Did you know that ONE in FOUR women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime? That is an amazing statistic to me. I have lucked out, because I personally am not the one in four. However, I know there are women out there have to make those moment-by-moment decisions requiring brave choices and bold actions. You may not think this effects your life, but I can guarantee you that you know someone who has/had domestic violence in their lives. It is the hidden epidemic. I can’t be the only one who remembers the PSA commercials telling people to report domestic violence (I don’t see them anymore on TV, but I definitely remember them. I do wonder why they don’t show them anymore.)

It can be hard to believe in ourselves when we have been beaten down by circumstance, and that is where BraveWoman.org steps in. Brave Woman is a grassroots movement to shift personal and public perception of women facing domestic violence situations from a victim mentality to one of courage and strength. The ultimate goal is to create a community that supports difficult decisions involved in creating a new life of safety, healing, and independence. I wish we were there already. Every woman and child should have the supportive resources they need to live without fear in their homes and see themselves as courageous victors, finally free from family violence. I love that they have a link on the site called “click to hide site”. They get it that it can be dangerous to women to even be looking for a way out.

Even if you aren’t involved in a domestic violence situation, you can still become a Brave Woman Champion. You can take the pledge today and join other brave women. The pledge is:

I pledge to honor and respect brave women and children who tackle the difficult journey of change from domestic violence to a new life. I acknowledge my own moment-by-moment bravery, will remain aware of what is happening to others around me, and speak up against violence in any form. I will stand up for human dignity and safety for women and children.

I think this is something we can all do now and next year. Everyone who joins the Brave Woman community receives a free download of Jana Stanfield’s song, What Would I Do Today If I Were Brave and other sources of reflection and encouragement. You can also join them in a Brave Woman Twitter party on December 19th at 1:00-2:00 PM EST.

Will you be pledging to be a Brave Woman in 2012? Do you currently do anything to help those who find themselves in a domestic violence situation? (For example, we donate teddy bears to our church this time of year. Our church then gives those teddy bears to children in domestic violence shelters. It doesn’t seem like much, but those bears can mean the world to those children).

This shop has been compensated as part of a social shopper insights study for Collective Bias.

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I just realized that I never posted about this! I got to meet Apolo Ohno! I also got to ask him a few questions too. I asked on Twitter and Facebook what people wanted to know, so here are his thoughts, ideas, and ramblings (and some of mine).

First, yes, he is just as cute in person as he is on TV. He is one of the most real and one of the nicest celebrities I have met.

Food
Apolo’s favorite Subway sandwich (for those of you who don’t know, he is a celebrity spokesperson for them) is Honey Nut Bread with Double turkey, chedder cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, pepper, spinach, oil, and vinegar. He also is trying to get Subway to add some gluten free menu items. His favorite splurge item is ethnic foods.

Life Lessons
He believes in balance — everything has to be in balance.

His one piece of advice: There are many life lessons to be learned through sports.

In 1998 he didn’t make the US team. However, that gave him the drive he has today. Everything happens for a reason. We don’t control if we win or lose, but it is how you handle that.

Running/Athletes/Sports
His favorite running weather? Crazy weather! He likes to run when it is crazy hot or crazy cold.

His opinion on why athletes seem to do so well on DWTS (Dancing With The Stars)? Athletes are very use to being coached. They are use to schedules and training. Hollywood celebrities — not as much.

He runs 40 miles a week.

His nutrition changes depending on what sport he is doing. While training for the marathon (he just ran in Chicago’s), he gets to eat more carbohydrates. When skating, he has no to low carbohydrates. His normal weight is 160 lbs. However, his race weight is 141-142 lbs.

He only started training for marathon running in June. His goal time is 1 hr 45 minutes for the half marathon.

In speedskating, his longest race is only 2.5 minutes. So yes, marathon running is completely different. His training had to be customized to him. His trainer had to retrain him. He had to learn that “it’s okay that people pass you”.

What surprised me the most is how Apolo told us how sports saved his life. As a child, he did swimming, basketball, football, and boxing. In 1992, he saw speedskating in the Olympics. He tried it and thought it was fun, and he happened to be really good at it. At 14, he was recruited for a program. At that point in his life, he said he was a “bad” kid. He hung out with bad kids and did bad things. (And if you don’t believe people can change, I hope his story changes his tune). Now, this program he got in, they had made a special exemption to let him in. His dad dropped him off at the airport. Instead of getting on the plane, he called one of his friends and lived on his friends’ couches for around 2 weeks. The program then called his dad and were like “where is he?” Needless to say, his dad tracked him down and was not a happy camper. He then drove him to airport again, walked him to the gate, walked him to his seat, and flew with him. He made it to the program that truly saved him. He said it wasn’t easy. However, speedskating completely turned his life around. At 14 years old, he was #1 in US. 15 years later (at the 2010 Olympics), 70%-80% of the judges were people he has skated against over the years. (Now, how weird would that be?)

I had such a great conversation with him, so I have teamed with Subway to give one of my lucky readers a $25 Subway gift card. Here’s what you need to do:

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This giveaway is now over. The winner is Rosanne Morrison. Congrats!

Based on one of the most talked about books in years and a #1 New York Times best-selling phenomenon, The Help is a provocative and inspiring look at what happens when a southern town’s unspoken code of rules and behavior is shattered by three courageous women who strike up an unlikely friendship. Here’s a little preview:

I know that I think the movie looks great. The Help will be opening nationwide August 10th. Since this looks like such a great movie, I have arranged for one of my lucky readers to get The Help Prize Pack. In it, you will find:

- THE HELP t-shirt in adult female sizes of S, M, L, XL
- THE HELP pocket jotter & pen
- THE HELP fan
- THE HELP nail file/mirror

Here’s what you need to do:

Leave me a comment telling me why you want to see The Help!

EXTRA ENTRIES:

1. Twitter about this contest. You can do this daily — just leave me a comment letting me know.

2. Stumble this post and add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

3. Share this post on Facebook

4. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

5. Comment on another post on this blog. Let me know which one, so I can give you credit. The more posts you comment on, the more entries you get.

6. Add this contest of contest linkies (and let me know which ones please). Each Contest Linky gets you another entry.

Each of these gives you 5 additional entries:

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

2. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed

3. Add my badge to your sidebar:

4. Like My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings on Facebook!

Each of these will give you 10 additional entries:

1. Subscribe to my new Oak Lawn Deals site!

2. Subscribe to my new Lisa’s Mom Deals site!

This contest will end on August 18th at 11:59 pm CST! Good Luck!

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 had one of those weeks last week.  You know, one of those weeks where everything goes wrong.  Like if you sit in your Adirondack chairs and they break or it rains every time you have plans.  I’ve had bad days before, but it seemed like last week was against me.  It kicked me in the butt.

We spent that entire weekend looking for Madison’s retainer.  You know, those suckers are $500 and insurance doesn’t pay to replace if you lose them.  She’s been so good with it that it was amazing that we lost it.  We dug through garbage at our house and at my mother-in-laws house too.  We looked everywhere inside and outside, under outdoor wooden benches and even the kids beds!  We literally tore 2 houses apart.  Her orthodontist was on vacation last week, so we couldn’t get in to see him to see what we could do.  I knew heading in last week we were in trouble since the weekend sucked.

So that happened.  Then, my sites went down.  This was a 2 prong problem.  First, I had no access to my sites.  You may have seen some funkiness on my sites.  That’s why (it ended up having to do with a WordPress upgrade.  Hostgator ended up fixing it) I was a wreck on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Google+.  While digging through the backend stuff, I found out I was almost out of disk space.  Now, I currently pay $50 a month (yes, I know its a lot).  They told me I’d have to upgrade to the $80 month package (yes, I almost keeled over).  I had a great friend dig through my sites and found out that I had a rogue plugin that was backing up my site.  It wasn’t suppose to be saving to the server, but it was without my knowledge.  I had backups dating to 2007!!!!  Needless to say, we deleted 10 GB of backups!!!!!  (Crazy, isn’t it?).

Those two issues pretty much consumed my week.  However, this looked up by the end of the week.  First, Hostgator fixed the issue.  In talking with friends, I found a cheaper host for my blogs (which I’ll be moving to this week sometime if any funkiness happens).  I’ll get more space for less money!  I know somebody using this company already and they love them.  Best of all, I was doing laundry Friday morning, and guess what I found??!!??

Madison’s retainer.

My laundry room is also a junk room and also has a freezer and fridge in there (its all downstairs).  I was throwing in towels to the washer and her retainer was sitting in front of the fridge down there.  It looked great, and I ran it upstairs and brushed it.  The bad news is that she can’t get it into her mouth now.  However, we found it and it can be adjusted.  We have an appointment Thursday morning to do just that.

It’s amazing how your week can just turn better on a dime.  I now can sit outside on my Oakland Living outdoor furniture and relax.  How did your week go last week?

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.

This giveaway is now over.  The winner is Karen M.  Congrats!

Who isn’t a fan of the Pirates of the Caribbean series?  I know I am!  I can watch Johnny Depp all day long.  I love how they made Keith Richards his dad too!  Well, in case you haven’t heard, there is another Pirates of the Caribbean movie!  It’s called Pirates of the Caribbean:  On Stranger Tides and it about Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) finding himself on an unexpected journey to the fabled Fountain of Youth when a woman from his past forces him aboard the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the ship of the formidable pirate Blackbeard (Ian McShane). (It’s always about a woman with him, isn’t it?!?). I know my family, and I can’t wait to see it! This movie is so popular that Kermit the Frog is even covering it:

I’ve arranged for one lucky reader of mine to win a Pirates of the Caribbean prize pack. In it, you will find PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES in adult T-shirt, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES bandana in black, and PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES temporary tattoos (2). Here’s what you need to do:

MANDATORY ENTRY:

Who would you give this prize pack to and why!

EXTRA ENTRIES:

1. Twitter about this contest. You can do this daily — just leave me a comment letting me know.

2. Stumble this post and add this post to other social media sites like Digg, Kirtsy, Blogging Zoom, Reddit, Propeller, Etc. (1 entry for each social network).

3. Share this post on Facebook

4. Add this to any forums you belong too. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

5. Comment on another post on this blog. Let me know which one, so I can give you credit. The more posts you comment on, the more entries you get.

6. Add this contest of contest linkies (and let me know which ones please). Each Contest Linky gets you another entry.

Each of these gives you 5 additional entries:

1. Blog about this on your blog. Please give me the URL, so I can verify.

2. Subscribe to this blog using either my email or RSS feed

3. Add my badge to your sidebar:

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4. Subscribe via Kindle

5. Like My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings on Facebook!

This contest will end on May 26th at 11:59 pm CST! Good Luck!

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.