On this “Day After”, I’ve been sitting and watching my Facebook newsfeed and thought I’d enjoy posting some snarky videos or meme’s about the results of last night’s election but I can’t help think about the people in our country who lost; the ones who felt Hillary Clinton was going to take the election with ease.

Just over 150 years ago our nation was divided and because of that division we sacrificed over 600,000 of our citizens due to deeply held beliefs over many issues. Today, just like during the time of our Civil War, Americans are divided about beliefs they hold dear. That division runs deep just as it did all those years ago. It runs deeper than party lines, it runs deeper than state borders. This division divides our families – mothers, brothers, sisters, fathers, aunts and uncles all stand on different sides of these issues. Now is not the time for one side to gloat and chase the other side to cower and fester in a corner. Instead it’s time for the winners to be gracious and extend their hands to those shedding tears and feeling the pangs of their great loss.

In the wee, early hours of this new day, President-Elect Donald Trump stated “now it’s time to bind the wounds of our division”. He is absolutely right! It’s time to put aside the hurt and anger and to come together as one united group of people that want nothing but the best for our nation. Secretary Clinton in her concession speech admonished her supporters to “remember that this election was never about one person or even about one election – it was about the country we love”. Both Secretary Clinton and President Obama made a statement to the American people that Donald Trump is going to be the next president of the United States and there will be a peaceful transition of power.

These are people who’ve spent so much time, money and effort fighting for something they believed in who are now setting aside their differences. They are at the very least putting on a public face of acceptance and making way for a peaceful transition. I strongly believe it is time for us to set aside ours as well. It’s time for us to heal the divides in our families and in our own friendships. We need to set aside our petty gloating for the greater cause of supporting our nation.

It’s time for us to become not only one nation united; but also families and friends united.

I’m really trying to get a little healthier in a lot of ways. I know that “get a little healthier” isn’t very specific so I actually have a few areas that I’ve narrowed down as things that I need to work on:

• I feel I’m about 45 pounds over my goal weight – goal weight = 135 lbs
• I don’t sleep as much as I feel like I need – target sleep hours = 8 hours
• I don’t manage my stress too well – need to define this a bit
• I’m not active enough – daily steps goal = 10,000 steps

What I’m lacking in accomplishing these goals is some motivation. I’ve promised myself some rewards, I’ve tried affirmations, I’ve researched goal setting – I’m just not very healthy motivated. But I found this website achievemint.com that will pay you for health activities. I’ve researched this a bit and have found real people who’ve made some cash for their healthy activities. I’m not meaning some big, get rich cash payout but rather some small change like $25. I’ll admit, it’ll take quite a bit of healthy work to reach that $25 but if it was easy, then I’d figure out a way to get it over and done with and not really accomplish anything.

The way it works is by connecting health apps that you currently use – for me this is for my Fitbit Alta and MyFitnessPal – once your apps are connect it imports data from these apps and rewards you points for your healthy activities. For me, it imported all my activity all the way back to 2012! The first activity in my data history that it rewarded me points for was in July 2013; so it gave me points even before I even started participating in their program.

From looking at my activity which it imported it looks like I’ll be able to get point for a lot of different activities:

• Checking in to a church
• Checking in to a scenic lookout
• Checking in to a park
• Walking
• Sending out a health related tweet
• Running – (I don’t run often; I wonder what was chasing me!)
• Checking in at a campground
• Biking
• Weighing myself
• Sleeping – (finally get to earn some money for sleeping – yay!)
• Logging food – (on MyFitnessPal)

Right now I’m at about 3,000 points so I have a longs ways to go to reach the magical 25,000 points where I can earn my first $25. But I figure if I get motivated and do more of these activities that I’ll be able to reach it within the next 4 months-ish.

I’m going to connect my Twitter account and my Foursquare account to it as well and see if I can motivate myself to post more healthy tweets, and possibly check in more at some of the places where it gives me points.

One of the character traits I most admire in a man is intelligence. I enjoy being with someone who I can hold a conversation with and not have to explain everything I’m saying to them. Someone who challenges me with new thoughts and new ideas and helps to learn and grow.

One of the things that irritates me the most is  acting stupid/dumb – pretending to not understand something when they damn well do know what is being said.

Another recipe for Rose’s Family Recipes! Chicken Fried Steak – I learned to make this in TX …mmmmmm

I wish you could smell these pictures … there’s nothing better than autumn in Wisconsin

One of Chris’s granddaughters had a birthday party this weekend. It was nice seeing the girls again they really are so sweet. The time with his granddaughters was fun. Wish the rest of the day was fun. I guess it’s never easy to be the 5th wheel when your with someone and their ex is there as well. Just kind of felt like he’s still hung up on her – he kind of ignored me a bit. But like I said, time with the girls was fun – be nice to watch these cuties grow up – they’re all so adorable and loving.

Another awesome weekend – I just can’t believe how much stuff we’ve done these past few month!

This weekend it’s a Brewer’s Game. We visited Cabella’s in Milwaukee before we went to the game – I had to get some pictures of the taxidermy animals. On the way back to my place we stopped off at this tiny little old cemetery. I love little cemeteries like this.

This weekend was the Tomahawk Fall Ride – what an awesome bunch of fun this was! Well other than a couple of things. While we were going down there we got a bit wet – riding in the rain is definitely not much fun. I was freezing and didn’t think I’d ever get dry. There were vendors everywhere and we got to look at so much motorcycle stuff. We’ve been talking alot about going together to Rolling Thunder next spring and I’m going to need a few things for the trip. Everything is expensive but by shopping around I think I’ll be able to manage it. We also participated in the parade – thsi was really cool. We’ve done a couple other parades already but there were a lot of bikes in this one!

My uncle James joined us on Saturday and we all rode down to Tomah and La Crosse. The Viet Nam moving wall was in Tomah and it was awesome to go see that again. We went to La Crosse to visit Sara, Travis and baby Elena. I just can’t believe how much she has grown!

Even though Sarah’s off to college she’s still been coming home for visits. Today was a surprise visit, yay! I love seeing my baby girl.

Chris and I had another weekend together – this time it included some time with my kids. Here’s a status update I posted on facebook:

“The figure 8 was cool, the green mambo jet car was awesome, the fireworks were amazing, the videos turned out great but the best part was something I couldn’t catch in a photo … after we got home everyone sat around the table eating ice cream, talking, and laughing and enjoying time together. These are the moments most precious to me”

On Saturday, Isaac started bringing in grapes from the grapevines – time to learn how to make jelly! It was pretty cool – Chris started helping to remove the grapes from the branches. Anyone who knows me, will know that I don’t ask for help and for him to just start doing that was awesome.