It's Been A While!

Wow! it's been a while and I've been feeling guilty and so even though I don't usually blog during the week, I had the urge and so decided to go with the flow...So, here goes...

A lot's been happening and yet, not so much really...It's been a whirlwind. The first thing that comes to mind of course, is that we just had a big holiday...but it sort of passed me by! I had to work...I mean I had to work the whole thing. My daughter got home from school the Friday before Thanksgiving and she was home the entire week. Thing is, it feels like I pretty much missed that too.

You see, it sort of went like this. Caitlin arrived Friday night and we spent Saturday together...sort of...you know how it is, as the other kids arrived in town they all had to see each other and then there was the local HS football game, they won, which means they are playing this week at the Ravens stadium for the state championship!

Anyway, then came Sunday and I had to fly to Nashville for a TBCRC (Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium) meeting. This was just an over night trip. Nashville was very cool. I had never been there and we stayed at the Gaylord Opryland Resort and it was decorated for Christmas. It was beautiful. We got to see the Country Music Hall of Fame! It was a great meeting. Very informative, my first one. I returned late Monday night. That set the tone for the rest of the week since that was my day off for the next weekend! So I worked all the way through to the next Monday and Caitlin left on Sunday...bummer...

Now, during the course of the week my blackberry froze, never finished a reboot, got as far as the logo and never got any further...so I stopped on the way home and thought, they will take care of it...Oh, they took care of it all right...I was 3 DAYS OUT OF WARRANTY, yes, you read that right, and no, they could not fix it. So I became the proud new owner of a brand new latest model BlackBerry curve...I had my contacts but nothing else...I told the lady when I walked in that I wasn't up for a new phone, that I didn't have it in me, did she listen? No. She even told the sales person that I wasn't going to cry. I corrected her post haste!

So I spent that entire evening and the next few, off and on, putting the apps that I had had previously, on the new BB...sigh...So, fast forward to the weekend and the internet...for some reason our internet provider decided to crap out on us! No internet! Some days I just hate technology! I gave up...The next day it was back up but barely, it was limping along...tonight same thing...so, you might ask yourself, how is she typing away on her laptop? Well I will tell you how...My trusty new Blackberry, that's how! I have it tethered to my laptop and I am using it as a modem! Take that, Comcast!! Technology, you gotta love it! When it works...

Thanksgiving was lovely, after work, I and my family went over to my brother's house and we had a feast! He has 10 children and there is always a crowd. My parents were there and their newest addition, no not a baby, a puppy was with them and a big hit!

The next day was my birthday and it was no biggie...I worked...but I am happy to celebrate every BD...

I had my mammogram and ultrasound yesterday, not routine, since the scare last year. But in spite of that, all went well. And that, it has been decided, is the last holiday/birthday mammogram I will be having. Enough is enough! I have decided to have another one in 6 months and then have them yearly from there.

16 years of holiday mammograms beginning with the one at diagnosis is more than enough for this woman!

So that's what has been going on in my world...how about you? Aren't you sorry you asked? Oh Wait! You didn't, oh well, it's my blog, and I'll ramble if I want to...

Stay pink!

PS. I've been reading a delightful little series "The Coffee House Mysteries" by Cleo Coyle Give it a click and check it out...you wont be sorry!

I Got A Card in the Mail Today!!

Hey Everybody,

Guess what?!? I got a card in the mail today! There was no return address and it is November, so I thought maybe it would be an early birthday card...But no...it was not...I am putting a picture of it here...so you can see for yourself what it was...Here is a picture of the front...pretty cool huh...At this point I have to tell you I was a little confused. So I opened the card. Here is a picture of the inside. It is signed by my husband! Can you see what it says?

Pretty special isn't it? Sometimes he surprises me! I hope you can read what he wrote! But just in case you can't...it says " What can I say? Hopefully all the hard "extra curricular" activity will pay off."  Stay Pink!

Hey Look! Somebody thinks I'm Stylish!! Whaddya Know?

Hey, I must say nothing like a leisurely cup of coffee on a Saturday morning...That's exactly what I was sitting here thinking as I was sipping on said cup, contemplating my next move...Hmmm, I thought, should I, A: grab the kindle and continue with the coffee house mystery that I am currently in the middle of, B: fire up the pink computer and start in on my routine there, or C: work on one of the many BC advocacy jobs hanging over my head...Well, as those of you that have been with me for a little bit  know, I also hold down a full time job as an embryologist for 40 hours of the week, so you might be able to guess...I did not pick C! At least not yet!

Yep, since you can tell that I am typing, you might safely guess that B won out, at least for the moment...So the little pink wonder is up and running And guess what!?! My day has already been made!! How? you ask? Well, because My blog here, has been given a little award! Yes, it's true! Truly Simply Pink has been given the Stylish blogger Award! How about that...Not sure what it means, but I sure am ,well, Tickled Pink!
Now, apparently, there are a few rules to follow here and they are as follows:

1. Thank and link back to the person who gave it to you.

2. Share 7 things about yourself.

3. Pay it forward to 15 other recently discovered great bloggers.

4. Contact those bloggers and tell them about their award. 

So first of all I have to thank with glee, Michele over at Bodacious Boomer she's the one that gave me the award...I don't really know how stylish I am but I do try...lol...and she made my day!

Hmmm 7 things huh...well.
1. I am a breast cancer survivor and this is my month for my mammogram and this year because of a scare last year, I must also have an ultrasound...big breath here...
2. My birthday is also in November!
3. I love PINK!! Pink makes me happy. I have always loved pink, it has nothing to do with the BC connection...that was just a lucky thing...
4. I have a large collection of watches...a lot of them are ...pink...lol
5. I am an avid reader!
6. I have a beautiful voice, which at this point in my life is going to waste.
7. Were it not for BC I would have 2 children...

And finally, here are 15 blogs that, in my opinion, you should give a shot...
Fried pink tomato
The Kindle Nation Daily
My Big Girl Pants
Pink Martinis and Pearls
Wandering through the Words
The Life of a Suburban Princess
Tickled Pink and Green
Pretty Pink Tulips
The Empty Nest
The Snooty Primadona
The Fred Effect
Reasons Why I walk...
To Hell and (Hopefully) Back
Kickstand Up
Debi Drecksler
Whew! That took a while...I had to be careful you know...and just 2 of our choices overlap!
So boy was that fun and I am so tickled! My sister is a long time blogger and I am just beginning...I can't wait to tell her...Oh, and did I mention she just turned 40? About time she did that!

Sibling rivalry? Nah, she is much too young and I am much too old...lol...

Stay Pink! & Stylish too!

Sometimes it pays to be late?

I tell you some days are just a study in frustration...Last Thursday, was one of those days...I knew for most of the week that I had a very special reception to attend and it was not quite after work...the plan was to leave work a little early. Of course, as Murphy would have it, that day was the busiest of the week and there was no way that particular plan was going to come to fruition...Well, I thought, that's OK I'm not that far away...My trusty GPS will zip me right over there and all will be well...

Now let me just tell you that the event that I was headed for was, indeed, a special one. Komen Maryland was holding a small reception to honor the founder and CEO of Susan G Komen for the Cure, Ambassador Nancy G Brinker. She was in town and we were taking the opportunity to meet with her and honor her and she in turn, was to say a few things and sign copies of her new book, "Promise Me". The event was not open to the general public and not one to be missed...

Being the generally forward thinking and prepared person that I am, when I went on break in the morning, I grabbed my Blackberry and opened up the application, VZNavigator. I typed in the address of the venue, the Ritz Carlton. So far so good...Oh wait...before I could do that I was prompted that there was an upgrade and so I did that...yes, I know...so I upgrade and reboot...and reboot...and reboot...are you getting the picture? for some reason lately, whenever I need to do a reboot, my BB has been taking it upon itself to just continually reboot itself into infinity! So I proceed to pull the battery in order to do a hard reboot...no go...this goes on for quite a while, until in fact, my break is over.

I return to work with my phone, sans battery, in my pocket...This, by the way is against company policy. I am now in potential trouble!! A while later I remember the phone and put it back together. I stick it in an office to charge.

Much later in the day, I head to lunch...I investigate the new and improved VZNavigator...Hey cool! I can link to Face book and give my location and a few other cool things...but first things first...I type in the location of the Ritz Carlton downtown and ask it to navigate...it searches for my GPS location...and searches...and searches...Well, to finally get to the point here, the damn thing never does find it, oh wait, once, it does...I get  a very quick look at the route! Because, yes, you guessed it, it is time to return to work!

Now, just a quick note here, if the website had had written directions I would have printed them, but they did not...and I did not have time to look them up...

So the end of the day comes and I quickly change and try to become my lovely evening self...I get in the car, I have assumed that the lack of GPS was due to the being in the building...now I am assuming it is due to being in the garage...I don't know what to blame it on as I become lost in Baltimore city! I am becoming frantic...Not because I am lost...I can at any time, get myself home! I cannot, however, even begin to get myself to the Ritz Carlton!! So I called them...they really were no help...So I called my husband, he was still at work, but he and 2 of his co-workers came through for me...I have an over head Bluetooth. Michelle brought up MapQuest and they talked me through Baltimore City and over to the Event! They have since been properly thanked.

I pull up to the RC and get out(valet parking) People are already leaving...the reception was to last only 2 hours...I rush though the doors to the lobby...they call for an escort...I wait...as I wait Nancy Brinker comes down with her escorts and goes into the bathroom...she is leaving...I look at the gentleman from the RC escorting her out,,,I say to him, "will she mind if I speak to her?" He shakes his head and tells me very kindly that he does not think so...As I wait, another rushes in late and up to me...I explain the situation to her and she waits with me. Ambassador Brinker comes out and heads for the door...We ambush her and she is very gracious...I am low key and explain to her that we are late and just want to introduce ourselves to her and thank her for coming, etc. However, JoAnne, my partner in crime, does not leave it at that, she proceeds to enumerate my many doings for Komen MD and National and Ms. Brinker leans over and engages me and wants to know what years I was race chair. I answer her and we speak for a few more minutes. She then tells us that she has left extra signed copes of her book upstairs and to make sure we get one.

As I turn around the nice gentleman from the RC says to me, you just got to spend more time with her than anyone upstairs did! Unbelievable! We proceed upstairs to find that my friends have done something very special...they have a book for me. They saw that I was not there and they asked Ms. Brinker to sign one for me and it is personalized...That is special...I have no words...Although I do admit to seeing plenty here on the page...

By the time I left I had a raging migraine, I am prone to them and this was just too much...Earlier in the day I had decided that the hair must go and I was determined to stop at Haircuttery on the way home and get it chopped off. So, after an hour on 83...I did...The hair washing helped the migraine...the RX did only a partial job...rush hour on 83 did not help...I don't know how people do that ever day!

Oh, the valet parking? When I went to get my car, it was still out front...I was so late they did not park it...I had joked while upstairs that they didn't need to...hmmm...while three of us were peeking in the windows of my SUV to see what gift had been left in there (you see, they told us there would be one) the doorman came up behind us...we turned around to see him holding the gift...we are such a class act...lol...

The GPS???Oh that is still on the fritz...that upgrade really messed things up..As a perfect end to a perfect day, I called Verizon wireless at around 10:00 pm that night...we ended up putting in a ticket...you know, a ticket...still waiting for a fix...it is Saturday...he suggested using Map Quest for Mobile in the meantime...one problem, the GPS locator on the phone does not work for that either...boy the upgrade was a thing of wonder...oh, and for those of you thinking, well just go back to the prior version...no can do...thought of that...

Anyway, an awesome opportunity was not lost thanks to a couple of people that my husband works with and my own persistence...I mean 2 more minutes, one more wrong turn and she would have been gone.

That is one amazing women...Ambassador Nancy G Brinker, all she has accomplished and all of it stemmed from a promise that she made to her sister as her sister lay dying of breast cancer...The power of a promise!

Promise Me: Read it!

Are you a Woman? Will You Vote?

This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-Grandmothers who lived only 90 years ago.      Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. 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.'  (Lucy Burns) 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.   (Dora Lewis)   They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her  head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, 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.   (Alice Paul)   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.  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?                (Mrs. Pauline Adams in the prison garb she wore while serving a sixty-day sentence.)  Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie '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. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.      (Miss Edith Ainge, of Jamestown , New York ) All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But theactual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote. Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege. Sometimes it was inconvenient.          (Berthe Arnold, CSU graduate) My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history,  saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk  about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself. 'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said. 'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'      HBO released the movie on video and DVD . I wish all history,  social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.         (Conferring over ratification [of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution] at [National Woman's Party] headquarters, Jackson Pl [ace] [ Washington , D.C. ]. L-R Mrs. Lawrence Lewis, Mrs. Abby Scott Baker, Anita Pollitzer, Alice Paul, Florence Boeckel, Mabel Vernon (standing, right)) 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. And it is 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.          (Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk , Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, 'Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.') History is being made. --