I took this picture of Madison late last night. We had put her bed, and about an hour later, she came screaming out of her room. She was crying so hard that we had no idea what happened.  All I know is that I saw she had a mouth full of blood, and I ran her into the bathroom.  We still couldn’t figure out what had happened, but we had her rinse her mouth out with water and calmed her down a bit.  What we learned was that somehow she took her Pumpkin flashlight, and whacked herself in the face.  You can’t tell from this picture, but she actually somehow cut two little spots below her lip, and her entire lip is swollen.  She also had some black and blue marks show up instantly. After we calmed her down and found out what happened, she says to me “mommy, do you want to take a picture?”.  That’s my blogging girl!  LOL  She knew I was going to write about this.  LOL

The good news is that she is okay today.  The swelling went down, and she just has 2 little cuts below her lip.

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I actually got this in an email. However, it is so very true. I have not missed an election since I was 18. I always figured that I couldn’t complain if I didn’t take part in the very process that picks our leaders.  Here is a few things that the history books didn’t teach us –

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers; they lived only 90 years ago.

Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote.

And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’ They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food–all of it colorless slop–was infested with worms.

When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks
until word was smuggled out to the press. Here is more information about these coragieous women:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because–why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn’t matter? It’s raining?

HBO recently put out a movie called Iron Jawed Angels. It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane, so that she could be permanently institutionalized. It is also inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’

Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know.

We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women. Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party – remember to vote.

History is being made.

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I am sooo far behind, but I went to this awesome event last Thursday.  Wendy Piersall was so kind to invite me, and I met so many awesome Chicago women.  It was a great girls night out.  The drinks and food were awesome (note to self:  don’t drink the drink above and expect to go to bed.  It was 2 am before I remembered that that drink had Red Bull in it).  I’d like to give a shout out to all the wonderful women I met (now, if I don’t mention you and you were there, I didn’t get your card!  Just let me know, so I can add you to this list):  Barbara, Beth, Kim, Kim, Karen, Arianne, Jessica, Amber, Jayne, and Sima.  It is nice to exchange ideas with fellow women who understand social media and the uses of Twitter.  I hope to meet these incredible women again.

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Did you November is National Novel Writing Month (hence, NaNoWrimo). NaNoWrimo is an interesting approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1 and end November 30. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word).  This requires you to write a minimum of 1,667 words a day which can be very daunting.  This is why using Dragon NaturallySpeaking for NaNoWrimo would take some of the pressure off. I know my sister would love to write a novel one day.  It is honestly her lifelong dream.  She went to college and majored in English, so she could do it.  However, she is super busy (and this is before she even has kids!).  When I learned about Dragon Naturally Speaking, I knew this would be a perfect fit for her.  This can definitely help her blogging (of course, she is a blogger too!).  However, I personally don’t think she thinks she has the time for something of this magnitude.

If you want to see how this would help you, you have to take the Dragon’s typing speed test! I tried it with Will (my 16 month old) hanging on me (so I really do type faster, but this is what my life is like normally. That is why blogging usually takes me all day. LOL  Here’s my test results:

Let me tell you, I couldn’t believe how fast the speaker was compared to my typing.  Granted, I could have typed faster without Will, but I still couldn’t have kept up with the speaker.  There is no way.  I think I know what I am buying my sister for Christmas.  She has some big changes coming her way and this would allow her to both continue blogging and to write her novel.

I may not be writing a novel, but man, I can see so many uses for myself with this software.  Since I have five blogs and two little kids, I could definitely get more work done with this versus me typing out my blog posts (see score up above – lol).  This would make it much easier to write posts for my travel blog when we are on the road, and I could write my posts for my cooking blog while I am cooking the recipe I am going to write about.  I could take the time I save and spend it with my family instead of working.  It would be nice to be able to go to bed before midnight.  Do you want to see how easy this is to use?

As you can see, anyone can use this software. It is that easy.  Don’t believe me?  Read some of these Dragon Reviews. I actually know people who have this and they absolutely love it.  I am still working on getting my hands on one of these, so I can save some of my precious time.

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Yes, I am admitting it.  We went to a work dinner for Bill’s work on Saturday night.  It was about an hour away, so we had already decided to get a hotel room.  It was really fun — there is no need to be sending out Chicago resumes or resumes anywhere else either.  We had Filet Mignon for dinner (yummy) and free drinks all night.  They even opened a tab up at the bar upstairs after the party was over!  We ended up staying up till like 2 am.  That isn’t all that late, I know, but man, I am still dragging butt.  Seriously.  I didn’t even have a buzz when I went to bed, so this isn’t even hangover related.  The only other thing I can figure that is making me so tired is that I am getting sick.

How old were you when you figured out you were old?  LOL

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