Balloon Wishes & Auction Update

Here is Olive. Sending up our balloon wishes for Stephanie and Christian. Such a beautiful tradition. We were happy to participate.






Here is an update on Nie Nie Day. First of all, thank you so much for the tremendous response, via both email and comments. Seriously. I am beyond impressed. From what I can tell, there will be all sorts of wonderful auctions (40+ and counting) and special posts happening on Thursday — so exciting! I've got a list of links started and I'll continue adding to them as I prepare Thursday's posting.

For those who have sent in questions on how to run your auction, here's the 411. I'm no auction expert, but this is my plan:

On Thursday, I'll write a post about the prize and sponsor and Nie Nie Day. And then I'll leave the first comment, saying something like: I bid $10. The next person could comment: I bid $11. And so on.

As the auction progresses, bidders will need to check the most recent comments, to see what the current high bid is. I plan to leave the auction open through the weekend. Allowing bids through Sunday night.

[ Edit: L Angerbauer sent a helpful email recommending that a good place to find Auction tips is here. She mentioned that the most important instructions to include on your auction are the time the item ends (including an exact hour) and what bid increments are accepted (like no pennies or quarters-must bid in full dollar amounts.) ]

Once the winning bidder is identified, they'll send money directly to the Stephanie & Christian Paypal fund. And I'll put them in contact with the sponsor to get their prize.

For those of you who plan to participate with your own auctions, feel free to run them however you please. You can follow a plan similar to mine, or vary it in any way you'd like. You could even hold your auction on ebay.

Most of all. Thank you. Thank you so much for participating in any way you can. I'm really looking forward to Thursday.