Snapchat is such a great platform to me. Although it’s my smallest network, it’s definitely my most engaged network. Yesterday, I had a lengthy discussion with a woman in The Netherlands about concussion and CTE. This morning, I had a new follower who coaches football for first and second graders in Texas. I talked to him about CTE and Flag Until 14. I even had one person who follows me be so interested that I was working against CTE that he googled me and found out I was a powerlifter as he is! So, anyway, I love snapchat. smile emoticon
It was so fun to attend another of the International state pageants. Lyndzee and I drove to Texas on Sunday.
We met up with our friend, Denise, and her four year old, Caitlin. Caitlin has been obsessed with pageants for at least two years now. She knows exactly how she will wear her hair and what her dress and earrings will look like when she’s finally able to compete.
I don’t think I know another four year old that could do so well sitting in a pageant audience but I was confident in Caitlin. She was enthralled.
She wanted to meet and take photos with all the queens she saw.
She chose her dress that she wore and the outfit her mom wore.
The pageant was great. It was nice to see two of the three International title holders and watch the new queens be crowned. Although I didn’t get a chance to stick around (we had to get back to Oklahoma!) to meet the new Mrs. Texas International, I look forward to meeting her at Nationals in July.
Congratulations to the new Texas International queens! 😀
We had our first rehearsal for Listen To Your Mother this past Saturday at the American Banjo Museum in Bricktown, OKC.
What an amazing get together! I met my fellow cast members and heard their stories. There were tears and laughter and friendships being made. I can’t wait for the world to see our show. It’s going to be held on May 1 and the Will Rogers Theater in Oklahoma City at 3 p.m. This is when you will hear our stories as we read them. Tickets are already on sale!
Here’s a video showing pieces of our first rehearsal and giving more information about the event itself.
My story is my why. The explanation of why I feel it’s my mission to let every person in the world know that it’s not “just” a concussion and that helmets don’t protect against concussion.
I hope you’ll join us! I feel humbled to be included among such amazing people. 🙂
Every day on snapchat, I encourage people to walk. If you’ve known me for any length of time, you’ll know walking is one of my true passions in life and that David and I have been walking for at least 11 years now.
Well, Wednesday is your chance to get started on a walking program. It’s National Walking Day!
The American Heart Association has the following suggestions for how you can participate in National Walking Day.
Take a walk on April 6! (We encourage a 30-minute walk.)
“Donate” your minutes walked that day at #AHALaceUp. Whether it’s 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or an hour, post your minutes on social media using the hashtag #AHALaceUp and help us reach a total “donation” of 100,000 minutes walked across America! Follow our updates all day.
Want to encourage friends and family to join you? Planning a walk at work or school? It’s easy! Get the free National Walking Day toolkit with tips and promotional materials here!
And follow @american_heart on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for news and tips on fun ways to move.
I hope you’ll give it a whirl. It’s so easy and you’ll feel great afterwards. See you there! And don’t forget #AHALaceUP. 🙂
I chose to work with this group because Patrick’s story is so similar to my son’s story and I felt drawn to them. It was wonderful to meet Karen Zegel and her husband, Doug. They are passionate about the issue of stopping CTE and concussion safety for youth athletes.
We all got together at the hotel the night before and I heard the stories of the collected women. Some had lost sons to CTE and some had lost husbands. It was all very sad and it made me even more sure that I was on the right path in my quest to inform anyone and everyone I come into contact with that it’s not “just” a concussion and that helmets do not protect the brain against concussion.
Debbie Ploetz’s story was one that made me realize that even if everything seems okay for now, somewhere along the line, the result of all the concussive and/or subconcussive hits, may take its toll. Greg Ploetz died from CTE. Here’s the video:
The next morning, we all met at the Cannon House Office Building for breakfast and to get to know each other.
Then it was on to the Brain Injury Awareness Fair. I walked around the room to see what people were there to showcase. I shared with each person my own personal quest and got some very good ideas of ways in which I can proceed and reach more people.
I was so happy to meet and speak with Mike Haynes. Mike is a pro football Hall of Fame corner back. The exciting thing is that he never played football until he was a sophomore in high school. Not only is he is in the Hall of Fame, his brain is okay!
I had a meeting with my Congressman’s legislative aide. In the end, we weren’t able to meet with the person we were supposed to meet with but we were able to share our concerns with another of his staffers. I’ll be following up with the Congressman, though, because this is too important to just leave to chance that he will hear about if from someone who isn’t me.
Some members of our group had really great and positive sounding meetings with their representatives. It became apparent that it will take us some time and that we must bring even more interested people with us as we continue to strive for a legalized standard of care for concussion in youth sports. While it may take some time, I know that we will achieve our goal blow by blow, one step at a time.
If you know of any parent groups that are interested in safety in youth sports, particularly with regard to concussion and brain safety, please have them join with us on the Save Your Brain facebook page.
I was super excited to attend the Illinois International Pageants this past weekend in Chicago. Pageanting is something I do with my stepmom and it was so great to see her. It had been way too long!
Before we headed in to watch the pageant, I stopped for a photo in front of the step and repeat.
At intermission, I actually got my stepmom to visit snapchat with me!
Click to play!
Then we went in to watch the rest of the pageant. I was super impressed with the contestants and their commitment to their platforms. It would have been hard to be a judge!
When the judging was complete, the following ladies were crowned:
Nicole Zwiercan – Mrs. Illinois International
Jessica Kumpula – Miss Illinois International
Lindsey Pearlman – Miss Teen Illinois International
I was hoping to be able to introduce myself to Nicole before we left but that didn’t happen. I will look forward to meeting her at the National pageant in July. Congrats to the new titleholders and to director, Beverly Turkowski and her staff who put on an awesome pageant!
This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to be able to hang out in the Safety Station with Fire Marshall, Tom Hufford, and the Tulsa Fire Department.
There was SO much safety information to share and I was so happy to be able to share concussion safety information.
Over the four days, I spoke to so many people and it was gratifying to hear them thank me for sharing the information because they had no idea that concussions were so bad. My goal and my mission is to share with as many people as possible that a concussion isn’t “just a concussion”. The Safety Station was a great place for me to share this message.
The clowns were a blast, too!
Many thanks to Tom and the Tulsa Fire Department for letting me hang out with them at the circus!
I’ve spent the past couple of days hanging out in the Safety Station with the Tulsa Fire Department at the Akdar Shrine Circus promoting my platform of concussion safety for kids.
It’s a circus so, of course, there are clowns. I love clowns. So happy and fun!
The first clown I met and actually spoke to was Noze. We had a deep discussion about lipstick. Because, you see, he has the most fabulous, sparkly, red lips!
I asked him, “So where do you get your lipstick?”
He looked at me as if he was sizing me up. Trying to decide, should I tell her? Finally, he responded, “I make it myself.”
“Really? How do you do that?” I asked him, with excitement. I really need to have some of that lipstick and couldn’t wait to learn how to make it.
“Well,” Noze said, “I use red lipstick, then I put glitter glue on top of that, and then add red glitter.”
Hmm…. I was thinking. Glitter glue. Glue????
“So how do you get it off? How long does it take?” I asked him.
“I just use baby oil. It takes me an hour to put my face on but it takes me one minute to get it off.”
Whoa! That’s incredible! I was completely intrigued and clearly better informed for having had this conversation with Noze. Now, I’m off to buy some glitter glue. 😀
David and I drove home to Tulsa from San Jose for Christmas. After I spent two weeks in Las Vegas helping my sponsor, Story Clothing Co., David picked me up and we traveled historic Route 66 to get back to Tulsa.
We accidentally stumbled upon Winslow, AZ. It was really early in the morning and I was ready for breakfast. I told David to pull off at Winslow which was 8 miles away according to the road sign. It was early, I’d had no coffee and the realization came to me piece by piece. Winslow, Arizona. That’s in a song. Which one? I finally pinpointed Take It Easy by the Eagles and I told David that when we got there, I was going to stand on a random street corner and sing the lyrics to the song.
We were looking for a diner and ended up on downtown Winslow. The diner was closed but there we found the Standin’ on the Corner Park. How cool!
Of course I had to sing and then we ate breakfast.
Next up was New Mexico. I absolutely love New Mexico. It’s so pretty there. Sunrises and sunsets are spectacular.
We stopped at the Route 66 Memorial in Tucumcari. There was snow there!
Then it was on to Texas where we stopped at my favorite, The Cadillac Ranch. A couple of years ago we lived in an RV for several months a little bit to the west of the Ranch. I saw it all the time and fell in love with it.
It’s always so fun to see what people paint on the cars and I swear, the next time I go there I will NOT forget my spray paint! I’m pretty sure one of those cars needs to sport a pink crown. 😀
We had lunch at the Big Texan Steak Ranch and I was able to have my photo taken with Big Rex.
We all know everything is bigger in Texas and when I saw this ginormous rocking chair, I had to sit in it.
We had a great time driving through the southwest. The southwestern part of the United States is gorgeous in a whole different way than other parts of the country. Since we first visited New Mexico early in our marriage, I’ve always wanted to live there. I think I could get used to seeing this every day.
In November, I was contacted by the local Go Red coordinator and asked if I would be willing to host a Go Red Girlfriends Moment to take a stand for all the women in my life.
What is a Go Red Girlfriends Moment??
A ‘Moment’ is defined as an opportunity taken to spread awareness to women’s cardiovascular health, and to ask friends and family to join you in making a gift to the cause to take a stand for all women close to your heart.
I was getting ready to hit the road but I planned three “Moments”. They were small but important.
I held the first Moment in Las Vegas. We met at Serendipity 3 for their famous frozen hot chocolate. Not something that is necessarily heart healthy but it’s not every day you share a treat like this. My two friends, Lyndzee and Lauren, joined me and we were able to talk about how they could keep their hearts healthy.
My next Moment took place in Tulsa at my home. I invited my friends for a glass of wine and some Christmas cookies. It was really getting close to Christmas and only two of my Tulsa friends were able to make it, Laura and Shelley. Yet, the message is important and as a bonus, these are two women I was excited to introduce to each other.
I scheduled my third “Moment” in Oklahoma City the same day Mother Nature decided she wanted to schedule an ice storm. I had to cancel this “Moment” and I was really disappointed since it would’ve been the largest. I made a donation for each of my friends who said they would attend and I hope to reschedule it in the future.
The Go Red message is one that I believe in strongly. I’ve seen my own aunt be an almost text book story of how her symptoms didn’t look like a “typical” heart attack in men, the doctor sending her home, and my cousin insisting they figure it out. Over my years of volunteering for Go Red I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that particular scenario.
Ladies, know your numbers! Know the signs and symptoms of heart attack in women and be alert for your heart health and the women around you. Extra information can be found at the Go Red for Women website.
Snapchat is such a great platform to me. Although it’s my smallest network, it’s definitely my most engaged network. Yesterday, I had a lengthy discussion with a woman in The Netherlands about concussion and CTE. This morning, I had a new follower who coaches football for first and second graders in Texas. I talked to him about CTE and Flag Until 14. I even had one person who follows me be so interested that I was working against CTE that he googled me and found out I was a powerlifter as he is! So, anyway, I love snapchat. smile emoticon
