Diabetes Blog Week 2013 – We, The Undersigned

We, The Undersigned, hearby declare to take a break every now and then.

It’s entirely likely that this petition will only be signed by one person – me – but hear me out. All of this social media stuff? It’s easy to get lost in the shenanigans. It’s easy to become preoccupied in maintaining too many Tumblrs. It’s far too easy to get lost participating in, or merely lurking on, Twitter conversations. Odin knows I could spend hours tweaking the look of this blog and I don’t even maintain the CSS files. Imagine the rabbit hole I could fall into if I had that kind of control.

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February Presents: Best ‘Betes Blogs

I had this grand idea of doing a pseudo HTML/XML formatted post for this month’s Best ‘Betes Blogs list. Then I tried pasting my final text from notepad into this WYSIWYG editor. Big mistake. After some careful editing, I’m finally ready to present February’s Best. Nominated by you, the people. Selected by me, the procrastinator.

If you click just one of these links, I recommend the <Vlog> Winner, but each one of these posts is truly worth your time.

<HumorRolling in the D – Strip Tease (SFW) </Humor>
<VlogDiabetic Danica – A Diabetic Love Poem (She’s on Twitter @DeeMarieIsMe) </Vlog>
<RecipeRaising Colorado – Chocolate Chip Coconut Cookie Bars </Recipe>
<Recipe Honorable MentionA Girl’s Reflections – Blueberry Cornbread (for the Nutrition Facts)</Recipe Honorable Mention>
<PhotographyMe. Trust, I’m just as surprised as you. </Photography>
<AdvocacyBitter-Sweet Diabetes – Spare a Rose
Editors note: Shoutout to everyone who mentioned this throughout the month. On behalf of the International Diabetes Federation, the $2,500+ you all raised, and the children who will benefit from your generosity – THANK YOU! </Advocacy>
<Meet-up >No More Shots For Shannon – No Age Limit </Meet-up>
<Not DiabetesOur Diabetic Life – This One’s Important </Not Diabetes>
<Type 1Paws. Love. Diabetes. – Diabetes Has a Far Reach </Type 1>
<Type 2T Minus Two – Silver Glitter </Type 2>
<Type AwesomeCandy Hearts – She Tried </Type Awesome>
<MistakeBigfoot Child Have Diabetes – Humuliation </Mistake>
<MotivationinDpendence – Logging </Motivation>
<ArtDiabetes Art Day – 2013 Gallery
Editors note: This was an audible since it felt wrong to not highlight Diabetes Art Day in the Art category. I’m told I’m allowed to do this once but since there were nominations that included Diabetes Art Dat content, I think we’ll be okay. </Art>

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Recommended Reading Recommendations

Somewhere in the middle of unpacking from her country-wide move from Florida to Las Vegas, Sara asked if I would be interested in hosting this month’s round of Best ‘Betes Blogs. I see this as an opportunity to brush up on what I’ve been missing in the diabetes online community. But, I’m going to need your help.

If you’ve read something particularly awesome, we need to know about it.

For more information about the submission process, go to bestbetesblogs.com. Continue reading

To This Day

This post has nothing to do with diabetes, but I think this video deserves to be mentioned in as many places as possible.

While I’ve never dealt with bullying first-hand, I know it’s something that can’t be taken lightly. I encourage all of you, my eager-readers, to spend the next few minutes watching this.

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Not My Cell

I’m joined by Brian Quinn this week to talk about shoes with crazy colors, ultimate frisbee, living with diabetes and, for most of the podcast, life as a priest. I didn’t anticipate the Pope announcing his retirement prior to our recording, but we touch on that, the thought process behind Brian’s decision to become a priest, the similarities between going to a seminary and a more traditional college, and the surprising moments of humor that can be found while he’s working. Enjoy.

Follow Brian on Twitter at @notmycell, and notmycellphone.com.


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Spare a Rose

In between counting snowflakes, and inches of snow in her backyard, Kerri informed me about the Spare a Rose, Save a Child campaign that the International Diabetes Federation is organizing during Valentine’s Day. Here’s a blurb:

Donations to the IDF Life for a Child Programme are carefully directed to key areas of diabetes care and management so that established paediatric diabetes centres and associations can provide the best possible care, given local circumstances, to all children and youth with diabetes in developing countries.

If you’re curious, you should definitely check out the IDF’s page and consider donating.

I tried to think of something else to add to this besides, “you should give this a go” but my creative juices aren’t doing their thing. So naturally, I turned to Tumblr.

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Perfect Harmony

I take way too many pictures of my Dexcom receiver. Followers of my nonsense on Instagram can testify to this. I still don’t fully understand what it is about that line, but it’s a constant subject of my phone, or camera’s, lens. As I continue to explore the rationale behind this obsession, I think there’s a greater opportunity to collect and collate these photos in some kind of montage/collage/collaboration type set up. Which brings me to this: http://dailydexcom.tumblr.com.

I’ve posted all of my Instagrammed Seven Plus pictures and I’ve queued up my G4 pictures to post over the next week or so. Naturally I’ll continue to add pictures as I take them, but more importantly I’m asking for your submissions.

You can submit photos you’ve taken to the blog quite easily. To submit a picture you either need to be logged in to Tumblr or include your email address and name with the picture. For those of you opting for option number two, your name and email address will not be publicly posted anywhere. And for any of you submitting pictures, your pictures will not be publicly associated with you unless you watermark it, include a caption, or link it back to your blog/twitter page/whatever. It’s up to you.

Like I said, I’m not sure what this will become, but I think it has the potential to become something, and that’s enough for me.

Am I crazy?

Visual Accountability

I had this grand plan of intelligently commenting on the notion of online accountability and its many forms. Of citing examples of this accountability in the form of Foursquare check-ins at the gym, blog posts detailing a healthier lifestyle, twitter chats devoted to specific or general health topics, pictures of meals validating the time and energy spent in the kitchen, or even the many pictures of Dexcom graphs.

The last one is the idea that is responsible for this post. It doesn’t take long to search for Dexcom pictures – they are everywhere. But what gives me hope for this particular form of accountability is that these pictures aren’t just of the no-hitters, but the moments that are far from in range. The words of encouragement that follow are just as meaningful for the momentary victories and defeats.

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Our Diabetic Life

Meri Schuhmacher is on the podcast this week to talk about what it takes to be a super hero. Meri is raising four (4) sons, ages 18 to 9 (as of this recording) and three of her sons have type 1 diabetes. Naturally, there’s plenty to talk about right there. We also discuss the value of the diabetes community when it comes to her sons, and when extra support was needed during her husband’s battle with cancer. Finally, and much to my amazement, I learn that Brigham Young University has campuses outside of Utah. Enjoy.

Follow Meri on Twitter at @our3Dlife and check out her blog at ourdiabeticlife.com.


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Tumblr is Great for Stuff

So there’s a Tumblr blog called ‘What Should We Call Social Media‘ that uses animated .gif images to respond to social media-related situations. For example:

“Catching up on community management duties after the holidays/new year” (Original Post)

And there’s a more general version of this idea on “What Should We Call Me”.

Friday

Going to Work

Leaving Work

Which leads me to tonight’s discovery, “What Diabetes Should Call Me

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