, but her family too. She will also asked me to share with you how grateful she is for the friends that have been by her side from the beginning, and those that she has ‘met’ just recently. Pooh is also very internet chatty, and wants you to know that you can always drop her a line if you have questions, concerns, a story to share or just want to say ‘Hi Pooh!’

 

I’ll be wearing my pink Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, even though you won’t be able to see me. I hope that you are too. Okay, Pooh, I’ll shut up now, please don’t sic Filo on me!

 

Written with love and admiration,

 

Margaret Ethridge (aka Mags)

 

I’m thrilled to announce that between the cash donations and these auctions over the last 2 1/2 days, $2,345 was raised to help Stacie with her medical bills! Well done, Roswellians! and everyone who isn’t!

I’d like to personally thank the following people for all of their help:

Kath7, for gathering and scheduling all the wonderful authors for our Chatathon.
Lissa & the Roswell Heaven staff for hosting our Chatathon and helping to keep it running smoothly.
Anniepoo for tirelessly sticking it out with me in chat to help introduce authors.
Majesty, who donated the bulk of items that were up for auction in memory of her very dear friend, and fellow Roswell fan, Rebecca, who lost her battle with breast cancer last May.
All of the fabulous authors who agreed to donate their time and chat with everyone.
Everyone who donated their Roswell memorabilia to put up for auction.

And, of course, all of you who stopped in to chat. All of you who bid on our auctions. And all of you who donated money. I think the weekend was a resounding success and really brought home for me how great our fandom is! You all have proven once again that the Roswell fandom is a community like no other. A community that will always come together to help its own. A community that I’m grateful and proud to be a part of.

Congratualtions to the following winners of the silent auctions held this weekend during our Chatathon! Winners will be receiving an email tomorrow with instructions at the email address they made their bid with.
Winners are on the auction page under each banner!

Keep an eye out soon for some items that didn’t make it into these auctions. We have more posters, some T-shirts, and I believe several authors who have expressed an interest in auctioning off the end of their abandoned/never finished stories! Details will be coming soon!

ETA: If anyone needs an address to mail donations in if unable to use Paypal, PM me or email me at a-kussman@kc.rr.com and I will send one to you.

May 9th through May 11th, Roswell Fanatics is sponsoring a 40 hour chatathon to Support Stacie.  Read about all the details HERE. This is a great opportunity to chat with some of your favorite Roswell Fanfic Authors as well as all your Roswell friends! Hope to see you there!

People have started sending in stories for the Healing Stories challenge.  You can find some of them HERE as well as the LiveJournal Community Healing Stories. Thank you to all the authors submitting stories for this challenge! Take a moment to leave them some feedback!

Hey Everyone,

Thanks for all your help during the fundraising process. You’ve been great. Now we’re going to ask you for something else. Something that Pooh loves is fan fiction. So we’re hosting a fan fic challenge. It can be any fandom, any pairing - the fic must have a healing theme to it! That’s it. Get your creative juices flowing and write Pooh a fan fic to keep her spirits up. We will be creating an area here to post your stories here. The guidelines are as follows:

The premise for these fics is: Stories of Healing. Write whatever you want, but there must be a kind of healing (i.e. Max healing Liz in Roswell) in the story.

1. Any fandom, any ship any rating

2. No more than 10,000 words - ficlets /drabbles are fine

3. Post your story between Feb 1 and Dec. 31, 2008

Please submit too: webmaster@pooh.mediablvd.org

Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface — usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used.   These paintings are original pieces of art by a British artist living in

New Hampshire.  The medium is wax and it was created by melting the wax onto the side of a clothes iron and painting with it. These pieces are entitled Lemon and Lime.  They original, and are signed by the artist.   Dimensions to the outer edge of the mat frame are 5″x7″ These paintings were donated by the artist, Cariad by Rachael to supportstacie.org.  All proceeds from this auction are going to supportstacie.org.  Hurry and don’t miss the opportunity to own this one of a kind piece of artwork.  Click here to bid on these beautiful pictures.

Encaustic painting, also known as hot wax painting, involves using heated beeswax to which colored pigments are added. The liquid/paste is then applied to a surface — usually prepared wood, though canvas and other materials are often used. 

This painting is an original piece of art by a British artist living in New Hampshire.  The medium is wax and it was created by melting the wax onto the side of a clothes iron and painting with it. This piece is entitled Hummingbird.  It is an original, and is signed by the artist.   Dimensions to the outer edge of the mat frame are 8″x10″  This painting was donated by the artist, Cariad by Rachael to supportstacie.org. To bid on this auction, please click here.

Unfortunately our fundraising efforts have fallen behind schedule of late, but we have just launched what we hope will be the first of many auctions. To bid on a beautiful and unique encaustic (wax) painting kindly donated by the artist Rachael please click here.

All proceeds from the sale will go to Support Stacie. Please note the watermark does not appear on the original work.

Pooh really needs your support more than ever . She is currently undergoing her second round of chemotherapy which I am sure you will all appreciate is a very long, tiring and draining course of treatment.

We really need to step up and continue the good work that was started and help her beat this disease. Please help spread the word and if you can contribute to our fundraising effort it would be greatly appreciated. With mounting medical bills, a young family and Christmas fast approaching any donation will be gratefully received.

Please show your support for Pooh by giving what you can.

First off I should say, sorry it’s taken so long to let everyone know how things are going.

I need to express to everyone a big THANK YOU for everything that is being done, the kindness and generosity is wonderful. I’ve been able to get thru this with all of your help. Again thank you.

A campaign to raise money is in the beginning stages, keep your eyes open for all the great stuff my awesome friends are doing! IF anyone would like to help, please e-mail the site. We can use as much help as possible getting the word out.

I started Chemo, and I’m doing Okay. I have good days and bad days, just like everyone else I suppose. The Kids are back in school and adjusting.

The site will be changing and a personal page will be added with pictures, plus alot of other features. I love hearing from all of you, Thank you for all the e-mails, PM’s and kind words! Please keep an eye out in your e-mail boxes for a little something from me.

I will try very hard to update more often.

Pooh

We’ve got big things planned! And we need everyone’s help to get the word out. Over the course of the next couple of weeks, we’ll add icons and sig banners that we hope you’ll use to help advertise and draw attention to supporting Stacie. The following icon is already uploaded at Roswell Fanatics. If you go to your profile, you’ll find the icon in the avatar gallery under Miscellaneous. Otherwise, you should be able to successfully upload the icon to any other message board. If you need help with how to use the icon or banner, please email me. You can hotlink these images, or save them and upload them on your own. Don’t forget to link SupportStacie.org in your sig banner!