If you are a regular reader here, you have already read about how I took the Brave Woman Pledge. If you aren’t, the Brave Women 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.

A Brave Woman is a woman who has a lot of courage which is why I took the Brave Woman pledge. I may personally never have been involved in a domestic violence situation. However, I learned with my original post that may women that I know have. Some of the stories I have since heard writing my original post were heartbreaking. However, these are woman I am proud to know. Why? They were able to get away from their horrible circumstances. They don’t want their children to head down that path and put themselves in those circumstances. They want change. Most of all, they want to help others.

I believe that one person can make a difference. I believe that I can help support women who have been to hell and back and give them the courage and the faith that they can do this. They can leave for a better life.

Why are you taking the Brave Woman pledge?

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

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.

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.

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.

If you’ve been reading my blog over the last three years, you will know that I had hormonal issues after the birth of both my children.  With Madison, I was put on birth control to stop what I like to call The Neverending Period (sing with me  to the tune of The Neverending Song — this is the period that never ends, it goes on and on my friends, some hormones started flowing it . . . . I’ll end it there LOL).  I thought I was in the clear.

Then I had Will.  That’s when Part II of The Neverending Period started.  I was back into 8 week periods or more!  The problem with this time around was that nothing and I mean nothing would stop it.  We tried I think a total of 9 different birth controls and none of them worked. We tried estrogen.  We tried no birth control.  Nothing would stop it.  I was crabby.  I was emotional.  And it sucked.  I ended up with a hysteroscopy and D&C.  It was painful.  The recovery was worse than when I miscarried.  What did they find?  Absolutely nothing.  No reason for why I was having the problems I was.

I’m writing this post to give you all an update, because I am getting hits on my old posts from women who have this same problem looking for answers.  What has happened in the last year?  Well, after the D&C, I had the lightest period I’ve ever had in my entire life.  Since that period last September, I’ve not had one since.  Can you believe it?  I’m still on Seasonque.  Every 3 months I take a pregnancy test to make sure I’m not pregnant, and I’m enjoying life.

If you are a woman dealing with this (or something like this), this is life at the end of the tunnel.  There really is!  Get your doctors involved right away and don’t give up!

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.

That is my life the next couple of weeks.  I will not have a lot of blogging time, and you will notice this across all of my blogs.  I have 3 freelance jobs going on right now that will be keeping me busy.  We also leave for DisneyWorld in 10 days, so I am trying to get ready for that too.  The cool thing is that I figured out how to take pictures with my phone and have them post here, so I will try to do that daily.  If I can get Bill to agree to let me buy internet then I’ll do some blogging from there (don’t count on it though).  I plan on writing up reviews on my travel blog when we get back.

I hope to see you all around here but just wanted to warn everyone that there may be a slowdown. 

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 Weeks Post Was Suggested By Deb

Capt. Ed Freeman
Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)

While reading the info on Cpt. Freeman, I found that I couldn’t have put it better than this.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.
We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your site, you can go here.

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.