Cindy's Bi-Weekly Letter 1/23/23

Good Morning Members, I hope to find you well this morning. This is a gloomy day, just like yesterday, but I hope you are doing something good for yourself even with the gloomy weather. At least it’s not snowing. Depending on where you live though you could be getting some snow. We mostly got rain in Milwaukee with a little bit of snow, but it melted quickly. Tomorrow is supposed to be cloudy again tomorrow. Some activities you can do when there isn’t great weather is going for a walk, a puzzle, watching a favorite show, baking or cooking.

You don’t want to stay in the bed and not get out and do anything because you can start to feel depressed. Reach out to friends and family because you want to stay in touch and not isolate yourself. I suggest getting out when you can, it could be doing something little like taking a walk. I will be doing that on my lunch break as long as it isn’t raining. I do go down to the basement if the weather isn’t good and do about 10 laps to get some movement in my life. Isolating yourself will not help the problem. Call someone or if you have a pet you can take them out or spend some time playing with them. Something I plan do to for myself this weekend is to rest when I can because I have two busy days of work and Sunday I have three basketball games to get ready for. I care about all of you and I don’t want you to feel isolated and I’m sure you have a friend that wants to talk to you and see you. Continue to be careful as COVID is still around us and it is still flu season. Make sure to dress warm when going outside and take care of yourself. If you are not feeling well for more than a few days go see a doctor to see if they can help you feel better. I will be taking precautions when playing basketball this Sunday like cleaning my hands by washing them or using hand sanitizer and wearing my mask on the bench. I know we can’t stay away from doing our activities anymore, but we can be smart and do what is good for us. It is important that I do what I need to do to stay safe so if people look at my funny for wearing a mask still I don’t care. Don’t forget to check out our website for People First Wisconsin for events coming up! We have the meet-up tonight from 4:30pm-5:30pm and Thursday is from 6pm-7pm. On March 23rd we will be having a Disability Advocacy Day. Here you can go up to your state legislators about anything you want to see changed. If there is anything I missed please look at our website for updates: http://www.peoplefirstwisconsin.org/ There is also voting in February, reach out to me or someone from The Disability Vote Coalition if you need help getting an absentee ballot. The deadline to get your ballot by mail is February 1st which is coming up in the next two weeks. I should be getting my ballot in the mail soon. As a reminder that there is a primary election is on February 21st for Wisconsin. If you don’t vote you can’t complain. It is important for people with disabilities or anyone who is a minority to vote. Here is helpful information from The Disability Vote Coalition: Voting in Person? If you are voting in person, make sure you are prepared to vote!

Check your polling place as it may have changed: https://myvote.wi.gov/en-us/Find-My-Polling-Place

View your ballot and review candidate information: https://www.vote411.org/wisconsin

Bring your photo ID. Information is on https://bringit.wi.gov/

If you have questions, contact the Disability Rights Wisconsin Voter Hotline at: 1-844-347- 8683 or email: info@disabilityvote.org You can call my cell phone @ 414-852-6462 8:30am - 5:00pm, Monday - Thursday. If I am unable to take your call, I will call you back. You can reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 800-273-TALK (8255) or 988 has been designated as the new three-digit dialing code that will route callers to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (now known as the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline), It is now active across the United States. This is the website: https://988lifeline.org/ Here are two quotes today from Maya Angelou: “In a magazine, one can get - from cover to cover - 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.” - - Maya Angelou “In all my work, I try to say - 'You may be given a load of sour lemons, why not try to make a dozen lemon meringue pies?” - - Maya Angelou Sincerely, Cindy Bentley Executive Director People First Wisconsin