Just South of Normal

Hug

2012-01-24T09:55:00.002-06:00

Johnny, Harry and Lucy

2011-08-25T08:30:00.003-05:00

The President walks in to a school lunchroom, sits next to little Johnny, who has no lunch and is very thin, says, "Son, you need to eat something" and throws money at him. The President then gets up, walks over and sits next to Harry, who is eating two lunches, says "Son, you are obese. You need to stop eating so much" and throws money at him. Finally, the President, out of money, stands up and walks over to Lucy, who just finished paying for her lunch. "Sweetheart, I need your money. The country needs your money. Johnny and Harry need your money." Lucy says, "But sir, I have no more." The President then takes her lunch.

This is a simple analogy. President and Michelle Obama are entrenched in a government funded childhood obesity program, which is no doubt a very honorable thing to do and makes for great PR. Meanwhile, there are multiple programs to end hunger in this country. Welfare, food stamps, WIC.... yet hunger is still a problem. From the Oracle ThinkQuest Education Foundation:

"One out of every eight children under the age of twelve in the U.S. goes to bed hungry every night."

Does anyone, other than me, see the irony?

"But What If" for today

2011-08-17T10:02:00.002-05:00

I had two off-the-wall crazy ideas on the way in to work this morning, one of which I'm writing about now and the other I'll save for another day.

But what if....

Bad things happen to everyone. Terrible tragedies happen because of things we can't control, such as the weather or another person's actions. And then some days, we have bad days when little things go wrong over and over again. Maybe we lost our debit card, all of the traffic lights turn red when we approach them, we lose a button on our shirt, and the coffee maker stops making coffee. We joke about being cursed by our adversaries, as if there is some magical voodoo power people can conjure up to hurt their enemies. Yet (stay with me here) several times in history, we hear of people being cursed (check the Bible) by people just like you and me, and we chalk it up to silly superstition. I'm thinking... what if every time we have a bad thought about someone, every time we wish something negative upon someone else, it releases a hypothetical "curse" into the air, one that we have no control over who it lands on. What if, instead of Satan reigning down some evil upon us, or God enacting punishment upon the earth, we are really just doing it all to ourselves? What if we are the ones who create good, and therefore also evil? I know all of this is far-fetched, but you just can't ignore the fact that the world would be a better place if we all just got along a little bit better. Makes interesting conversation, maybe content for a good book.... maybe. It's not a very original idea, either. And, it's cool to stretch your mind and think about, too.

The next "But What If" will be about "knocking hump day into the next week".

What if we've been given control over whether or not tomorrow comes, and we just don't know it? If everyone, collectively, suddenly stopped setting goals, making progress and improving ourselves and the world, would we be given another chance or would it all come to an end?

Today's Stupid News

2011-04-15T12:06:00.012-05:00

Because I'm running late for physical therapy, I'm sprinting down the steps of the parking deck just a few minutes ago when my right foot gets tangled up in my flouncy bell-bottomed pants leg. In order to avoid the pain of landing face first on the concrete and to give me enough time to recover, I jump up my left foot and lunge forward over and down the last three steps, removing my right foot from its trap and landing squarely at the bottom landing, never missing a beat. This undoubtedly made no sense to the man behind me who, I'm sure, could only assume I'm so freaking happy that it's Friday that I jump for joy with a cute little back kick....and all in 2 1/2 inch heels.

Addendum

2011-04-13T09:08:00.001-05:00

Amazonian IS a word.

Today's stupid news

2011-04-13T09:01:00.002-05:00

I had a parking deck incident this morning. Don’t ask why I parked in the handicapped spot, just know that I did and it was only going to be for a minute AND, I spoke to the security guard who allowed it beforehand. So. I parked in the handicapped spot this morning for just a minute. As I’m pulling in, I hear this horrible scrrrrrrrrrrape…..FYI, for those of you who don’t know….I drive a Tahoe. Fortunately, the luggage rack on top was flexible enough to bend itself underneath a 12-inch thick concrete beam (which had absolutely NO business being there, by the way) and came out all in one piece on the other side. The problem? How to back out of the handicapped spot without ripping it off the top of the Tahoe. After much analyzing (should we let the air out of the tires? should we remove the luggage rack? can we move it forward and backward several times while turning, having only about six inches to work with so that I can drive ACROSS the parking spots and over the curb?), the head of security and I decided to try the moving back and forth escape method. The fifth or sixth time, maybe more, I backed up those six inches, I had turned it enough so that the driver’s side corner of the luggage rack slid underneath the concrete beam. HOPING it would stay true to its flexible nature, I took the chance and backed all the way out. Fortunately, the luggage rack is still on top of the Tahoe, albeit a little worse for wear and tear. But only a 6 foot tall Amazonian man or woman can see the damage….which by the way is the clearance I now know I should pay attention to when driving in parking decks.

How embarrassing is this?

2011-04-13T08:45:00.001-05:00

Last Monday, I stopped by the restroom on the way to a meeting. Used a small ledge to put my briefcase, phone, badge and pen on, but added the weight of a roll of toilet paper to keep it from falling off the ledge. So, what did I have in my hand when I walked into her office for the meeting?? All of the above, PLUS the roll of toilet paper.

The Nonprofit Sector: Can You Fix It?

2010-06-15T12:09:00.000-05:00

If you are a leader of a local chapter of a national non-profit organization, you may often feel that your hands are tied. It could be that the chapters are responsible for doing the grunt work (fundraising, recruiting new members, awareness, providing member services), but have very little influence when it comes to the direction in which the organization, as a whole, is headed. Answer these questions.

Does your chapter raise all of its own money? Do you solely provide services to your membership? Do you write, produce and distribute your own newsletters, pamphlets and brochures? Do you pay dues in as much as 25% to a national office staffed by people you've never met? Are you ever asked for input in shaping the organization's policies; or are decisions made, announced and then explained away? Can you name at least five important research projects funded in the past two years where results will have significant lasting effects? Can you name any? When you have questions, do you get real or scripted answers? Furthermore, do you know the salaries of all employees at the national level?

As part of a complicated and often overlooked sector, non-profits can shape themselves in many ways that would never be allowed in the business sector. This is the reason, in part, why there is an issue in the non-profit sector of having too many organizations providing the same services - otherwise known as "duplication of services". Too much money is being thrown away that could otherwise make a difference. It's time to realize that independent chapters are ineffective.

There is a movement in the non-profit sector to come together, work together and bridge the resource divide between all non-profits. Sharing resources and information that have historically been territorial in nature among non-profits is now a good idea. But, this has to start from within. Reach across state lines to your sister chapters. Use part of your chapter's funds, if you can, to take a trip to the national office. Sit down with them to discuss your opinions, not theirs. Be firm on this! Bring the whole chapter board if you need to. Remember, you aren't there to hear their compliments and/or what was already stated in the memos. If you want answers, you are entitled to them. You were the one who drove 30 miles to deliver a home-cooked meal. It was one of your board members who washed 400 cars on a hot sunny summer afternoon. It was a member from your chapter who ran 12 miles with your t-shirt on, when, just last year, she couldn't walk up a flight of steps.

You have a lot to be proud of! The spirit that brought you into this field is what is going to fix the problems we face in the years ahead. The need for charitable services is only going to increase while available funds decrease. We need a new plan, a new model. You've heard the term, "why fix what ain't broken". I'm asking, "why haven't we already fixed what is broken?" We don't have the time or money to reorganize and reallocate and restructure. Just start now! Demand interactive communication. Ask to sit in on every national board meeting. Introduce web meetings or teleconferencing. Come up with a communication strategy. Gather together your peers and approach the national level with a unified request to include you and other chapter leaders. Offer to chair a committee on enhanced chapter communications, social media integration, research policy review or non-profit networking. At the very least, know the direction in which each and every penny from your chapter goes. How much of it goes toward salaries, how much toward research, how much toward admin, and how much toward legal fees? The organization isn't a dog and you are the furthest thing from a wagging tail. You hold as much weight, as much importance, as the person who's currently getting all the credit.

Finally, create some fancy spreadsheets and bar graphs and communicate it to your members. Most importantly, don't abandon your organization to go it alone until you have tried to fix what is broken. People need you. Your organization needs you. This sector needs a few handymen and handywomen. Can you fix it?

Making a Father's Day Video

2009-06-15T14:32:00.001-05:00

Give a man a video, he gifts for a day; teach a man to create videos and he gifts every special occasion.

...or something like that.

So, here is what you do to make a Father's Day video. First you take a program like the free easy-to-download Windows Movie Maker. This program requires you to have a 600 MHz processor, Windows XP, 128 MG of RAM, a 256 color video card, and a sound card and speakers (or headphones). If you plan to record your video to a CD, you need a CD drive with the capability of writing to the CD. It would also help to have an internet connection, which you obviously already have.

Not much to require, is it? Pretty easy stuff. Optional other equipment needed depends on how you plan to get your materials into the video. If you want your old baby pictures included in the video, you could use a scanner. Another option is to take them to a photo processing store (or the photo department at Wal-Mart) or Kinko's. They can scan your photos and email them to you or create a CD, post them online or download them to a thumb drive for you. Some copiers also have the capability of emailing color images, so check around wherever and whenever you are near a copy machine (surreptitiously, of course).

Obviously, the first step is to gather your images and get them on your computer. Many of my projects have this task covered already. Those people I am creating videos for are on Facebook, and their photos have already been uploaded to their online photo albums. In this case, I can simply right-click and save the images to a folder I've labeled "movie pics" on my computer.

Once you have all of the images in your properly labeled folder, open the program which you've already downloaded...you have downloaded the program, right? If not, do it now and come back to

here.

In the task window on the left-hand side of the screen, click on "Import pictures". Browse to the folder which holds all of your photos and select all of them and click "Import".

Now you have all of your pictures in the main window, but they aren't yet in a video. One by one, drag and drop them into the window at the bottom of the screen. Make sure you see the words "Show timeline" at top of this window. This indicates that you are in storyboard mode, instead of timeline. Do this in the order you want them to be displayed (you can edit this easily later).

Once you have all of your pictures in the video, it is time to take the most important step. Now is the time to add a song. The song creates the mood and conveys the message of the video. All of the photos revolve around this song. You may already have a song in mind. Maybe it's your father's favorite song, or perhaps it is a song that simply reminds you of your father. (For me, that song is "Kind and Generous" by Natalie Merchant.) If neither happens to be the case, Amazon.com has a gazillion songs for you to choose from. Downloading songs (especially ones of good sound quality) are hardly ever free, but if they are, they are almost never legal. Amazon makes it very simple and cheap for you to snag your song. Most mp3's cost 99 cents or less, and if you are lucky, you could find it free.

Here are some suggestions, though.

Contemporary Songs:
Father And Daughter by Paul Simon
Daddy's Little Girl by Michael Bolton
Do I Make You Proud/Takin' It To The Streets by Taylor Hicks
Butterfly Kisses by Jeff Carson
Ready, Set, Don't Go by Billy Ray Cyrus
I Wanna Be Like You by Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
Oh How The Years Go By by Vanessa Williams
Lean On Me by Michael Bolton
That One Is My Dad by Keni Thomas
Kind and Generous by Natalie Merchant

Old Country Songs:
A Boy Named Sue (Live) by Johnny Cash
Thank God I'm A Country Boy by John Denver
So Much Like My Dad by George Strait
They Don't Make 'Em Like My Daddy Anymore by Loretta Lynn
Lean On Me by Anne Murray
Love Without End, Amen by George Strait
Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line (Live) by Waylon Jennings
Daddy's Hands by Holly Dunn
Seein' My Father In Me by Paul Overstreet
Daddy Never Was The Cadillac Kind by Confederate Railroad
Daddy Won't Sell The Farm by Montgomery Gentry
You've Got To Stand For Something by Aaron Tippin

New Country Songs:
Song For Dad by Keith Urban
He Didn't Have To Be by Brad Paisley
Stealing Cinderella by Chuck Wicks
In My Daughter's Eyes by Martina McBride
My Little Girl by Tim McGraw
I Loved Her First by Heartland
Let Them Be Little by Billy Dean
Tough Little Boys by Gary Allan
Lean On Me by Rascal Flatts
Lessons Learned by Carrie Underwood
I Hope You Dance by Leann Womack

R & B Songs:
Dance With My Father (Album Version and Radio Version) by Luther Vandross
Wind Beneath My Wings by Elisabeth Withers

Rock (Alt Rock) Songs:
With Arms Wide Open by Creed
Daughters by John Mayer
Stand By Me by Playing for a Change
My Hero by Foo Fighters

Classic Songs:
Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel) by Billy Joel
Unforgettable by Nat King Cole featuring Natalie Cole
You Are The Sunshine Of My Life by Stevie Wonder
Lean On Me (Single Version) by Bill Withers
You've Got A Friend (LP Version) by James Taylor
You've Got A Friend In Me by Randy Newman
That's My Dad by Paul Peterson
It's For My Dad by Nancy Sinatra
My Heart Belongs To Daddy by Eartha Kitt
My One True Friend by Bette Midler
Wind Beneath My Wings by Bette Midler
I'll Be There For You (Theme From Friends) (LP Version) by The Rembrandts
My Father's Eyes (Album Version) by Eric Clapton

For Fathers Who Are Deceased:
My Heart Knows You Were Here by Laura Pursell

For an extra twist, try Comedy:
My Dad's Car by Bill Cosby

Finally, for videos "made by kids":
Rubber Ducky by Inside Out A Capella
I'd Do Anything by the Cast of Oliver

If none of these songs interest you, search for your favorite. It's bound to be there.

Now, to get the song into your video, you follow the same steps you did for the photos. This time, however, you click on "Import audio or music" from the left side and browse to the audio file. Click "Import" and then drag and drop it at the beginning of the video in the bottom window.

Now is a good time to view your video for the first time, but first let's save it. You know how to click on file/save, I'm sure. You also know how to name it and to save it in an easy to remember location. The most memorable, I've found, is the desktop.

So, now it is saved, let's view it. Click on the first picture in the bottom window and then click on the "play" arrow in the right square window. By default, each picture displays for about five seconds. If you have enough pictures, your music will probably run out before your pictures do (somewhere around 40 pictures). You can then just delete your least favorite pictures or you can edit how long each picture displays. Keep in mind there is a reason the default is five seconds. That gives the average viewer enough time to view the picture and feel the emotions you hope they will feel from viewing it. For this reason, I recommend deleting least favorites over shortening the display time of the photos.

If, on the other hand, your pictures run out before your music has ended, you need to add more pictures or increase the display time. If any of the pictures have more than two faces in them, you can add an extra second for each face. It might also be a good idea to move this picture to a special part of the song, like a repeat of the chorus or where the words of the song perhaps match the event depicted in the picture. For example, if the picture is of a family reunion, you might move the picture to a part of the song where the lyrics are about family. The added display time will not be noticed as much when the lyrics fit the picture. This can even enhance the video. Also consider doing this for any picture that matches the lyrics of the song.

So, if you choose to shorten or lenthen the display time, switch to "timeline" by clicking "Show timeline" in the bottom window. All you have to do next is click on that specific picture and drag the right side of it to make it shorter or wider. A new window will show you the length of the photo's display as you move your cursor back and forth.

Keep playing with it by adding or deleting photos, moving photos, and increasing or decreasing each photo's display time until you are really satisfied with the length and quality of the video. The best videos result in the most emotional output (a complicated way to say they should make the viewer cry). Once you are satisfied, if not crying yourself, you could skip to "Finish Movie", or you can keep enhancing the video by adding special effects and transitions.

To add these extra touches, you again use the left task window. Options are to "View video effects", "View video transitions", "Make titles or credits", and "Make an AutoMovie". These options make the difference between homemade looking and professional looking, in my opinion. You can have a photo slowly zoom in or out, you can add a sepia tone to the photo, or you can add a "video camera" look to it. The options aren't endless, but they are aplenty. Here is where I'm taking off the training wheels and letting you test your creative skills for yourself. There is nothing you can do wrong here, so have fun.

When you are ready to wrap up your video, you'll use the left task window to click "Save to my computer". I suggest saving two versions of the video. Save one for "Best quality for playback on my computer" and one for "Best Fit to file size". The first is a best quality video and the second is for uploading or emailing. I try to keep the videos I am sharing to below 6MB. Most videos you create here are going to be well above that, so when you save as "best fit to file size", reduce the size to 6MB or less. The loss of quality will not be noticable. If you aren't satisfied, you will always have the first version to try again with. When you are finished saving the two versions on your computer, you can then save it to a CD if you wish. The very last thing you should do is save the project as a .mswmm file (Microsoft Windows Movie Maker). This file is the raw file you can use to edit the movie later.

Many new TV's can play these videos from a thumb drive. If your father has one of these, you can plug the thumb drive into the TV when he isn't looking and then viola! you have just surprised him with your father's day gift (that cost less than a dollar but is crammed full of memories and emotion). Another way to give it to him is to post it on Facebook (provided he is one of your friends on Facebook). You can also set it to play on his computer, or you can mail him the CD (with a custom crayon colored cover) or include it in the gift you actually spent a lot of money on. If you have one of these new TV's, maybe you should cook dinner for the whole family and play it on your TV. (Well, I tried.)

Now, having given you all of the tools to make this yourself, if you still feel that you are just too pressed for time and you want someone else to do this for you, email me at christiglaser(at)gmail(dot)com and I will gladly do it for you. In fact, I'll even give $4 of every order to the Alabama Chapter of the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation. (Everything I do, I do for you... and the MG group.)

I hope you have a wonderfully amazing Father's Day with your family. Hold every moment with your father dear to your heart. Forgive if you need to. Love with every breath, and leave him with a kiss.

Myasthenia Resources

2009-06-05T14:29:00.000-05:00

Occasionally, I like to list some resources for the new myasthenia gravis patient. When I was first diagnosed, I could hardly pronounce myasthenia gravis (or any other word for that matter). Trying to find a book on it was next to impossible. My first book was "Attacking Myasthenia Gravis" by Dr. Ron Henderson (which I've included below). It was extremely helpful to me. Since then, I've gotten to know Dr. Henderson a little more and I can assure you, he is a man who knows what he's talking about. He is the co-founder of the St. Vincent's Womens' and Children's Hospital (otherwise known as the Henderson and Walton clinic) as well as an MG patient.

Hopefully, this will make finding information a little easier for you.

You can also go to the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America's website or the Myasthenia Gravis Association's website for free info. Additionally, the Mayo Clinc has some helpful information.

MGFA
MGA
Mayo Clinic - MG

Happy Wake-Up Day?

2009-06-05T13:15:00.000-05:00

There are some days that you would describe as normal. You wake up, put on the same shoes, wear the same dress you wore last Thursday (a week ago), eat a familiar breakfast and drive to work. Your work day is the same old - same old, with a new project thrown in, maybe. You take the same route home, cook someone’s favorite dinner, watch regular programming on TV with the kids and go to bed hoping the next day will be just as normal.

These days are good. You’ve done nothing you have to apologize for, no one has offended you, and your livelihood is sustained. These are the days I like to call wake up days, because you can go to bed at night and in your prayers, you thank God for your blessings, for the life you live, and your lone request may be of simply waking up tomorrow. You are hopeful for whatever exciting things are to come.

Now, I’m not saying that we are living our lives bored out of our minds. I don’t think I’ve ever heard an adult seriously complain of having nothing to do. Whether you have no job, one job or three jobs, we all find ways to fill up our days with activities. If we can’t, our families will find ways to fill them up for us. I’m just saying that we often think of these days as one extreme and good days as the other. We all recognize there will be bad days when terrible things occur, such as a death of a loved one or the loss of a job, but we seem to move those days to a different scale, a sort of freak scale. Because, for the most part, we either have normal days where nothing very good happens, or normal days where something good happens. (We also move the exceptionally fantastic days to the freak scale. Those are the days we marry, give birth to our babies, etc., i.e., freak isn’t always bad.) If something sort of bad happens, like losing our keys… well, that’s really normal, isn’t it?

So, I’m perplexed. What kind of day is this? Because, I don’t think I’ve had a day like any of these since the end of last year. You see, the week before Christmas, my family learned we would be moving, and the sooner the better. This threw us into a whirlwind of “oh-for-goodness-sake, what-are-we-going-to-do” panic, followed by unexpected major expenses, unpleasant confrontations with loved ones, unimaginable slights by immediate family members, and stress induced serious health problems (which are just as hard to accept). I do still thank God for my blessings, certainly, but the main purpose of my prayers at night have become to request His guidance and please-oh-please, just a little more strength. Six months later, I still feel like we are stuck in December 2008 and things keep on getting worse. I always try to do my best, but lately, despite my all of my efforts, I’ve fallen flat on my face in so many ways.

Don’t call the ambulance or the shrink just yet. I’m fine.

While this all sounds very depressing, let me assure you that I am not shaken. I’m simply a little distracted. I’m distracted by the things we’ve given up. I’m distracted by the plans we’ve had to put on hold. I’m also distracted by the new still unclear blueprint laid out before us. Put simply, I’m living in the past, present and future, and despite what you might have heard before, at times, there is no other choice. You can’t *not* live in tomorrow. If you start living only in the moment, the mortgage doesn’t pay itself and your kids won’t go to college. Being a parent necessitates the mapping out of the future (and some may argue that being an adult requires the same). Reflecting on recent events is required if you hope to mend broken relationships. If you don’t live in the present, well, you just won’t eat. So, what is this new way of life called? What exactly can I call this day, like every other day in the past six months (with the exception of a wonderful weekend in March)?

Today on Twitter, I was directed to a blog post that clarifies some of it for me. Karla Porter (@karpo) explains a day in her life that sounds similar to a day in my life now. Learning to be content with what you have is the essence of her post.

(The following text is taken directly from her blog post.)

It is hard to be content.
There is so much that we think we must have.
That we think will make us happy.
That will fill a void.
That we think will make us popular and well-thought of.
If only we could have it.
Then life would be complete.

But that's not how it’s supposed to be. Not when there are people who have to do without basic necessities each and every day. When people are suffering from diseases that are treatable.

I love beautiful things. And don't believe there is anything inherently wrong with beautiful things. But there is when we ignore the suffering of others while we bask in "OUR" things.

(End of text.)

Beautiful things, as well as necessities, come in various forms. Either might be a new car, a new skill or a new haircut. You might apply the definitions to a lifestyle or a health condition, and just about everyone will agree that a relationship can be a beautiful thing, and some may say, a necessity. As hard as it is to accept, relationships come and go, and rarely, but sometimes, there is very little you can do about it. When it is out of your control, you must understand what it is and acquiesce to God’s will.

Just like your days will be filled, so will your heart. If you can’t find a way to fill it, your family (and friends) will do it for you.

Perhaps I never made it to one side of the normal scale before, or perhaps I’ve been living on the good side for so long that I forgot what the other side looked like. Either way, I am thankful for still being on the normal scale and tomorrow, I’m really looking forward to having my first (brand new) wake up day in a long time.

Thanks, Karla, for taking the urgency off of my prayer “requests” and putting more meaning behind the thank-you part.

Here is a link to Karla’s blog post. Be sure to watch the video at the bottom of that page.

Looking Towards Heaven

Karla on Twitter

For the Graduate in Your Family

2009-05-20T11:48:00.000-05:00

I just wanted to share something from a fellow blogger and twitterer, Jason Esman. His daughter just graduated from high school and he provided a well-written blog about why he is not sad about that. It reminded me of a handful of people I know. He also posted this poem by Richard Wilbur that I thought I'd share with those of you who have graduates in your family.

The Writer
by Richard Wilbur

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desk-top,

And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.

You can follow @zerolove on Twitter, or you can view his blog here. He is a local guy who describes himself as a father, husband, system engineer, and a spam fighting ninja. Now, who doesn't need a ninja in their network?

Watch out World....I have drumsticks!

2009-04-29T22:43:00.000-05:00

Thanks to a late birthday present from my mom and the burning hole in my son's pocket, our family, at last, has experienced Rock Band. Yes, we bought, we played and we rocked! All of this sounds lame to 75% of you because you mastered all of the songs a week after Christmas, AND, you got the whole complete set, from Santa, of course, at a big discount. None of that matters now. I have drumsticks and I can play.

Should I go into a whole complete review of the masterfully designed piece of ingenuity that is old news to everyone else? Should I thank my boss who introduced me to the revolution I had so vehemently resisted? Or, should I just comment on the brilliance of the creators of Rock Band 2 Special Editionwho really know how to bring a family together? I really think I should just shut the you-know-what up and let music do the talking. After all, that is what got me into this mess.

This is how I feel.

If I can sneak a video of my husband singing Nirvana onto YouTube, I'll post a link. Shhhh!

What does Modite mean? Only Rebecca Thorman knows.

2009-04-29T09:20:00.001-05:00

Alice.com is one website that is doing a great job of building incredible buzz before its release, in part because of weekly contests for awesome prizes. But the reason I love it is because of the witty musings of one of the authors, Rebecca Thorman (aka @modite on Twitter). She is clever, stylish, talented, and not afraid to be different. Head over to her personal blog and read her post on " 'Don't Burn Bridges' is Bad Career Advice" and you'll see what I mean. She is one of only five people I both follow on Twitter and whose blog I subscribe to. The design of her site is clean and fresh... (I have to say it).. but that is what you can expect from someone who sells toilet paper. (No eye rolls, please.)

What I like most about Rebecca Thorman is that she comes across as just being herself. She isn't here to promote anyone. She does social media right. I get a sense that the concept of her blog is still evolving and the best is yet to come once she gets it figured out. For example, I may get lost finding something I read last week. (Which side of her blog is it on?) The content can hardly be improved upon, though, and she does a great job of providing links to everything in her twitter stream. I hope you find a new social friend in Rebecca Thorman.

Don't forget to check out Alice.com as well. The website is currently in private beta testing, but the idea sounds like something this super busy mom can appreciate.

(By the way, this blog was recently purchased by the parentheses symbols).

Update: Rebecca isn't the only one who knows what modite means after all! She surrepticiously gives the definition away on one of her pages. See if you can find it.

Songs That Define Me Today

2009-04-24T09:36:00.000-05:00

For various reasons, these are the songs that define me today, April 24, 2009. Check 'em out.

Please Stop the Irony Already

2009-04-16T10:49:00.001-05:00

What a day today has been, and it’s just 9:00 a.m. I blame it all on bacon and this is why.

Have you ever gotten so busy that you don’t have the time to make a grocery list? I’ve been this way for about two months. Between moving, working, taking classes, my two kids’ sporting activities (one baseball, the other track), Easter, taxes, leading the non-profit group, being a mom, a wife, and the primary caregiver to a mother-in-law whose decision it was (this is where the irony begins) to move into an independent living facility two months ago, I just don’t have the time to stick to our normal routine. I’ve actually gotten in the habit of not doing a darned thing until it has to be done, and not a moment sooner (and I hate that!). That is also why I find myself stopping in the grocery store, any grocery store, to pick up a couple days worth of groceries… every other day. And, that is why I bought bacon at Wal-Mart on the way back from a t-ball game. Wal-Mart doesn’t carry our usual generic brand of bacon, so I bought a different brand. What I didn’t notice is that it is bacon “with rind on”.

Have you ever eaten bacon with the rind on it? It’s ok, unless you microwave it, which is how I normally cook bacon. When microwaved, the rind turns hard. You’ll break a tooth, I’m not kidding. We found this out yesterday, so that is why I decided this morning to pan-fry the rest of it, in an attempt to make it soft enough to eat.

Now, I haven’t pan-fried bacon in probably 10 years. But, it’s bacon, and it’s a pan. You put the bacon in the pan and the heat from the skillet cooks it, right? Sounds simple enough. I don’t know what went wrong. I don’t even know how the grease got out of the pan. I still think the grease was from last night’s chicken fried rice, but even that doesn’t make sense because (second instance of irony) the stove top was as shiny and beautiful as I had ever seen it this morning. My husband cleaned the kitchen last night and I had to stop and hug him before we went to bed because he had done such a great job. Regardless of how the grease got there, with a poof and a blast of heat, I was in trouble.

Reacting quickly, I yanked the pan off the burner and started blowing. This has worked well for me in the past (yet, probably just a set up for this morning’s fire.) So, I continue to blow and then yell for my husband. No answer from the man who is trying hard to not get out of bed. So, I continue to blow, harder now, and yell louder. My thoughts race quickly… baking soda? Nope, we just moved, haven’t bought any, mental note to put on next grocery list. Blow even harder, yell even louder. Flour, sugar? Wait, they burn, I’ve burned bread before….and sugar (no kidding). Fire extinguisher!!! “TOMMY!!!!” In a very irritated voice, “WHAT!!” and slow movement from the bedroom in the back of the house. Should I yell that the house is on fire?? No, the kids would scatter and how would I get them all out of the house? Blow as hard as I possibly can. “TOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Quicker steps. FIRE EXTINGUISHER. Where IS THE FIRE EXTINGUISHER? I think I saw it in the closet in the foyer, where I’m guessing my sister put it before she moved out. (She loves putting things in strange places.) But I can’t stop blowing because it’s going to catch something else on fire.

By this time, Tommy has made it into the kitchen and realizes the urgency of the situation. He rushes over to the stove…. and tries to blow it out. Never mind that it is unnecessary and ineffective, the good news is that it frees me to panic. I yank the cabinet doors open hoping to see some baking soda that I had already decided wasn’t there. He says, “smother it” and grabs the closest pot lid and puts it over the burner. I get three more pot lids and place over the other three, the whole time knowing “this ain’t gonna work”. Then, I take off to the foyer but hear and see Tommy remove something metal from the utensil jar. He’s prying the burner off the stove (Great Idea!), so I turn back to help.

He drops it in the floor (no, thankfully, I didn’t run into him). It just burned him.

Little pockets of grease spill out and are now burning on my kitchen floor, including the burning burner itself. He’s stomping them out while trying to get the burner back on the utensil (I still don’t know which utensil this) and, just in time, I remove the Jim and Nick’s paper bag (that should have been taken out with the garbage last night) away from next to the fire. He uses same utensil to get it up off the floor and into the sink and I hear the beautiful noise of ….sizzle…..

I check to make sure nothing else is burning and to catch myself because I’m shaking like a leaf. He raises the window and we both breathe a deep and heavy breath at the same time. After a few seconds, I return to the stove and to clean up what I can of the mess on the floor.

A couple of minutes later, I decide to finish cooking the bacon, carefully this time on the back burner at a lower temperature. Two or so more minutes into it, I hear the dogs growl and scuffle outside on the deck. This isn’t unusual. They sometimes play like that together first thing in the morning, but when it continues, my second thought is, “they’ve got a squirrel trapped”. I glance over at the deck door and see that it is open.

“Oh, dear God”.

Our cats are as eager to get outside as our dogs are to get inside.

Sure enough, when I make my way out the deck door, one of my kitties is perched on the deck railing bowed up and hissing. I take him back inside and begin frantically calling our other kitty. These cats are about 5 months old and have never had a bad day in their lives, aside from being carried around by a six and four year-old unwillingly. They have never been mean to or scared of a thing.

No sign of the other kitty. I yank the door back open to see our two dogs (a 100 lb weinmeraner and a 120 lb greyhound/unknown mix) pacing and sniffing the deck excitedly.

(Tommy had cracked the door in his harried state to let some of the smoke out.)

I’ve seen the dogs swallow hot dogs whole before, but although only five months old, these cats are too big to be swallowed whole. I’m certain of it.

I check everywhere on the deck that the kitty could be hiding. I call the kitty, whose name is Dagger. Our deck is two stories up, so I couldn’t conceive of him jumping down, and if he ran down the steps, surely the dogs would have followed him. Even if he had, how could he get over the chain link fence? Now, into both neighbors’ yards and down the back alley, Dagger is not there. When I get back, Tommy has taken our oldest son to school for early morning arrival and I’m left to comfort Reilly who looks at me with the saddest eyes.

I begin searching again and when Tommy returns, we search both inside and outside for 30 minutes and no sign or sound from him, while our rescued kitty, Reilly, expends his nervous energy by bolting around the house (in search of Dagger?). I’m contemplating calling in as I get our middle child off to school, who somehow managed to sleep through it all with his sister.

I decide that Dagger is probably okay somewhere, just a little scared and possibly several houses away, and I should go to work. He’ll find his way back home (hopefully). I worry about my oldest son making it through the day, because he left at a time when he didn’t know Dagger hadn’t been attacked and he, of all the three kids, is the most attached to the kitties. I make a mental note to text him that he’s ok.

Just as I’m about to go back inside the final time, I scan the trees. In the very top of one of the largest dogwood trees in our back yard (outside the chain link fence) I finally spot him. There hangs Dagger frozen like a statue. In my opinion, he looks hurt. At the very least, severely traumatized. Tommy happens to be coming around the house when I discovered him. I point to him.

Tommy retrieves the aluminum ladder from the side of the house and proceeds to prop it up against this tree whose trunk is probably the size of my leg. NOT safe. “Do you want me to hold the ladder?” “No.” “Okay. Please be careful.” After much scratching (by Dagger) and nail-biting (by me), Dagger is down from the tree and my husband is bleeding and burned. We make it back inside with one very nervous cat. Time for cuddles and love.

Dagger has what looks like an abrasion on his face next to his nose, but otherwise, looks and feels okay. He finally starts purring after about fifteen minutes, although refusing to be in the same room as the deck door. After careful observation, I come to the conclusion that the morning drama is over and Dagger is going to be fine.

With my wits about me, I get ready for work. I feel almost normal again when I make it in, only 30 minutes late, and find my co-workers walking down the hall en mass. I think, “Fire drill? That would be ironic!”

My boss at the back of the crowd turns around, sees me and says, “Well, there she is!” I ask, “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said. “You just missed the safety meeting again.”

Book Review - Sundays at Tiffany's

2009-02-08T20:52:00.001-06:00

So, I'm sitting here in my pink cheetah pajamas trying to read Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter". This, coming off of reading James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet's "Sundays at Tiffany's". Two completely different books with two completely different styles of writing. One is of such intellect, your mind struggles to finish a sentence before wandering. The other? Your mind wanders to find intellect.

I know. That was harsh. It's just that I expected so much more of James Patterson. After all, one of my favorite books is written by him. In fact, when choosing this book from the shelf, I was anticipating the kind of warmth and squeeze of emotion that "Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas" provided me. Instead, I received an empty piece of fiction that started incredulous and, despite my best efforts to find meaning, ended the same. It can be compared to a Lifetime movie with the middle part removed.

On the cover, the question is asked, "What if your imaginary friend from childhood was your one true love?" Reading that, I was curious, indeed. Having some experience with James Patterson, yet none with Charbonnet, I must admit, I was excited to read how they were going to make that work. One might think, amnesia, coma, psychic powers, or the most romantic notion, "the heart just knows what the person has yet to discover." (Like that? Probably not. But I'm flying by the seat of my cheetahs pants right now.)

Anyway, there's Jane Margaux, the female main character, who happens to be a young girl at the beginning - and there's Michael, her imaginary friend. The story proceeds as characters are introduced and developed, and then the story fast forwards to Jane's adulthood. This is where it could get really interesting, creative and immensely brilliant. Instead, the author(s) throw in some unnecessary diversions that do not, in the end, tie back into the storyline, giving me a sense of simply needing to fill pages with content. If there's one thing I hate, it's having my time wasted. Add to that the fourteen bucks I spent on it, and you've got one crabby person.

There is one twist at the end, that if you are not paying any attention whatsoever, you might not see coming (yet it was so like Patteson). What I expected in the end was to like certain people who were introduced in unfriendly terms in the beginning, but that didn't happen. And then, there were certain characters I thought would play a bigger part in the storyline in the beginning that just kind of dropped off, with only a mere mention of them at the end.

It's entirely possible that the book was written mostly by Charbonnet and Patterson has only lended his name to it. With all of the product mentions (Chanel No. 5, Caymus wine, Four Seasons Restaurant, Prada, Baby Gap), one wonders if this is more of an advertisement than a story. The author(s) even go out of their way to create a situation where Jane uses the product, Splenda. If I had been in a movie theater, I would have walked out. If I had to bet money, I would say that Patterson owed some favors to some people (or received compensation), and we, the readers, were carried along for the ride.

This is, by far, the harshest criticism I have given to any product or service so far. If anyone cares to review it for themselves, you may have my copy.

Restaurant Review - Dreamland

2009-01-12T12:13:00.000-06:00

Last week, I was treated to one of my favorite meals and the mainstay of Alabama Crimson Tide football - DreamLand ribs. Having never ordered from inside the restaurant before, I wasn't sure what to expect. I imagine it takes a while for ribs to cook on the 'ole grill, so I was prepared to turn around and leave. Instead, I arrived third in line to order at the take-out counter. I waited. and waited. and waited. It seems each order is placed, prepared, rung up, paid for and delivered in that order before the next order is placed. It gave me some time to view the scenery, which was interesting at least. I wasn't sure about the celebrity signed take-out boxes, though. You couldn't read the names, so why bother? I imagined going home and clipping newspaper pictures and mailing them in as an unsolicited suggestion.

When it was my turn to order, I first asked how long it would take to process my order. The man answered, "thirty minutes", without looking up. The waitress in front of him sorting her tickets snickered (more like snorted) and I wondered, "what's the joke? Is it me?" A few seconds later, he changed his answer to "two minutes". Again, without looking up. I was a little perturbed. I have a sense of humor, but come on. After waiting for as long as I had on a work day, and then made to feel like a joke, I wasn't playing along. Not smiling along with him, I placed my order. Fortunately, but perturbingly as well, it was about five minutes.

Back in the car, I weighed my options. I needed to get back to work, quickly, but I also needed to run an errand. If I ate in my car (not a wise choice if you are eating ribs), I could run the errand and get back to work in the same amount of time it would take to get back to work and eat at my desk. I was not wise. I made the wrong decision.

The whole meal was packaged in one of those aforementioned take-out boxes (but this one was unsigned by anyone famous). Inside was a plate of ribs topped by waxed paper topped by several slices of white bread all wrapped up tightly in several layers of aluminum foil. (Due to the complexity of the whole arrangement, I imagined one of the jobs there was order smasher.) I also bought a side of potato salad and sweet tea. Immediately after uncovering the ribs, I dug in. Immediately after digging in, I reached in the small bag for a napkin.

None. Nope. Nada.

None in my car either.

I used the paper bag to wipe off the barbeque sauce and tucked the ribs away. At least I could eat the potato salad if I was careful. Except, there was no fork.

I could, however, drink my tea, which was simply divine! Such a southern mainstay in the south. I know, I know....and yes, there was a straw - the one accessory that wasn't necessary was included. I questioned my ability to eat potato salad with a straw. It is my belief that it can be done with enough determination.

I finished my ribs in a more convenient location, but I didn't finish all of them. I only ate three ribs, because, as you all know if you've ever had Dreamland, there's a lot of meat on 'them ribs! At first, I struggled with this. After all, I had just paid $2 a piece for those ribs. How could I think of wasting even one of them? $2 worth each of heavenly goodness... $2 each to put extra fat on my body... $2 each....okay, the thought of paying to have fat added to my body was enough to make me stop eating.

The potato salad was only average. It didn't taste home-cooked. It tasted, at best, like Publix's potato salad.

One more note, the ribs were not as good as I remembered them being. The first bite was amazing, but the rest of the rib was a little chewy and greasy and bland, which is what ribs are sadly known for in other restaurants. I was disappointed in the meat, but the barbeque sauce has yet to be upstaged!

After finishing my meal, I was careful to discard all evidence. My family would never forgive me for eating Dreamland without them.

Will I go back? Probably not.

The book did not disappoint!

2008-12-29T18:35:00.000-06:00

I will not give away Robert Egger's words of wisdom for two reasons. #1 - I have no doubt the proceeds from his book will be put to great use and #2, you can get most of them for free at his website. I encourage you to check out his site, and then order the book.

Begging for Change: The Dollars and Sense of Making Nonprofits Responsive, Efficient, and Rewarding for All

www.robertegger.org

Brilliant, fascinating read, and the man is pretty awesome, too!

My newest fascinating friend, however, is a woman by the name of Wendy Martin. MG Onliners might know her as "Wendy Usually Wanders" because this is the name of her blog. It is only a year old and has already seen over 717,000 hits. She has MG, in addition to a number of other ailments, but has lived an amazing life despite her illnesses. I just received a copy of an interview with her that I will be adding to the AL chapter's MGFA newsletter sometime this week. She is a member of the LDS church and a travel fanatic! Give her a reason and she might just come for a visit. If she does, she will certainly have her lovable Zeke with her. What an amazing service dog! Zeke (via Wendy) has inspired me to research service dogs for companionship of MG patients. I think having this extra "help" is simply a bonus to the love and companionship having such a relationship offers. Her website can be found here. http://wendyusuallywanders.wordpress.com/.

Robert Egger and "Begging for Change"

2008-11-21T16:27:00.000-06:00

Over the past two weeks, I have been reading Robert Egger's book, "Begging for Change", and, _drum roll_ I have an announcement to make. He is officially within my top faves list. He is the founder of the D.C. Central Kitchen, which in the most basic respect, is a soup kitchen in Washington, D.C. They feed the homeless. What they also do, though, is take the homeless off the streets to teach them food service skills, get them certified, and additionally, put them to work right there in the kitchen. And Egger's organization doesn't stop there. They further teach life skills and partner with other organizations for drug recovery. To top it all off, they have an amazing success rate! In fact, he is so successful that Robert Egger received Oprah Winfrey's "Use your Life Award".

As if that wasn't enough, the best reason to adore Robert Egger is his refreshing ideas on how non-profit organizations should be managed. He has careful insight to non-profit operations and he understands WHY we just aren't meeting our potential. I am still reading this book. I hope he will reveal to me soon HOW to make them work. His ideas, so far, are right on target.

He recently came to Birmingham and has a video clip on his website about his trip. It's kind of cool seeing him in front of Vulcan.

If you are in any way affiliated with a non-profit organization, you should take the time to read his book.

About Me

2008-11-13T15:03:00.000-06:00

Life can be tough but I've been re-wired to handle the hard stuff. I was born a very emotional person. That was before I come down with myasthenia gravis. Living with an incurable and debilitating disease can make you feel a number of different things - denial, anger, apathy, regret, sadness, resentment, without religion and worst of all, alone. I've felt them all. During the short time that I endured MG, God instilled in me the determination, the passion and the strength needed to overcome my own personal and emotional demons, so that I can contribute in a meaningful and significant way to putting an end to this and other autoimmune diseases.

Before the disease, I never realized I had placed limitations on my potential to do great things. Becoming sick and losing the life that you always take for granted makes one realize how lucky we all are to be able to wake up, just get out of bed and tell someone you love them. During my remission, whether it be another year or the rest of my life, I know that I can do something to save a life.... maybe even many. MG affects so few, yet so many and MG can be fatal. If you took all of the MG patients in the US and put them in a football stadium, they would likely fill every seat. Those who have not yet been diagnosed would fill another three stadiums. Yet, MG is the most understood autoimmune disease and there is a vaccine in development. Why have we not yet wiped out MG? It's because of money and lack of knowledge and support. A cure for MG will lead to a cure for other autoimmune diseases, such as ALS, or Lou Gehrigs disease.

No, I don't exactly have all of the answers. I don't have the cure (but I know who does, http://www.curavac.com/.) God has seen fit to leave that up to more qualified people. What I do have is time, wonderful, love-filled, awesome and breathFULL time. Time to share myself with family and friends. Time to devote myself to strangers with myasthenia. Time to pray for patients with Lou Gehrig's disease (but for them, time is running out). Time to talk to doctors and nurses to educate them so they can be ready when the next patient comes through that door. Most of all, time to make a difference.