Ever feel super jealous that you missed an event? Well, I wasn’t until I saw this video:

Now, how cool was that? The killer is that I live fairly close to that mall! I mean, I could get there in less than an hour (well, depending on traffic that is. If you live here, you’ll quickly learn that a 5 mile drive can take an hour in rush hour). I’ve shopped at that mall, and nothing that cool has ever happened! I’d happily be a bystander for something cool like this.

Would you love to see this at your local mall?

This post was sponsored by T-Mobile.

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

It is terrible here in Illinois.  This is what my house looks like this morning:

We broke our back door trying to open it this morning.  My house is a sheet of ice.  We have about 4 inches of snow.  On top of that, we have freezing rain, so it is definitely an interesting combination we have going on out there.  We watched the traffic report starting quite early this morning, and at this point, Bill isn’t even going to try and go to work.  The bad thing is that he left his laptop at work, so he’s trying to do what he can from his cell phone.  It actually was hailing and snowing at the same time this morning if you can believe it.  We are hoping to take the kids out a tad later and maybe build a snowman.  However, the snow is more like ice chunks, so I don’t know how easy that is going to be.

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

How was your Halloween? Here is Chicago we had a beautiful day. The last two Halloweens it was so cold that we have to dress the kids in layers of berghaus clothing, and they were still cold after about an hour. Not that they wanted to quit trick or treating or anything, but I was worried about how cold it was. However, this year, we didn’t have that problem. I think it was almost 70 degrees out.  I definitely had the kids and myself overdressed.  I actually found myself sweating at times.  Isn’t that crazy?

We went with my neighbors and their kids and ended up trick or treating for about two hours.  About half way through, we went back to our houses and got a wagon.  Will was getting super heavy a that point.  Bill would have been here to help, but he got stuck in a huge traffic jam trying to come home (obviously, everyone had the same idea to leave early).  After the third house, I quit walking Will to the door.  His 27 pounds gets quite heavy when you have to walk up porch steps several time.  However, Madison made sure he was taken care of.  She asked at almost every house for candy for her little brother.  Then she would run to Will and put it in his pumpkin.  It was cute, but highly embarassing for me.

After two hours, Bill ended up getting home, and we went to his brothers house.  We were suppose to trick or treat over there, but the kids were pretty much done (which was fine with me, because I was beat).  We just ended up ordering pizza, and the kids just played together.

All in all it was a pretty good day.  How about you?  How did you spend your Halloween?

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

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.

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.

Anyone who follows me on twitter knows I get a new cell phone last week.  First, I twitter that I missed the UPS truck on Thursday.  They wouldn’t come back and deliver, so I was disappointed.  Then the phone came on Friday, and I couldn’t figure out how to get the back off to put the battery in.  Then, due to some glitch in their system, I couldn’t activate my phone for 24 hours.  After all that, I was so ready not to like my new phone.

Instead, I really love it.  I have learned how to text message now (yes, I never knew how before).  I can check my email, surf the web, and even listen to the radio with my phone. I can even watch Live TV! It also takes pictures and videos. Granted, I haven’t learned how to use all these features yet. However, I plan on learning! This is one cool phone. I haven’t need a cell signal booster yet either. My favorite was that when we went to Navy pier on Sunday, it gave us voice directions. It told us what streets to turn on, and I was even able to see the traffic report! I could see on each expressway how fast everyone was going. I thought that was pretty cool. I will probably end up writing a review for the Instinct over at Lisa Reviews after I’ve had it longer than a week, but I have to admit, this is one cool phone.

Copyright © 2011 My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact mythoughtsideasandramblings.com @ gmail.com so we can take legal action immediately.