Yes, These People!

would really love for you to not only register to vote but get out come November and vote as well. Learn about great candidates Derek Kilmer, Larry Seaquist and Sumner Schoenike too!

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I woke up this morning and I was like, “Oh what the heck?” Why are we celebrating Katrina? To me, it was one of the nation’s biggest failures. It also meant the end of a long emotionally abusive relationship personally. Then I had my “aha” moment. I realized that we, as Katrina’s children, were really survivors. We survived so much and with so many physical and emotional challenges.

To my children, whom I love dearly. I’m so proud of you for surviving and thriving in the face of not only one of the biggest storms you’ll ever see in this lifetime. Just as I hope I kept the light of hope flickering for you, know that you have always kept that flame alight for me and I could never thank you enough for that. Pass that light of hope to everyone you meet.

Manda hugs me for the world to see.

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The photographer needed coffee, but meet Sumner!

Have you all met Sumner Schoenike yet? You should. He’s one of the biggest fighters for Washington families I’ve ever met. You can even follow him on Twitter at @votesumner. Please take some time to meet Sumner today, and again, good morning Sumner!

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Dr Sumner Schoenike & Josh Brown

Who are these people? It’s Dr Sumner Schoenike and Josh Brown. Maybe you saw their names on the ballot and weren’t familiar with who they were. Maybe *gasp* you didn’t get a ballot because you’re not registered to vote. Right now here’s your chance to learn about two candidates I think are wonderful and register to vote as well. Well, if you haven’t registered to vote yet, of course. Before I go, thank you again to all those great Kitsap voters out there. I’m really wanting to break some records and impress this guy. I feel he needs some impressing this year. Let’s make that happen, mmkay?

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You know, occasionally I get these invites to things. I call them the “thanks but NO thanks” pile. Here’s my RSVP to one of these events. Not only no, but (expletive deleted) no are you catching me at this event. I don’t care how “signature” the salmon is, it’s the name that makes me violently ill on at least two counts. As always, thanks for thinking of me, but I’m declining. Better yet, I can name at least one person who’s extremely thankful I’m not attending. You’re right, I’m a little off with that number. At least five of you may be really happy about my non attendance. To you five or so people, I tell you this.

Maybe you haven’t learned this while living your life, but united we stand, divided we fall. Hate me all you want, but hate only breeds more hate which we’re not aiming for anytime soon. Maybe you didn’t get that memo.

no thank you.

I’d like to donate $50 to some great women’s organization here in Washington state instead. Suggestions? Post them right below and I’ll even donate them in honor of above named person on that invitation.

Oh and above named person. I’m sure you just scrubbed down the intarwebs for this entry. Feel honored I even gave you five seconds on my blog.

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I mean, really long ago because it was, I used to swim for both Puget Sound Swim Club and South Kitsap High School way back when. Funny thing, even though I had been sailing since birth, I never really knew how to swim. If I went over for whatever reason my uncle threw me off his boat because I puked on his brand new sailboat. Bayliner makes horrible sailboats, what can I say? I would tread water and someone threw me a boat cushion or a lifejacket to put on.

It wasn’t until maybe 12-13 years old that my parents actually enrolled me in swimming classes at South Kitsap High School pool. I was so proud as I completed each level and my little yellow cards were filled with “pass” marks. During my last class as I was doing laps in the deep end, this man approached my parents. Then he stopped me in the pool and asked how I’d feel about swimming competitively. I dunno, but it sounds like fun. Sure.

After I said sure, each afternoon for about 2-3 hours you’d find me at the pool doing swimming workouts. Weekends of sailing for the most part were traded for weekends of swim meets. It got discouraging because everyone else would win while I would come in like fifth or sixth (there’s six lanes in a pool, so you know I was scoring low on the pole). That man who encouraged me to try out would now be the one down at my lane telling me to aim higher and that I could do better no matter what was stacked against me. His name was Kimo Streeter.

I could tell you about how I was one of the very few people of my class year to letter as a freshman. I could tell you about tons of classmates who called me fat and the satisfaction I got over blowing them by swim class test for laps in the pool. They got the test. I got to go swim laps for an hour. All of those who called me a “fat cow” during our years growing up are now going to watch said cow swim her butt off and be sorry they even said word one to me about my size or stature.

Who cares? My greatest success came here.

For the longest time I was set to swim in sprint races, meaning, 50 yards/meters of the pool. It was one of the few races I won, and I was racing against a dear friend from (I want to say) Mercer Island. She told me as we got up on the blocks she’d give me the race because I deserved to win something in this lifetime. I told her “no way” because we were going to honestly race for it. I beat her by like maybe 2/10ths of a second but I won. We celebrated together by near passing out together on the lane seperators and having our inhalers thrown to us. Good times.

We had a distance swimmer on our team already and she was super good at what she did. One day, she couldn’t swim her race so I was substituted and get this, I won. I didn’t know anyone I was competing against, I wasn’t completely winded at the end and I got a blue ribbon out of it. I amazed even little Kimo Streeter. I ended up distance swimming for the rest of my competitive swimming career and loved every minute of it, win or lose.

To all my little future swimmers at PSSC, here is my secret, just for you. How did I accomplish long distance swimming and do it so effortlessly? Read the rest of this entry »

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This morning, I’m reading from the Secretary of State twitter feed and learned about a cool law concerning elections I just didn’t know about. We have a “sore loser” law when it comes to voting and your ballot. Here’s the actual “tweet” from Washington Secretary of State.

Law says no write-ins for “sore losers” – East of the Curtain | Tri-City Herald http://t.co/H3ffCmh via @AddThis

So what’s this mean? Say I run for a political office. oh wait, I did, and thank you everyone for your vote. No, I run for something say like, state legislator. For whatever reason, I lose in the top two primary. But no, write me in, pretty please because I really want to win. NOPE. I already ran and lost. If you then go ahead and write me in, and I score enough votes to win, I don’t get the spot. There’s a RCW about this under “write in candidacy”. Read more about that here .

So what’s RCW anyways? It stands for Revised Code of Washington which are laws now in force in Washington state. I don’t expect anyone to have to know them all and can quote them in their sleep because even I can’t do that. But you know that they exist and there’s all sorts of stuff governed under them, including write in votes.

Special thanks to the Secretary of State and the Tri-City Herald for bringing this law to my attention. And hey, have YOU registered to vote today? Even if you’ve been living under a rock hiding from our Washington state sunshine as of late, you just KNOW November is going to be one heck of a political race on many accounts. Don’t you want to be able to have a voice in that? Sure you do. Register to vote and make that pledge to vote come November today!

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Thank you to everyone who did vote for me. All 91 of you are great! Can you get excited about a whopping 91 votes? Oh yes you can because every vote counts. Thank you again.

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what I do. I blog about the world around me and my life and my world. Why?

I thought about this after reading this entry from Aunt Becky at Mommy Wants Vodka. Believe it or not, I not only write my own blog but I read others. I should update my blogroll to show you some of the cool bloggers I’ve encountered but you know, it’s not at the top of my priority list.

I started writing this blog to tell readers about current issues and things that interested me or that I thought held major importance. I was super angry most of the time. Through the years I learned that anger got me nowhere. Some of my caustic prose did get me some interesting conversations with people I thought I’d never meet. Sure, I still get angry. I still get highly upset. But I’m not going to use profanity to get my point across because I don’t think it really helps my message or makes me sound credible in any sense. Read the rest of this entry »

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As I sit here eating my fine election night dinner i’m a candidate and i grill my own stuff! and waiting for the returns, we should talk about how cool Twitter truly is.

“What’s Twitter?” you ask. It’s this social networking service where you can exchange ideas, thoughts, all sorts of things in 140 characters or less. For me, I use it to advertise this blog here. I’d like you to read. I understand if you can’t sometimes but really, I’d like you to read and even leave a comment for me if you so choose. Heck, you can even drop me an email if you desire. I love hearing from local Kitsap people and even Washington state people on what’s on their mind. It even inspires me to write some things.

I have this friend named Mona and she’s starting out a blog. Her first entry is excellent as it discusses how Twitter is becoming a big part of social media. I have to admit, social media for me has been a complete “trial and error” experience for the last few years. I’d like you to not only get active and involved in the world around us, but I’d like you to know from my own personal stories as to why it’s important. Some things work for me and some don’t. Twitter works for me because if I have something to say quick and on the spot, I can do just that.

Please take a moment to read my friend Mona’s post right here and welcome her to the blogging world.

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