Just When You Thought it was Over

I'll bet you thought the elections were over. Done with. Finito.

I wish.

My husband is going to be helping out tomorrow afternoon for a few hours getting affidavits (or as Rogue Riderhood, a character in Dicken's Our Mutual Friend, puts it "Alfred David"). There is one race here that is not done. Mike Hope (R) is 100 votes ahead of Liz Loomis (D), but only 100 votes. Both sides will be out in force getting affidavits from voters whose ballots were a little unclear.

Go Mike Hope.

I really do hope that Mike wins, and frankly, if I have to give up a precious Saturday with my husband, he'd better. Between seminary, homeschool, airplanes, and Elder's quorum our schedules have been more than a little out of sync.

Ignore the man behind the curtain....

The election is over. Here's an appropriate song...perhaps it should be O's theme song. And for more puppets....here.

I've done my civic duty, and all I got was this lousy sticker.

Resignation. That's the emotion of the day. R-E-S-I-G-N-A-T-I-O-N. I suppose that's better than outright nausea...low expectations are what are keeping me afloat right now.

I did stop by Starbucks this morning - waltzed in right after seminary - dropped off our ballots - and waltzed right on out. Okay, okay, there was no waltzing. Appropriately enough it was pouring rain...even the heavens were weeping.

I refuse to give in to depression. As I told a friend of mine yesterday (she was bemoaning the fact that the Dems will control everything) - we get to blame everything on them for the next 4 years. Everything. I suppose that's sort of the "here's a lovely parting gift" kind of reward, but at this point I'll take anything positive.

Halloween Reflections

Steve was the door answerer, candy hander outer. There's not enough room in my entry for more than one grown adult. I didn't see most of the trick or treaters, but I heard them.

Conclusions:

* Steve's costume rocked. Many delighted comments by the kiddies and some by the adults. Sweet.

*Kids today are more politically aware. Two separate groups urged us to vote. The first one was just a reminder to vote, the second...vote Obama. Is it a coincidence that the Obama supporters were one of the last groups here - after 8:30pm?

*All of our lawn signs are down this morning.

I hope everyone else had a happy Halloween. In keeping with the spirit of the season, I've linked to an article about happiness...and politics.

And now it's time to take down the pumpkins and put up the turkeys.

8 Hours of My Life...

8 hours of my life that I won't get back.

Today was the Snohomish County Republican Convention. Having been sort of coerced into being a delegate (to keep the Ron Paul nuts out) I went - with my much more politically active husband. I think there were 7 precincts - and the 44th precinct (ours) was by far the largest, in terms of representation. We had nearly 200 people there - out of a total of somewhat over 700 in attendance. The bad news about having a bigger precinct is that it takes forever. F-O-R-E-V-E-R to elect the delegates to go to the state convention. We were given a worksheet that had the people who had submitted their names before the convention on it, then numbers and lines to write in more. Nominations were taken - I think about 25 more people were written in. Then we had to whittle down over 80 nominees to 31. Each nominee was given 45 seconds to speak. You do the math. That process alone took over an hour, then the vote, then the wait for the tally (18 were elected in the first cut, bottom ten vote getters dropped), then making the notes for the worksheets, then voting again, waiting again, tally & notes again (no one elected this time but 20 lowest vote getters were dropped). The vote AGAIN (yes, I said AGAIN), wait, tally....you get the idea.

It was probably a good thing that I did go - I told my husband while we were there that I would rather he didn't run this year against incumbent Hans Dunshee. Dunshee has been in office for several years, and I'm 99.9% sure that he would not be beatable by a nearly unknown Republican challenger. If I hadn't been there, who knows what would have happened.

All this worrying about nutty Ron Paul disciples and I didn't hear anyone who would own up to supporting him. I did hear from 2 women who were staunch Huckabee fans - one of whom felt that she could not morally, in good conscience vote for McCain. That got a bit of a rise from the group.

As it was, we left early - a little after 4pm. After all, it is general conference and Steve had boys to take to the priesthood session this evening.

I cherish those 2 1/2 hours of solitariness. It's the time of year (along with father and sons campout) that makes having 5 boys worth it. After 8 hours of sitting on plastic high school folding chairs in crowded rooms I need a bit of solitude - on a nice comfy sofa. Now, if I can just find the remote....

FOUR!!

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Conquest, War, Famine, Death.

I am heading out this morning to the Snohomish County Republican Caucus. I don't want to hear any whining from the rest of you folks about what you have to do today. Not a bit of it.

Ah well, don't forget the 4 general sessions of Conference this weekend. I'm glad we can record them - seeing as Steve and I won't be home.

Four days to go. Sherri's friend with only 4 fingers on one hand could count them.

Take a Hike!

It's no secret that I love to travel. I love the planning/researching phase nearly as much as I like taking the actual trip. When Steve and I went to Europe a few years ago I had a great time planning the trip. One of the resources that I used was a Rick Steves travel guide. He had some great tips on places to go, and how to best use your time in some of the cities that we visited.

Rick Steves is actually from Edmonds, Washington, which is just down the road - about 30 miles south of us. I wish I didn't find his guide books so useful, because I have a few issues with the increasingly liberal slant to his writings. I don't much care if he is a far-left, tree hugging, pot smoking, hippie liberal, if he is, fine - just don't foist that off on the rest of us "ugly Americans". He seems to get a little more self righteous and "down with Americans" as he goes on. Oh well, look who he's hanging out with now....ACLU. Nuff' said.

Valentine #5

This Valentine goes out to Mike the Mechanic (at Pilchuck Auto). We haven't needed his services for a couple of years or so (since Andrew totalled the Taurus).

When Steve was running for office a couple of years ago Mike gave him one of his few (very few) campaign contributions. Which was cool, especially since Mike doesn't even live in our district. Today he told Steve he should run for president. I wonder how many transmissions he would have to repair to be a major contributor?

Super Saturday

I fulfilled my duty as a citizen today. Yup. I marked my ballot for the Washington State Presidential Primary. I'm with Keira on this - even if McCain wins the Republican nomination, I don't plan on voting for him unless I absolutely have to.

Go Mitt.

Rudy, please shovel my snow.

I am not the political pundit that sister Keira is, but I couldn't resist adding a link to Dave Barry's article about the Florida primary.

Time is a precious thing, never waste it.

My husband is at another political caucus training meeting. I think he'll be home before 10pm. 2 1/2 weeks until the caucus. I can't wait until it's over.

Getting Sucked into the Political Vortex

I mentioned in an earlier blog (Chuck Huck) that my husband and I will be having the precint caucus at our home in February. Yesterday I got a fairly desperate call from the chairperson over the local precints - she needs a place for 2 more precincts to meet. Not having an overly large house, I hesitated. Until she told me she was going to have to host TWELVE precincts at her home. She said that the only requirement was that when it came time for the precincts to make their choice they would just need a room - she was probably going to use her garage for overflow. I guess I could let one precinct meet in the living room, one in the computer room (as long as there is less that 6 people) that leaves either my office or the bedrooms.

I'd just as soon leave bedroom politics out of it. It would never seem the same again.

I feel like moving to my own island and declaring myself president for life.

Chuck Huck

Some people talk the talk, while others walk the walk. Big words from Keira about political activism, but I'll give you one guess who is hosting the precinct caucus on February 9th.