Category: Me

Sensory Overload

Pumpkins and pink items.  Everywhere I go there they are. Pumpkin ice cream, pumpkin coffee, pop tarts, bagels, waffles, oatmeal, marshmallow, beer, potato chips and even vodka.   Virtually anything you could imagine now available in pumpkin flavor or scent, most for a limited time of course.  People everywhere are gorging themselves all in the name of the season.

Even the Pumpkins are pink!
Even the Pumpkins are pink!

When not bombarded with all things orange and pumpkin, my eyes are overwhelmed with all things pink.  Walks and rallies, sports events at all levels and all products imaginable marketed in pink for Breast Cancer awareness month.  Watching football this week is giving me a bit of a headache with the pink shoes, gloves and towels flying around. Don’t misunderstand, I think it is wonderful that everyone is raising money to hopefully one day put an end to Breast Cancer. But let’s be honest here, would the NFL be repainting lines in bright pink if it was not profitable?

All hype aside, maybe you do not have the extra money to buy that cute pink whatever.  Maybe things are too tight to send anything in the envelope this time around. What you could do is something much more impactful, maybe pick up a phone and call a woman who you love and ask if they have had a mammogram recently.  This week I shared my own bilateral prophylactic mastectomy story with 3 of the women I work with.  Two of those women have breast cancer in their own families.  I encouraged them to be proactive talk to their doctors and possibly get tested for the BRCA gene.  I wasn’t even wearing anything pink.

Not my fault…..

1379480_520035688080383_1054559655_nAs a mother, I will never listen to my children as the argue with fingers pointed at each other screaming it was the others fault.  It always takes multiple sides for a disagreement to start.  Over the last many days we have been subjected to nothing more than that same finger pointing  by paid “news” sources and elected officials as they push this agenda or that.

What needs to be kept in mind…all of those in Washington were elected.  No one should be surprised by the actions playing out right now, especially by the House since those individuals ran for office saying they would do exactly what they are doing right now.  We as a people complain when Washington does “business as usual” yet when someone stands up to try to change things we hear that they are working outside of what is expected or how there is “infighting” in a party.  SO, what do we want?

Most people I know are able to look at the situation and place blame across the board, on all of our so-called “leaders” as it should be.  Blame on a weak President who will call the President of Iran but makes the statement he will not negotiate with the Republicans in Congress.  A weak Republican Speaker of the House who can not even keep his group on the same message or for that matter a consistent message for more than a few hour at a time.  A weak Democrat leader of the Senate who would rather give interviews and call others names rather than even try to negotiate.  All who have taken extreme stances and pointed their fingers at the others screaming it is their fault.

Many people make the statement that they want the politicians to “negotiate” but for many that is just not true.  For Democrats that means just allow for more money with no strings or questions attached and for Republicans it means squash Obamacare.

As for the Health care law, I do feel that everyone needs to flash back a bit and remember how it all started. There are parts of this law that all Americans have supported such as access to health care for those with pre-existing conditions, allowing children to stay on parents policies for a longer period of time and access for all children to basic healthcare.   Instead of our elected leaders sitting down and negotiating to pass pieces that would help the people, a huge law, admittedly not even read by many who voted on it was passed via the “nuclear option” and back room deals.  SInce then it has been a topic for elections everywhere.  To be surprised at what is happening now is just silly since those voting the way they are doing exactly what they said they would do when they to were elected.

SO what now?  Not sure if any of us have that answer.  As a country we are more divided that ever in my lifetime.  I can only hope that a true leader would rise above all of this craziness and name calling to lead us into the future.  I guess there is always hope but for the near future it looks like more of the same.  Good luck to all of us!

Is it washington or us?

I woke up today to the same dire warnings of impending doom on the news.  “The government will shut down in just a few days”.  If I close my eyes I see chicken little running our country.  Regardless of the side you agree with, I would think that most in this country would be just disgusted with he dysfunction in our fine nations capital.

When you look at polls, both the Congress and President have awful approval numbers.  As a country we disapprove of many initiatives that the administration is pushing.  Our elected officials at all levels spend hours in front of cameras, giving interviews and flat-out sucking the air out of the room instead of doing what they were all elected for, doing the business of the people who elected them.

imagesSo the question is, how do these same people that we disapprove of, those who continue to ignore what “we the people” want keep getting elected?  Most complain about Washington but maybe everyone needs to take a moment to reflect and look in the mirror.

Looks like this weekend will be spent doing anything and everything except watching, reading or listening to the news!