Memorial Day 2014: time for solemnity and outrage

The title says it all. This Memorial day is a time for solemnity and
outrage; solemnity in remembrance of those who gave the ultimate sacrifice
for our freedom and outrage over the treatment of our veterans by the VA.
What a contrast.

Memorial Day is a time to remember those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for
our freedom. Without their sacrifice, we would not be free today. We would
not be able to express outrage at our government over treatment of our
veterans, advocate for special education services for blind and visually
impaired children, debate issues within an organization and much more. We
would be subject to absolute rule, something we are fortunate not to
experience; and it's thanks to our veterans that we are free. Please
remember them and what they did for us.

Now on to the outrage. We have the VA scandal which may have claimed lives
of our heroes, the ones who should be getting whatever they need, not being
put on a waiting list so bureaucrats can look good and get hefty bonuses.
How sickening.

This scandal has legs, even if not all Democrats speak out on it. People
generally don't like it when our veterans are denied what they deserve.
However, this country needs to do much better by them.

The ratio of doctors to veterans is 35 to 1 and there is a story out about
Gitmo that puts the ratio of doctors to prisoners at 1.5 to 1. What's wrong
with this picture? Plenty, if you ask me. When talking about Gitmo, we're
talking about terrorists who don't deserve better than our veterans. They
should be on the higher ratio IMO and our veterans should be on the lower
ratio. When will our priorities be fixed?
Unfortunately, that likely won't happen until Republicans take control of
Congress and then the White House as this administration sees only politics,
not human life and ramifications of its decisions in terms of that.

Then there is ObamaCare and our seniors. When they're not re-admitted, you
can thank the cuts to Medicare for this Again, where are our priorities?
More on this one at another time.

Our veterans deserve much better than they're getting. What does it say
about how we feel about those who gave the ultimate sacrifice? It doesn't
say much and VA Secretary Shinseki must go, preferably via the firing route,
as this is the only acceptable outcome for the VA scandal; but Obama is only
concerned about how things look for him politically. He doesn't care about
human life and that is evident. Look at Fast & Furious and Benghazi and
you'll see what I mean. Benghazi was all about winning an election, not the
4 men who lost their lives as a result of that terrorist attack. Fast &
Furious was about covering up a bad decision on handling gun runners, not
about the lives lost as a result of this hare-brained action. These are two
examples of the lack of priority placed on life by this administration and
the VA is the latest.

We need a culture in Washington that respects life not one that thinks life
is disposable for political purposes. Our veterans gave the ultimate
sacrifice and I have the freedom to say what I think and I thank all who
have fought and died to give me that right.

Thank you to all who have served. Your sacrifice is appreciated by me and
hopefully many others. I will pause to remember what this weekend is really
all about. Let's hope others will be forced to as well.

Weight loss and healthy eating: A work in progress

It's been a while since I've updated you on my weight loss and healthy
eating journey. I've lost about 20 lbs and want to keep it going. I have a
goal to get under a certain number by the end of June and am working on
that. Am I there yet? No, but I'll get there. It's a journey and you
never completely arrive as you're always working on it and trying to get
there.

Have I notice changes yet? Yes I have. For example, when we go out to
breakfast, I don't get the hash browns when I order eggs and bacon. I'll
substitute fruit for that, something I would not have done in the past.
However, I know how many calories I'm avoiding by substituting fruit for
hash browns and it's significant.

I don't eat at McDonald's as much and when I do, I get certain items which
don't include a medium or large fries any longer. I just get a small fries
when I get them which, unfortunately, is most of the time. When getting
chicken McNuggets, I don't get the sauce anymore. This saves some calories
right there.

When cooking at home, I only eat half of a baked potato most of the time.
This also cuts down on calories. We also don't eat potato chips at home for
the most part.

Do other changes need to be made? Yes but this will come with time and
effort. As I said, it's a journey and you must take it one day at a time.

Here's to continuing that journey to become the best I can be.

Eating my words re IOS 7.1

Well sometimes there comes a time when one must eat their words. Such a
time has come for me with regard to IOS 7.1 and the warning I put out. I
said last night that one should not upgrade due to a bug with entering
information when using a wireless keyboard. Well, such is not the case; and
there is a work around for the known bug.

What is that work around? It is releasing the control key before you
release the option key. In other words, release the option key after or at
the same time as the control key. If I release the option key after the
control key, then there is no problem. I can type in the information and
work as usual.

Again, eating words is not pleasant but sometimes it must be done.
Hopefully it'll be a long time before I have to do it again; but sometimes
frustration can and does get the better of a person. This is exactly what
happened to me and it's not pretty when this happens.

Well, all is right with the world for now which makes me a happy person..

Earning about IOS 7.1

This is a warning about IOS 7.1. If you use a wireless keyboard for
anything, DO NOT upgrade at this time. I Really, really wish I had not done
so. The reason is that you cannot search for anything in an app. When
going out of quick nav, letters you type are not recognized and when you
turn quick nav back on you will be prompted to enter a search term. This is
annoying and irritating and causes me to have to go on to the website of the
site that makes the app where I found the bug. That website has issues of
its own which I will not go into here.

It's likely produceable elsewhere but haven't found it yet; and I tried
using the keyboard for a text message. Haven't tried with E-mail yet. I
can tell you that the bug shows up in two different versions of the app in
question as my husband is running a higher version of the app.

For those who are interested, it's the spark people app.

Again don't upgrade to IOS 7.1 if you use a wireless keyboard unless you
really,really want to lose your ability to search for anything in an app as
I don't think the above-mentioned app is the only one that presents this
bug.
I seriously don't know if this bug shows up on Braille displays as well.

Community Service: A Good Feeling

Last Saturday I had an opportunity through my Lions Club to perform some
community service at our local food pantry. It was a good feeling to be
able to participate in a community service project; thus giving back rather
than taking from the community.

Why is this such a big deal? Well as someone who is blind and also Hard of
Hearing (HOH), I have not had a lot of opportunities to give back in the
mainstream community and this was a chance to do so. What I did was take
some mini butter finger bars and put them into small sandwhich bags. I felt
good after doing this; and this work is just as important as checking for
codes on products; checking for expiration dates, etc. it is something that
needs to be done and needs someone to do it.

My husband and I were able to educate those who staff the pantry as to our
capabilities and willingness to serve and the staff was happy to have our
help. Hopefully it will lead to future opportunities.

If you have a chance to give back, I would strongly urge you to take that
opportunity as you will feel good afterwards. I know I did.

MY JOURNEY TO A HEALTHIER ME

My journey to a healthier me began last may 2013 when I joined the Healthy
People Class here at HTSW. I knew it was time to do something about my
weight and wanted to lose the excess weight so I could be healthier and
happier. I also want to avoid so many issues I've seen in others; issues
such as diabetes, colon cancer and more. Watching someone die from this
disease, even at a distance, is not fun.
I also wanted to stop hearing about it from my parents; and doing
something about the problem would accomplish the solution I wanted.

I want to live a healthy lifestyle so that I am here for my nieces, nephews
and great niece. I don't want my life cut short because of choices I've
made. I have the power to do something about these things and want to take
that power into my own hands now, before it's too late.

It will take time and persistence because no one ever arrives at the
destination but they are constantly on a journey and must be persistent in
order to get there. Without persistence and the will to get there, you will
never get far on this journey.

Being blind means finding creative ways to do things; like obtaining recipes
from spark recipes and downloading them to my computer so I can access them.
It also means using technology to get information off of packages so I know
what I am eating and what nutrients it contains. It means using the I-phone
app for tracking where I can and the website where I must in order to know
how I am doing. It means being persistent in order to accomplish what I
want to accomplish.

Will I accomplish this tomorrow? Definitely not. It took a long time to
put it on and it will take a long time to get it off. But I will get there.
It won't be tomorrow but it will come and my goal is to get to a healthy
weight by early next year. I know it can be done because I want to do it
for me.

Looking ahead to 2014

Well now that the celebrations are over, it's time to look ahead to 2014.

First some personal goals:
1. Continue to take off the weight. I've gotten a good start and need to
keep this going. This means eating right, exercising and getting my water.
2. Don't procrastinate. Things I might not like doing need to get done as
well and getting them done sooner rather than later will get them over with.
3. Make time to talk with family more often. This just must happen as we
don't know how long we will be here.
4. Do house cleaning on a weekly basis and more general cleaning every
couple of weeks.
5. Take care of mail at least weekly which will keep other matters humming
along.
6. continue to work on my leadership skills.

Now I will focus on more general predictions both nationally and at the
state level.
1. ObamaCare will continue to be a train wreck affecting the personal
finances of millions.
2. Republicans will take control of the U.s. Senate and retain their
majority in the House.
3. Iran's nuclear program will cause tension and things will come to a head
this year on two fronts. First, sanctions will be extended and toughened.
The second will be Israel taking action of the type they took in 1982 when
they blew up a reactor in Iraq. They did the world a favor then and will do
it again.
4. In Illinois, Gov. Quinn will finally be kicked out of office and Kirk
Dillard will be elected. I, however, am not sure that control of the
General Assembly will change but I hope I am surprised on that one for the
sake of the people of Illinois.

These are some of my predictions and goals. I hope all who read this have a
safe, happy and prosperous 2014.