Seattle Mom Blogs

When your week starts out like mine did on Monday, it’s hard for it to get any better. What I’m trying to say is that I’m still riding the high from the Cervical Cancer Awareness event at Grey Gallery that SMB co-hosted with The Yellow Umbrella (spear-headed by the lovely Christine Baze and her celebrity makeup artist co-hort, Debra Macki). If you weren’t able to make it, you truly missed out. It was an incredible evening of music and friends with an even more incredible message, that being SAVE THE HOOCH!

We were spoiled by our very own local professional photographer, Sarah Alston (of Sarah Alston Photography of course) who brought a ton of yellow props for us to play with as well as her enthusiasm for our group and the cause. We posed for silly photos in the photobooth that she lovingly set up and had no time at all coming out of our shells, as you can see. The night definitely would not have been the same without her and I know that she’s just as committed to spreading The Yellow Umbrella’s message as we are.

Now, if you’re unfamiliar with the term “SAVE THE HOOCH,” prepare yourself to be educated. The purpose of Christine’s non-profit, The Yellow Umbrella, is to educate, empower and inform women about the 3 very simple things that could one day save their lives, their fertility, and their cervix: the Pap test, the HPV test and the HPV vaccine.

At the age of only 31, Christine was diagnosed with invasive cervical cancer. It all started with an “abnormal” (how many of us have had one of those?) pap result and quickly turned into a diagnosis, a radical hysterectomy, laproscopy, daily pelvic radiation, chemotherapy and brachytherapy. In Christine’s own words, “Nothing hurts worse than having these things done to your body, not a shot, not a pap smear.”

Christine Baze and Debra Macki are in Seattle to spread the message, that cervical cancer is preventable. Through education and music, Christine sends her message to all women, everywhere, so they don’t have to go through what she did 10 years ago. With her uplifting lyrics that encourage us to live our lives while we can and her passion for this cause, she speaks to all women – as she spoke to us Monday night, telling them, telling us that cervical cancer IS preventable!

To accompany the message, Debra has designed an exclusive eye color palette for The Yellow Umbrella representing the 3 tools every woman needs in order to prevent cervical cancer. One of our lucky readers who wasn’t able to attend the Girlfriend Gathering will have the chance to win one of these palettes (valued at $36) just for doing one simple thing: telling us what she will do to prevent cervical cancer for herself, her daughter, her mother, her friend or her neighbor.

All you have to do is comment to win!  The awesome eye shadow palette is just the proverbial icing on the cupcake (a YELLOW one of course) in our effort to spread information and awareness of cervical cancer pevention.  Won’t you please join us?  Winner will be chosen by random draw on Monday, May 24th.  Best of luck and remember ladies (and gentlemen) SAVE THE HOOCH!