Another Letter to Officials

A copy of the letter I sent to my Congress people  (Congressmen, since they're all male right now). The ridiculous things Americans like myself have to beg for:


Please do not support putting innocent children in detention centers. Please support reuniting the taken ones with their families. And if tax dollars have to go toward building a wall, build it out of Lego bricks so there's something fun to give away on the glorious day when that wall gets torn down. Please let us stand with our allied nations, such as Canada and those in Europe, etc.

Please do not bring back pre-existing conditions. Please don't let our fellow Americans die from treatable health concerns. And please don't take what little health insurance people have away.

Please protect Net Neutrality.

Please give Americans better options for recycling.

Please make America a better place,  or at least don't make it worse.

Thank you for your time and consideration of the values of your constituent.

Goals for Wealth

Wealth-

In the next 10 weeks

• Figure out who is collecting which debts I owe
• Figure out how much I can afford a month toward those debts

By January 2025

• Have debts paid off
• Be financially able to buy a different place to live
• Replace my car, which will be fifteen years old by then

By January 2050

• Husband retired
• Place to live paid off
• Get the last vehicle I'll ever own
• Pay for final expenses (funeral, burial plot, tombstone, etc)

Goals for Relationships

First off, let me drop a definition from an online dictionary:

Relationship:

a connection, association, or involvement. connection between persons by blood or marriage. an emotional or other connection between people

There are too many people who think that word only refers to romantic love interests. But there are, or should be, more types than that in a person's life. Today I'm setting goals for the suggested categories, plus one that I added.

Relationships-

Friends

Short term:

• Plan LVPANANO game night
• Figure out when I'll be able to see my best friend (who lives 8 hours away)
• Be there for my friends as we go through life
• Jackman T 📖💗💙💜
• Keep in touch via social media

Long term:

• Manage to hang on to my best friends until our funerals

Love

Short term:

• Snuggle more
• Get a medical birth control method back
• Keep trying to help my husband to eat healthier
• Be better at budgeting

Long term:

• Live a good life together
• Keep being thankful I have John

Family

Short term:

• Keep asking for an update on my grandfather
• Keep in touch with certain/ most members via social media
• Find out if I'll get to see my dad on Father's Day
• Plan something for my birthday to hopefully see my family
• Celebrate Billy & JJ graduating next year

Long term:

• See my brother be happy and loved
• Accept that I did what I could to make one of my parents' dreams come true

Animals

Short term:

• Enjoy Katie's kitties
• Write Congress again after the next election to ask for better laws to prevent people from buying horses here to ship abroad to meat factories 
• Try lab-grown meat when it becomes available and competitively priced 

Long term:

• Adopt a cat (after moving)

This post is part of a series.

Goals for Health

There are differences between goals and wishes. Goals should be something the setter can influence, cause, or do on ones own. Wishes are something that one hopes will be granted, but has little to no chance of causing it to happen.

When setting goals for my health, this distinction is especially important.

Health-

Physical

Short term:

• Survive the summer by avoiding the heat as much as possible
• Get in the pulmonary rehab when the heat ends
• Stick to low sodium diet
• Get new glasses
• Get new birth control
• Make more effort to drink 64 oz of water a day

Long term:

• Create a survival plan for global warming
• Stick to health courses of action to keep me alive to 70 or 75

Mental

Short term:

• Journal (love to Jackman T)
• Get a living will written
• Update my emergency contact information
• Don't let depression win this summer
• Remind myself that winter will come, so don't let depression win
• Keep telling myself that it will pass, and it will get better, because hot days will end
• Allow myself to not cry for more than 15 minutes a day this summer when mourning my former self
• Keep filling out my year color chart from Katie
• Hang with writer friends weekly (as weather/ etc permits) 

Long term:

• Have enough passive income to pay for regular psych therapy
• Create a "Retirement"/ Older Living plan
• Plan for after-death
• Keep advocating for my elected representatives to give me better healthcare
• Keep doing Luminosity game to retain mental acuteness  

Wishes

• Get my handicapped placard (applied with application from my doctor)
• Not needing any new medications
• Be able to afford any new medications I end up needing
• Lungs all healed/ fixed
• Get back to weighing 130 lbs
• Be able to lift 50 lbs overhead again
• Be able to bench/lift 250 lbs with my legs again
• Be able to walk for six hours outside in a summer day again
• Not be terrified of doing most things because it could be hard to breathe

This is one post in a series.

Goal Setting Template

First, a short personal recount:

I was just working on a character sheet for a fictional story character. I have a premade template. Just pop down the list, boom boom boom. Get the the short and long term goal section (of my character, not yet of the story or whatever). Twenty minutes later, she's got ten of each. No problem. Rolled right off my fingertips.

Mini rant:

Why was it so easy to give my fictional character a pile of goals but I currently have next to none for myself??? "Don't die yet." That's pretty much it, and some subset goals that directly relate to that goal or clarify it better.

I'm going to attempt to set some goals for myself. 

Step one is creating this template.

Step two is publishing this post, which will encourage me to come back to fill out the template (later post). 

Credit: James Doyle of Jamso

Health-

Physical

Short term:

Long term:

Mental

Short term:

Long term:

Relationships-

Friends

Short term:

Long term:

Love

Short term:

Long term:

Family

Short term:

Long term:

Animals

Short term:

Long term:

Wealth-

In the next 10 weeks

• 
  

By January 2025

• 
  

By January 2050

• 
  

Hobbies-

Interests

Short term:

Long term:

Arts

Short term:

Long term:

Time Passing

Short term:

Long term:

Education -

Learning

Short term:

Long term:

Study/ Career- 

Sharing

Short term:

Long term:

Contribution

Short term:

Long term:

Community- 

Local

Short term:

Long term:

Regional

Short term:

Long term:

National

Short term:

Long term:

Global

Short term:

Long term:

Purpose-

Philosophy

Short term:

Long term:

Religion

Short term:

Long term:

Political

Short term:

Long term:


____________________________________________________

The HTML of the template I used:
<h2> Health-</h2> <h2> Physical</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <b><br /></b> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> Mental</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <br /> <h2> Relationships-</h2> <h2> Friends</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> Love</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> Family</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> Animals</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <br /> <h2> Wealth-</h2> <h2> In the next 10 weeks</h2> <div> <ul> <li><br /></li> </ul> </div> <h2> By January 2025</h2> <div> <ul> <li><br /></li> </ul> </div> <h2> By January 2050</h2> <div> <ul> <li><br /></li> </ul> </div> <br /> <h2> Hobbies-</h2> <h2> Interests</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <br /> <h2> Arts</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <br /> <h2> Time Passing</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <br /> <h2> Education -</h2> <h2> Learning</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <br /> <h2> Study/ Career- </h2> <h2> Sharing</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> Contribution</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> Community- </h2> <h2> Local</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> Regional</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> National</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> Global</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <br /> <h2> Purpose-</h2> <h2> Philosophy</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> Religion</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <h2> Political</h2> <b>Short term</b>:<br /> <br /> <b>Long term</b>:<br /> <br /> <br /> Well, that's a start at least.

Economic Terrorism

For those of you who haven't seen the ink stamp going around certain circles of America, or more accurately- MERICA, you may want to look that up before reading onward. https://www.chron.com/national/article/This-is-why-you-might-be-seeing-Donald-Trump-12773173.php

If someone is using this stamp and stipulating that any bill they put it on (the suggested 20, or the hilarious 5 from the meme that mocks this hardest) is BURNED with them when they die, okay. Not buried, because a grave robber could dig it up. As long as the bill will never go back into circulation again, then it's fine. Break that little law. http://checkyourfact.com/2018/01/17/fact-check-moveon-says-its-totally-legal-to-stamp-money-with-political-messages/

HOWEVER, anyone who is going to put the bill into circulation, here's why that's not patriotic and IS ECONOMIC TERRORISM. Every bill printed by the US Treasury has a predicted lifespan. Bills in circulation eventually make it back to the bank. If it is defaced, such as with that stamp, the bank cannot recirculate it. They have to turn it over to the Treasury Department, who has to destroy it and then have another printed to replace it. The predicted lifespan of bills determines how much of our tax dollars are needed for the creation of new bills and destruction of old or defaced bills. Exponentially increasing the amount of bills that need to be destroyed will increase the cost in tax dollars to US taxpayers. Therefore, it becomes economic terrorism. And terrorism isn't patriotic.

When you hate someone or some group (Obama, anyone who isn't "white") that you're willing to tank your own economy, to cost yourself and others an increase in taxes, you have a problem.

Which could easily lead me to another rant about Net Neutrality. The only people in favor of killing it are the ones who will make a ton of money off the deal (a VERY tiny percent of the One-Percenters), and the people who think that paying more money for Internet services is worth it because it defeats something Obama did.

Do We Need Diverse Bakeries

Maybe someone will open a bakery with a, "no racists, Supremacists, Klan members, Nazi's, or their supporters served here." I mean, really, are we going to have to start booking wedding services with, "hello, do you support all people or only certain ones?" Do #WeNeedDiverseBakeries 🤔 NBC news story