Have You Had Your Yearly Mammogram? October 26, 2010

8 years ago I went to see my Doctor for a routine check-up and mammogram. I was healthy, busy and didn’t give a second thought that like every other year the Doctor would say I was in excellent health. She didn’t. She told me to see a surgeon. She said my mammogram was read and it appeared to be textbook breast cancer. In a minute my life changed.

Digital mammography is fantastically fast. Before you get dressed the radiologist reads your mammogram and either sends you on your way, asks for another view, or recommends you see your physician.

Mammograms have come a long way from the big squish times. Yes the squish is still there but it is such a short amount of time you hardly feel it. When you are asked to hold your breath the procedure is so fast that you aren’t even gulping for air!

Many women are reluctant to have a mammogram because they are afraid of the results. The other excuse women give for not having a yearly mammogram is lack of insurance or the cost. As far as the cost goes, many states have assistance for mammograms and the Komen foundation; http://www.komen.org/   can also assist for some uninsured low income women. As far as the fear factor, when breast cancer is diagnosed early the survival rate is 98%. If you have insurance it really is a no brainer. How busy can you be in the grand scheme of life?

Life can change in a minute from an injury, accident or sudden death. We all take precautions when we buy car insurance, health insurance, or home insurance. We are being safe when we use our seat belt, or use our turn signals while driving. Why would we not take the same safety measures with our health and get a yearly mammogram? http://http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/mammography

Pink Products that Support Breast Cancer Awareness Month October 19, 2010

The National association of Women Business Owners, NAWBO, sent out a recent poll asking their readers of ‘Smart Brief’, this question;

 ‘Do you buy any of the pink products that go on sale each year for national Breast Cancer Awareness month?’

Here are the results:

• 57.61% Said NO
• 31.52% Said  A FEW
• 10.87% Said YES A Lot

http://www.nawbo.org/ has over 70,000 members and many more read their on line ‘brief’.

My question is why not?

I was shocked to see these results? If I was to buy a product and saw they had a special packaging that gave even .05 to breast cancer charities, I would buy it.  Why wouldn’t I?

Do women think that a ‘pink’ product that supports breast cancer awareness never goes to the charities? Do they think it is just a marketing come-on? There is even a name, ‘Pink Washing’. Breast cancer 25 years ago was not talked about except a hushed whisper. It was considered a woman’s cancer.  When women were diagnosed with breast cancer in the not so distant past, their husbands were told about their wife’s disease. Breast cancer awareness has come a long way from then and we are all better for it!

Recently Kentucky Fried Chicken and Komen for the Cure http://www.komen.org/ came under attack with their partnership. Five cents was donated for every family size bucket that was bought during a period of time. Yes, Kentucky Fried Chicken is not a health food and is counter intuitive to healthy eating and cancer prevention, with-out question. The reality is many people eat KFC often and why not garner a donation from folks that may not otherwise donate to Komen? Why not give people who eat KFC and know they shouldn’t a bit less guilt? $4.2 million was raised.

My company, http://www.haralee.com/, supports breast cancer research and gives a portion of every sale to breast cancer charity. During the month of October we give more. We don’t have to have been a socially conscious company but we choose to reward the purchasing power of our customers that shop with us. We want our customers to feel good about their purchase on many levels and supporting breast cancer research is one way it becomes a win-win situation.

A Sister’s Promise October 12, 2010

Since it is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, a special mention has to be made this year to Nancy Brinker’s book about her sister, Susan Komen and the start of the biggest grass roots effort to find a cure for breast cancer.

The book, ‘Promise Me’ is a double or triple hanky tear jerker. The relationship between the sisters is very special and heartwarming.  Susan died 30 years ago at age 36. A good friend of mine has a sister that has had breast cancer and a reoccurrence and she told me that her sister “means everything to her”. This same sentiment is felt from Nancy’s book about her sister Suzy.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_24?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=nancy+brinker+promise+me&sprefix=nancy+brinker+promise+me

 The Susan G Komen foundation, http://www.komen.org/, in their 28 years has invested $1 billion in breast cancer research and community outreach programs, becoming the World’s largest source of nonprofit funds fighting the disease. Komen for the Cure has 125 affiliates across the United States, Germany, Italy and Puerto Rico and continues to grow. Rarely does a woman go through breast cancer treatments these days that the influence from Komen funds is not felt. From drug research and diagnostic testing to local community programs such as free mammograms, exercise programs and support groups.  Each year local affiliates award Komen for the Cure community grants for up to $40, 00.00 to support locally these efforts.

I am proud to be an ambassador for the Komen for the Cure charity. I speak about breast cancer to various groups or health fairs. I have sat on the peer review committee for grants, but prefer the one on one interaction available at health fairs. As a survivor, people feel a connection to share their story of themselves, their Mother, sister or friend with me. The promise that started between sisters 30 years ago to find a cure continues. There still is no cure for breast cancer.

Vegetables, Moderation and Good Intentions for Good health October 8, 2010

All good intentions where present last April when we planted our gardens. Lettuces, spinach, onions, leeks, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, radishes, cabbage, cucumbers, squash, broccoli and green beans were planted in succession so we would have a continuous yield. Then the weather turned mild, that is to say not hot and sunny so now in October everything is ready all at once. This is the time of year when in our neighborhood cars left in the driveway or on the street with windows rolled down offer a sanctuary for zucchini. That’s right people will toss in a zucchini the size of a baseball bat into your car because they can’t bear to see it go to waste and they have already exhausted their uses of the vegetable. http://homecooking.about.com/od/foodhistory/a/zucchinihistory.htm 

Zucchinis grow well here. One plant is all a normal household needs. The novice gardener will plant several zucchini mounds and pride themselves with the big showy leaves and lovely flowers. Soon that pride turns into panic and then we have the tossing into cars situation. I have a great zucchini bread recipe from Paula Deen that uses 2 cups of grated zucchini. I always use more and it still comes out great. Of course if you are familiar with Paula Deen’s cooking you won’t be surprised to learn that the recipe also calls for 2 cups of sugar, 3 eggs and 1 cup of oil along with that zucchini. http://www.pauladeen.com/index.php/recipes/view2/chocolate_chip_zucchini_bread/

Moderation is the key word to take away from the zucchini story and recipe. Moderation is a key word to remember when planting a garden even with the best of intentions of good health!

October 1, 2010

Seesmic Logo Newsletter October 1, 2010
Dear TeamSeesmic Friends,

We’re happy to share with you the latest update for our latest products:
An update fix for Seesmic Desktop 2 and our latest release of Seesmic for
iPhone for iOS4.

Latest Release for Seesmic for iPhone

For the latest update of our popular Seesmic for iPhone application. Here
are a few highlights:

* Retina Display Compatible for iOS 4
* Creating and adding users to Twitter lists
* In-Reply-To-Conversation and Direct Messages in Threads
* Checking your private Facebook Messages
* Pull-down to Refresh
* Instapaper & Read it Later integration in the app

Retina Display Compatible for iOS 4

Seesmic for iPhone now takes advantage of the Retina Displayfor newer
iPhone and iPod Touch devices for a visually improved interface. We also
take advantage of Multi-Tasking with Fast App Switching.
RetinaDisplay
Pull-down to refresh and infinite scrolling in timelines

A simple pull-down of the timeline, will load new content. We’ve also
added infinite scrolling to load additional updates seamlessly when you
arrive at the bottom of a timeline.

PullDownToRefresh
Creating and adding your friends in your Twitter Lists

We now provide users with the ability to manage and create Twitter Lists.
Just visit your profile, choose Lists and hit the plus sign to create a
new list. You then can add your friends to your Twitter lists directly
from the app by visiting the user’s profile, and press the “Add to List”
button to add your Twitter friend to the designated list.

Replies and Direct Messages in Conversation Threads

If you spend a lot of time with Replies and Direct Messages, we’ve
organized it to provide you the ability to view your replies and private
direct message in a threaded conversation view.

TwitterDMThreads

Facebook updates: View private messages, Pages, Friends List and Profile

We’ve also made some updates to manage your Facebook social stream. The
Newsfeed has been updated for easier viewing, and you’ll be able to now
read your private messages inbox. You can now also take advantage of being
able to view the list of your friends, as well as see their profile.

Facebook

Instapaper and Read Later

We’ve also added support for Instapaper and Read it Later to Seesmic for
iPhone. You can now save articles to “Read it Later” and Instapaper.
Simply go to Settings > External Services, add your credentials for the
services you want to use.

InstapaperReadItLater

As Seesmic for iPhone continues to be a free app, we’re also experimenting
with our monetization efforts with the use of iAd only in the US Market
and will appear intermittently. We’re looking forward to getting your
feedback on this implementation.

Here is the full changelog:

* General Seesmic for iPhone updates

* Retina display compatible
* Compatible with iOS 4 and support of “Fast app switching”
* Pull-down to refresh and infinite scrolling in timelines
* Ability to send URLs you visit to Instapaper and Read It Later
* Many bug fixes and performance improvements

* New features specific to the Twitter space:

* Direct Messages are now organized by threads, and creating a new
Direct Message is now much simpler with user selection
* You can now create new Lists, and add people to Lists
* Verified Accounts now have a “Verified” icon on their Profile
* You can filter the Retweets timeline by type of Retweet
* Tapping the “in reply to…” in a Tweet now display the full
public conversation, not just the last reply

* New features specific to the Facebook space:

* The Newsfeed is now displayed much better, and will be much
faster to browse
* You can now read (only) your private messages inbox
* Your list of Friends, Pages is now displayed and you can also see
the profile of your friends

We hope you like the update so far and we’re more than happy to hear all
your ideas on how you use the app. Drop a line on
http://ping.fm/5ISB4 and let us know your
thoughts.Don’t forget to become a fan at http://ping.fm/cYs7n
And follow us at http://ping.fm/uXvhs

Updates to Seesmic Desktop 2

We also provided an update for Seesmic Desktop 2! Version 1.0.1.1320
mostly has fixes and improvements for the Twitter and LinkedIn plugins but
you can review our complete changelog here to find out what else we have
tweaked. Here are some of the main fixes/updates:

* LinkedIn timelines – The issue blank timelines for the LinkedIn
accounts has been addressed and should now be resolved.
* Twitter fixes – Fixed issues regarding Search and sending DMs. Also,
when you block a user, their messages are now removed in Seesmic
Desktop 2. You can also un-favor a tweet successfully. And usernames
for auto-complete have been updated and are now sorted alphabetically
* Google Buzz update – Items are now added correctly to aggregated
timelines
* Sound notifications – Desktop notifications now should play a sound to
alert users of incoming messages. Can also disable this is settings.
* Horizontal Scroll Bar – Issues with the horizontal scroll bar for the
columns area should be resolved and working smoothly.
* Many more bug fixes and improvements!

So the next time you launch Seesmic Desktop 2 you should receive a prompt
from us, letting you know that an updated version is available. Once
Seesmic Desktop 2 has updated successfully you are good to go!

Feel free to explore our ever expanding Marketplace to check out what’s
new and take advantage of downloading any of the plugins you want to try
out to complete you Seesmic Desktop 2 experience!

Any questions or feedback for us? Tweet at us @askseesmic or feel free to
submit a help ticket on our help site.

You can also communicate with us through our various channels:

* For help and technical support: http://ping.fm/4Eenb* For feedback: http://ping.fm/9LSv6* Join our community: http://teamseesmic.com/* And of course, you can contact @askseesmic on Twitter

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