As if to say “we’re never, ever going to go away,” BlackBerry has released a BBM app for Windows Phone. While we can’t in good conscience suggest that this will change the ailing phone companies’ fortunes, it does show tenacity of spirit. This is the last of the major phone operating systems to not have a BBM app yet – … Continue reading
When it comes to telling the time, there are many different ways of doing so. In fact, most of us these days tend to rely on our smartphones and tablets to tell the time, with the humble wristwatch functioning more as a fashion accessory than anything else. Well, for those of you who would like to spruce up your home or office desk with a clock that is bound to elicit conversation whenever someone drops by your abode, then you would not be able to go wrong with the $199.99 DIY Nixie Tube Clock Kit.
The DIY Nixie Tube Clock Kit will let you enjoy fun with the “LEDs” of yesteryear, where this limited-edition DIY kit will target makers. Of course, one will require a decent amount of soldering experience in the first place before you get started on this bad boy, so you will have to have steady hands and an interest too. The ability to read schematics would definitely come in handy as well, and with the DIY Nixie Tube Clock Kit, you can opt to view time in 12h/24h display mode, while an integrated motion sensor lets you change settings accordingly. Heck, it even comes with the ability to set daylight-savings, now how about that? An alarm function also makes it all the more functional instead of being just aesthetically pleasing, and it also packs the ability to transmit IR data packets to another clock. Surely this is not too different from the DIY Nixie Tube Desk Clock.
[ DIY Nixie Tube Clock Kit offers retro time telling capability copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]
I was lying motionless on the side of the pool, wondering what the rest of my life was going to be like. My lower legs were dangling in the water but I couldn’t move them or feel the wetness. The EMTs were working diligently to stabilize my neck as thoughts raced through my head. I remember looking at one of them and asking, “Will I still be able to have children?” She said yes and something in me breathed a sigh of relief even in that moment. I have been working hard these past four years to get stronger and have since then married the love of my life. We are happy, but something’s missing. It’s time to fulfill my dream of motherhood. We are ready to have a baby!
The main question I think many people have is: “Can someone with paralysis have sex, conceive, and have a healthy pregnancy?” The answer is yes to all of the above. But, over the past four years, I have come to learn more about my unique circumstances as a result of my injury. Like most quadriplegics, my blood pressure dropped significantly, but unfortunately, my body never got acclimated. I often passed out from dizziness and now require medication to keep my blood pressure stable. Sadly, because of this, I am unable to safely carry a child.
Accepting this reality was devastating. I just had it in my head that I wad going to be the one carrying my child. I’d take adorable maternity photos, feel what it was like to get an ultrasound, to feel my baby kick, to go through the hormones, the pain, and the sacrifice. Even before my injury I might pass through the maternity clothing section, and a part of me would get excited about my future wardrobe.
I was in denial for a while. I thought I’d find a natural way of keeping my blood pressure from dropping, stay in bed for nine months, or wait for a cure for my paralysis. My doctors told me it would be a nightmare and I had to accept that harsh reality. So much had been taken away from me and this was just one more thing.
So after some tears, serious discussions and a lot of sleepless nights, my husband and I decided to move forward with surrogacy. We came to the conclusion that pregnancy wasn’t our ultimate goal, but having a child that we created was. We were just going to have to go about it a different way.
I started the research and my plans came to a screeching halt. $120,000!? Agency costs, lawyer fees, travel, life insurance, medical costs, and surrogate fees were all things that had to be covered.
There are many non-profits out there who help dreams come true and one of these is Surrogacy Together. I traveled to Thousand Oaks, Calif. to see Dr. Kumar and The foundation helped significantly with the doctors visits. They also set you up with an agency called Expecting Miracles and the agency fees were waived. Though still very expensive, this process was becoming possible.
Then another amazing thing happened. An old friend from college had been following my story. She contacted me online and offered to be my surrogate out of the kindness of her heart! What a way to rekindle an old friendship!
The news caught on and, as I’d experienced before in the media, people have some serious misconceptions. The comments came rolling in.
“She’s being selfish. Why won’t she adopt?” “If she can’t afford surrogacy then how can she support a child financially?” “If she is in a wheelchair, how can she be a mom? It’s unfair to the child!” People still wonder why I get defensive because I shouldn’t have to defend myself. Those people are absolutely right but there is a bigger picture here that goes way beyond me. I’m defending the ability of all parents with disabilities. I’m defending the world of surrogacy and those who have chosen that route.
Adoption is not this super easy process that everyone thinks it is. There aren’t a bunch of healthy new born babies available and couples are often put on a waiting list. It costs tens of thousands of dollars and there are some serious criteria that a couple must meet. Regardless, Chris and I, and every other couple in America have the right to try for their own biological child. Those couples aren’t any more selfish than other couples in the world just because they must go about creating their child a different way.
When it comes to the cost, surrogacy is most definitely an expensive choice. Even with a surrogate willing to do it for free and with help from grants, surrogacy can cost upwards of $20,000. I’m beyond thankful for friends, family and people in my corner who wanted to make this happen for us. Will we be able to support a child? Absolutely.
I need a wheelchair to get around, but that does not mean I can’t be an awesome mom. With my function I can carry the baby, feed, bathe, dress, and change their diapers. But most importantly, this child will be loved like crazy. We, as a couple, are fully aware that it may not always be 50/50. Realistically, I can’t do everything, but we will have a system that works for us and our family. Unfortunately, I think people see a person in a wheelchair and underestimate that persons ability. I’ve been lucky to know many parents who use a wheelchair that are amazing at what they do. Many of them are quadriplegics like myself. You’d be surprised what someone with no finger function can do with their hands.
This week, I will travel back to California with Chris and our surrogate for the transfer . This is really about to happen and I’m nervous, excited, scared, worried and pumped!! We will know mid august if it worked! Next time you hear from me, hopefully I’ll be an expectant mother.
Check out Rachelle’s Surrogacy Together fundraiser page.
Congrats, ladies! You may have spent years studying to become a journalist so that you could better inform the public and spread awareness of global and cultural issues, but luckily the Daily Mail has highlighted the really important part of your job — how men feel about it.
A new study by Drawing Down the Moon found that while women tend to go after doctors and architects, men find journalists to be one of the top two most attractive careers (the other being a human rights lawyer). The study interviewed single men and women to determine the most sought after professions for those looking for love in 2012 and 2013.
The published results then asked, “Does your job attract dates?”
Luckily, if you’re a female journalist, you can say YES! Because as the Daily Mail pointed out, the best quality of female journalists is not that they’re intelligent, not that they’re hard-working and not that they’re courageous– it’s that they’re “sexy.” Isn’t that good news!!?
But sorry guys, a male journalist didn’t even make the top 10 on the list of jobs women find “sexiest.” So you should probably just go pick a different career now.
Growing in popularity over the last decade, tiny houses are popping up around the country as more people decide to downsize their lives. While the structures often measure less than 300 square feet, the tiny house movement isn’t necessarily about sacrifice. With thoughtful, innovative designs, some homeowners have discovered a small house actually leads to a simpler yet fuller life, connecting them with family, friends, and nature while freeing them from mortgages, wastefulness, and an urge to keep up with the Joneses.
To check out the impressive tiny houses that maximize both function and style, visit our friends at Country Living.
Um, RUDE!
When Kathy Griffin stopped by Lance Bass’ Sirius XM show, appropriately named “Dirty Pop,” on July 30, she pulled a major no-no — at least for those of us around in the ’90s. In this incriminating photo, Griffin is seen wearing a (gasp) Backstreet Boys shirt! The horror!
As a former *NSYNC member himself, Bass posted the photo to his Instagram, writing, “@kathygriffin gets a punch in the gut for the shirt she wore to my talk show today! @dirtypoplive”.
We’ve got three words for you, Griffin:
HONOLULU (AP) — The remains of a saint known for caring for exiled leprosy patients have been returned to Hawaii.
St. Marianne Cope’s remains will arrive in a hearse Thursday at Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu for a ceremony and Mass. She was 80 when died of natural causes in 1918 at the remote Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Molokai, where the Hawaiian kingdom exiled leprosy patients to control the disease. Her remains were exhumed from Kalaupapa in 2005 during her canonization process and taken to Syracuse, New York, where her religious congregation is based.
She gained sainthood in 2012.
Relocation from New York was necessary because the buildings of the campus where her remains were housed are no longer structurally sound, requiring the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities to move to another part of Syracuse.
It makes sense to keep her remains in Honolulu, as opposed to Kalaupapa, which can be accessed only via plane or mule, said Bishop Larry Silva of the Honolulu diocese.
The remains — a full collection of her bones — arrived Sunday in a casket aboard a United Airlines flight from Newark, New Jersey, said diocese spokesman Patrick Downes. He said the remains have been kept at the St. Francis Convent in Manoa.
A sealed zinc-coated metal box containing the bones will be placed upright in a koa wood and glass cabinet in the cathedral. The display cabinet already contained her relic, a small box of bone fragments that a nun traveling from Syracuse carried to Honolulu in 2011. The relic was taken on a tour of the Hawaiian islands.
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Follow Jennifer Sinco Kelleher at http://www.twitter.com/JenHapa .
Experience and Skill? I’m sorry — that is not even close to enough!
In discussions about talent and strong management depth, deep experience and skill in performing the job are the key attributes I hear about all the time.
Really? Those are chips to get in the game. That’s what you need to get considered for the interview!
What I want to see in addition to their experience, is leadership awareness, a keen understanding of what is important to them — what they stand for, their non-negotiables… and how transparently and consistently they weave this into the daily fabric of their leadership actions.
When experience and skills intersect with consistent values-based leadership style — that is when the magic happens and greatness emerges.
I had a conversation on this inflection point with Gary de Rodriguez, one of my Linkedin connections and a gifted authority and keynote speaker on Leadership. He explains it this way:
The heart of great leadership is truly being value driven…The next layer down is how do leaders maintain consistent and congruent interactions that build trusted and loyal teams. In the work that I have done in the leadership space I have found that level of congruence only happens through self leadership. I define self leadership as the ability to remove historical emotional inhibitors so there is no haunting past triggering the actions, thoughts and potential of the NOW as well as having a clear personal mission driven by well defined values. These two coupled with absolutely clarity on a strategy forward provides a powerful force for good to accomplish great things.
And yet, leaders are usually hired for their past results — their track record. We hear descriptions of leaders such as:
“They have seen and done it all before”
“Nothing surprises them”
“Cool under fire”
“Deeply experienced”
“They deliver results”
But the thing about track records is that they look backwards, and the world is changing…fast.
• Employees are mobile, and talented employees even more so.
• Employees care about the values of the brands they work for, and more and more are holding management accountable to represent them.
• Consumers care how products are made and services delivered.
• Betterment of the communities in which we do business is a priority.
• More and more, companies are held to task, and want to deliver social profit as well as financial profit.
As such, great leaders just cannot be defined as results-oriented only. And results for them take on a much broader meaning. Experience and skill are no longer enough.
Great Leaders bring style and values to the table. They work on their self-awareness and understanding their value system, and they are completely committed to leading with that – they know that transparency and consistency of actions and behavior are the only true hallmarks of receiving trust.
• Great leaders bring all of themselves to the table. They have a strong self-awareness of what matters to them and bring that – always! (often a painful thing to do) They understand that empathy and open-mindedness starts with self-awareness and transparency.
• Great leaders invest in their teams and understand that high performance comes with the empathetic synergies created through transparency and trust.
• Great leaders understand that results clearly include financial results but address impact and talent development and community with similar importance.
• Great Leaders respect and reflect employees’ values and priorities
• Great Leaders drive for execution and results not in spite of, but because they lead with empathy, with a deep understanding of the needs (and motivations) of others – be that customers, employees, their communities.
Find that inflection point. Live it daily.
Commit to leading well!
It’s no longer a secret in America that breastfeeding a child exclusively for the first six to twelve months is the healthiest way to go. Breastfeeding boosts infant immunity and prevents conditions like asthma, diabetes, and obesity. It also prevents heart disease and cancers in mothers.
Breastfeeding is considered a great equalizer worldwide, especially where nutrition is lacking and hunger is prevalent. UNICEF reports that breastfeeding could prevent an estimated one million childhood deaths under the age of five in the developing world – but only 36 percent of these children under six months of age were breastfed exclusively in 2012.
In the U.S., where formula flows freely, only 16 percent of women who WANT to breastfeed achieve recommended goals. Formula marketing trumps what health institutions worldwide insist is best for infants. In an ongoing public health battle reminiscent of cigarette advertising in the 1990’s, near 90 percent of U.S. hospitals still give out free formula bags, subtly undermining mothers’ choices.
More recently, American mothers are suffering from high expectations but low support. Pressure to breastfeed is mounting from their doctors, yet everything from hospitals pushing formula to lack of first-person insight of their own moms (who did not breastfeed them) sends the message that it doesn’t really matter if they give up. Lack of breastfeeding support leads mothers to stop early and deprives infants of a foundational health benefit.
Enter latchME and a new era of shared breastfeeding support responsibility
Dr. Jonathan Goldfinger is a pediatrician hoping to bolster support for breastfeeding in a place almost all mothers frequent: their mobile devices. He’s developed a free, crowd-sourced app called latchME which connects breastfeeding moms with a host of nearby resources that make them feel supported and help them achieve their feeding goals. latchME maps businesses that welcome breastfeeding and professionals who address breastfeeding concerns. Moms can even share resources with each other.
Goldfinger bills himself as “a breastfeeding-friendly doctor” and backs this up developing breastfeeding services for underserved families throughout Los Angeles. An expert in breastfeeding programs, he loves advising healthcare organizations looking to better support mothers. He also runs a comprehensive breastfeeding clinic for AltaMed Health Services Corporation at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.
Goldfinger says his motivation for latchME extends beyond the myriad health benefits of breastfeeding. He espouses healthy equity, helping all families access quality care and make better-informed decisions about nutrition. latchME collects, shares and promotes breastfeeding-supportive resources in the hopes of inspiring everyone to collectively help mothers.
“Our support of breastfeeding is still evolving,” Goldfinger says. “Unlike most developed countries, antiquated maternity leave policies in the U.S. force mothers to choose between their finances and their baby. American women are also shunned in public daily for doing the natural, healthy thing and breastfeeding their hungry infant.”
Breastfeeding versus social media culture
Discrimination against breastfeeding extends beyond face-to-face interactions. When Goldfinger tried to advertise on Facebook with an image of a woman breastfeeding, no nipple shown, the ad was rejected. Yet photos of women in bikinis fill Facebook’s News Feed. Advocates from the 4th Trimester Project to FB vs. Breastfeeding are taking social media to task for hypocritically censoring motherhood.
Consider the recent controversy over young, black mother Karlesha Thurman who breastfed her baby at her college graduation then uploaded the photo to Instagram. Not only was she berated by commenters who asked why she couldn’t just “wait” or give the baby a bottle (two unfortunate, prevalent misconceptions in the U.S.) but complete strangers questioned her being a mother AT ALL at her young age. It’s not surprising women don’t feel comfortable breastfeeding in America!
What can be done? Support those who support breastfeeding
Continuing to push for better education and access to quality breastfeeding care is key. More people need to join big-time advocacy efforts like latchME. Supportive companies would gain loyal customers by sharing breastfeeding-friendly locations on latchME’s rapidly growing network, which is free to join. By pushing for better supported mothers, latchME could improve breastfeeding numbers, decrease obesity and slow healthcare spending.
In its report Breastfeeding on the Worldwide Agenda, UNICEF calls for a unified voice for breastfeeding education and a “mobilized” initiative that is not just “policy-rich but implementation-poor.” Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Regina Benjamin echoes this in her Call to Action, urging everyone from hospitals to policy makers, businesses to communities, to step up and support breastfeeding. Goldfinger’s mobile app is one such unified voice that brings people together for the singular goal of helping mothers.
Any form of advocacy that supports education and health is something I can support, as an educator and human. We talk a lot about nutrition greatly influencing the performance of our K-12 students – but nutrition starts long before Kindergarten. Giving our kids the healthiest start with breastfeeding is vital. Better, more easily accessed support for mothers will become the norm as we all support those who support breastfeeding to get there.
These woman show us that bald isn’t just beautiful, it’s also brave.
Last Saturday, for the fifth year in a row, 46 mothers of children who have been diagnosed with cancer gathered to shave their heads and raise money for cancer research. This year, the 46 Mommas Shave for the Brave event — named to represent the 46 mothers across the United States who are told each weekday that their child has cancer — was held in Boston and raised more than $200,000 for St. Baldrick’s Foundation, an organization which funds pediatric cancer research grants.
“There is this kind of rebelliousness to it. It’s like, ‘take that chemotherapy. I don’t have to have you to be bald,'” Annika Knudsen, a cancer survivor and daughter of one of the “Mommas” told WPTV5 of the symbolism behind the shaving.
The fundraiser was a powerful event, which, in addition to raising awareness, aimed to provide comfort to the mothers.
“I thought I was going to turn into an emotional wreck while my head was being shaved. But instead, I felt very free and happy and empowered,” Leslie Jermainne, a mother who participated in this year’s event told the Shoreline Times.
“It was like taking control away from cancer. It was an amazing event and to meet so many other mothers who understand and have endured what I have was very healing.”
Since 2010, the 46 Mommas have raised a total of almost $1.5 million for St. Baldrick’s Foundation, according to the organization’s website.
Many of the participants have said that “going bald” has really paid off, and want to continue their work in the future.
“I feel proud to raise money … to help find safer, less toxic treatments for our children until I hope one day they can find a cure,” Jermainne told the Shoreline Times.
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