Well, usually, I choose a good place to sit and chat. I try and provide refreshments, and encourage conversation. But today, I’m going a little different route… I’m gathering everyone together and telling you… GO VOTE!!
It doesn’t matter who you vote for… ok, yes it does matter who you vote for – make sure you KNOW who you’re voting for. Because if you just go into the voting box and just vote for the D column or the R column, that’s not helpful. So take a few minutes – yes, you still have time – check out Project Vote Smart and see who should be elected in your area, and then… GO VOTE!!
Meanwhile, tell us, in addition to what you’re doing today… are you planning to vote? Did you already vote, taking advantage of Absentee Voting? Or are you so bloody sick of the whole process that you’re sitting this one out?
Or avoid the whole subject altogether, and share your story. Remember, keep the discourse polite – ESPECIALLY if we’re discussing politics. We are friends here, even the Libs and Conservatives among us. We can disagree and still be nice.
Us Girls..Our Views 
*****************IMPORTANT VOTING INFORMATION******************
In order to keep traffic and crowds to a minimum it has been decided that:
CONSERVATIVES VOTE ON TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2010.
ALL OTHERS VOTE ON WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 2010.
That is all.
I’m hugely laughing.
I’m hoping everyone follows directions.
Around my house, they are doing a lot of road construction, and it struck me that these union crews could easily drill big holes in the roads in the conservative-leaning neighborhoods while making sure the roads are passable in the liberal-leaning ones. However, I personally will walk over hill and dale to get to the voting booth if necessary.
I think that for once I would like to see someone who is looking to get elected for whatever just come out and say this is who I am, this is what I have done in the past both good and bad, and this is how I hope to vote in the future. I get tired of people saying what they will and will not vote for, when we all know that when they vote it is very rare that a vote goes to one single issue. These votes usually have 2,3,4 or many laws all lumped in together. I think this is where a lot of the opponents get their arsenal for their bad mouthing.
You are right about the source of some bad-mouthing, though some of it is plain lying. I got so many political ads in the mail and I refuse to even read them. I don’t believe any of the ads, from either side, but rely on my own memory and intelligence when I cast my vote.
Jason: That’s what inspired my “invention” from the other day – the hat that politicians are required to wear that lights up and beeps when they’re lying. It was inspired by a candidate around here who *swears* that she will only serve two terms, period. She will NOT run for a third. When Steve and I heard that, we just laughed, because it was such a blatant lie – maybe she was telling the truth, but she never said that she’d fight for term limits, just that we should believe that she would not run for a further term. I’m sorry, but they’ve set up such a cushy job situation that I just don’t believe that, unless they make it so that they cannot run again, like President.
SKL: The ads in the mail are why I provided the (now fixed) link to Project Vote Smart. I do just like I suspect you do… from mailbox to recycle bin without even looking at them. I’m so glad that I have Caller ID, because when there’s a phone number I don’t recognize, I let it go to our machine, then turn the machine off on them. I absolutely REFUSE to sit and listen to a recorded message from anyone – even Sara Palin or Barak Obama. It’s an insult to my intelligence to think that a stupid recording from a celebrity is going to sway my vote.
I hate the dang ads. They get more and more mean spirited every year and they go on and on. They start in August.
I really like our news channel, WCCO take a commercial and breaks them down each time a new one comes out and they tell you what’s truth, fabrication, a lie or misleading. I really like that.
I crack up when I see (mostly on FB) people saying, “I’ll be so glad when this election is over… the political ads will stop!”
No they won’t!! Wednesday starts the run for Presidential Election 2012!!!
Oh be quiet. SERIOUSLY??????
I certainly plan to vote on Nov. 2 and I have high hopes for the results, but I’m holding my breath until after the actual vote. There’s a doofus in my district who has been in some office or other since I was in elementary school (he’s been a US congressman for as long as I’ve voted here), and it would be so great to see him ousted, but that would really take a big change in local attitudes. However, I hear it’s closer now than it’s been in a long time. I hope I can take my kids when I go vote.
Today (Sunday) we celebrated someone’s 50th birthday, starting at midnight. I was too tired to get up for church this morning, but we got up around 8am and had birthday cake for breakfast. Then since I had a little time to chill with my kids, we watched “Easter Parade” (the 1948 musical). It was fun. Then I worked while my sister watched the kids, until I got the kids ready for trick-or-treating. Miss E was grumpy for the photos, so I told her she wasn’t going to T-or-T until she smiled for a nice photo for Grandpa. She forced a smile and then went right back to her sulky face just as I was snapping the photo. It was hilarious. Finally they went out and got a lot of loot. And then we went to dinner for the birthday person. We finally dragged our butts home way after their bedtime (and they had skipped their nap) so I hope they are in some kind of shape to go to school tomorrow. It was a really good, festive day. But, I’m glad it’s over!
I had that same photo problem with Josh – the whole ‘forced smile’ thing…. until I told him to picture his dad with Hamlet (our cockatiel) on his head… and then, as I was depressing the button for the camera, I said, “Oh No! Hamlet just POOPED!!!” Yeah, 7-year-old humor. You’ve gotta love it. That comment produced the picture that was up here yesterday of him with his mouth open in a laugh. Turned out to be the best pic of the lot. It’s amazing the goofy stuff that will get kids to laugh.
Oh, yeah… tell “Someone”… Happy Birthday! Hope it was a good one!
Easter Parade is one of my all time favorites. I just love that movie. I have it on VHS. That reminds me, I want to order a few movies on DVD’s and I keep forgetting.
I don’t know if anyone tried the link before this, but it was broken. I’ve fixed it – it will now open the site in a different window/tab now. Sorry ’bout that.
Let’s see. I had an okay weekend. I got a lot done in my yard and house yesterday. It feels pretty good. I had to dig out the bird bath heaters and get them in. My birdbath in the front yard was made by Paul’s grandpa who was a mason and it’s beautiful and I hate when water freezes in it and I have to try and “chip” the ice out to get that heater in so now that’s done.
I made the mistake of playing FarmTown on Paul’s computer the other day and it really put my computer to shame. I realized just how bad I need a new laptop. I shouldn’t even admit this but I spend about 2 1/2 total hours a day playing that game and his computer saved me roughly 45 minutes. My computer spends 30-45 seconds just to pick out tools. I know that means nothing to you but I’m just sayin….I dread getting one. It’s always so much work setting a new one up but thankfully, Paul has Windows 7 so I’ve had to learn that already and I do like it. I also want a bigger monitor on the next one AND a camera so I can “talk” to Laura “face to face.” I hope my morning hair won’t scare her.
Voting. Man, it’s tough this year. I feel each year gets harder. Living in such a Democratic state is also really hard at times. People are so “one way or the other” and there seems to be so much arguing. It’s funny to me. Walter Mondale ran for the Presidency in 1984, MN was the only state that he won. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1984
How embarrassing. But in contrast to the Al Franken’s we’ve put in office, we haven’t had a Democratic governor since 1986. Go figure. Oh, but we did have Jesse Ventura thrown in there!!! Hanging head in shame.
This year quite frankly, I don’t like any of them and the only person I reckoned to vote for is the person who will fight the health care reform bill and to hopefully not raise the taxes on small businesses so Buffalo Veneer can squeak by this disastrous economy. So that leaves me to vote the same way I’ve been voting for the last 3 elections. Not really “for” anyone but more for who do I not like less. I wish I’d LOVE someone.
But I will vote. Of course I’ll vote. I’ve never missed voting and I really feel it’s our duty to do so. We need every vote. I just hope all the people who want to vote NO to Kimball’s school levy STAY HOME.
I just got a new computer, too. I have not started using it yet. I’m scared because I’ve never gotten a new computer without some problems, but the last one (which I’m typing on now) is definitely the worst, so I ought to be glad. I just want to clear a lot of stuff off of it before transferring over. No point cluttering it up with stuff that really doesn’t matter. There is a lot of stuff on from my old job and I’m not sure why I still feel reluctant to delete it. Like the day after I delete it, some situation will come up where I just have to see what I did on that project 3-16 years ago. Or some personnel issue will come up and I’ll need my evidence to defend myself or countersue. Ridiculous.
The other thing is that I’ve now been using Vista for over 3 years, and though the switch to Vista was excrutiating, now I will have to go through the whole pain again once I switch back.
All that and then, what if the dang new computer doesn’t work right? Problems creep up slowly over time.
Do I sound like an old fuddy-duddy?
All that stuff that you think maybe you might need it sometime in the future, but is just cluttering up your computer right now can be moved to a flash drive (thumb drive, USB drive), burned to a CD, or, if you really want to splurge, get yourself an external hard drive, which will not only give you a ton of extra storage space, it will also allow you to back up your computer on demand, so if your system crashes, you won’t have lost everything. I don’t have one – I use Carbonite – but both my nephew and niece have one, and they’ve never had problems.
I vote for you getting a new computer. (It costs me nothing, so of course I vote that way!) YAY FOR NEW SPEAKERS FOR SKL!!!!
I didn’t have any problems or “glitches” with Vista but I’ve heard a lot of other people did and that’s why they replaced it. You’ll love Windows 7. Really. Trust me. I like it and it’s not that different. I’m glad Paul’s new one had it and I’ve learned it slowly since that’s the one I use when I scan and do a lot of blog stuff. I didn’t like a few things at first because I thought they were gone but they have a lot of the “menu’s” hidden and they will show when the cursor hits them. That’s the biggest problem I had but all is good now.
If you’re not getting rid of the old computer, you could always keep those things you’re not quite ready to get rid of on it. As long as it hasn’t crashed, you can still get to them if you need to.
Does this mean you’ll have speakers????????? Go for it.
AAK!!! That means I’ll have to shower each morning, so I don’t scare YOU with my morning hair!!!
I need to find out what time, and where to go. The boys start their baseball training tomorrow evening so I’m not sure we’ll have time. I HATE being down to one vehicle. I think voting is VERY important, and I always say, “If you don’t vote, then you don’t have the right to bitch!”
We had another great weekend. Saturday I took Bailey and my niece, Emily, to our local businesses for T or T….my niece, I will never take her again. She has turned into the biggest brat. I hate saying that too, because I love her, but my god, what snot she is! She’s usually really good for me too. I know the problem, but it’ll never change because her parents will never change. God help them with that one when she’s older! LOL
Saturday night, the 3 of us (Bailey, Jason and I) just wanted to couch cuddle and watch scary movies. We tried watching Friday the 13th, and we all decided it was stupid. I take back what I said about those movies scaring me. They are so predictable, even Bailey thought so. So we watched a little of that, and changed it to Halloween, same thing there. Then we tried watching The Grudge, and that was too scary for Bailey. So we settled on Ernest Scared Stupid…and ended up laughing our butts off. It was a good night.
Halloween was a TON of fun. We went over to some friends for pizza and the Vikings. I can hardly believe they lost again, but oh well! We met up with a group of Baileys friends, and went out for about 2 hours. It was nice weather, and even better company! We decided to make it a tradition for the kids, and next time adult beverages for us! 🙂
When we used to take the boys out we all had “to go” cups with us and trick or treated for a Miller High Life.
My girls are around your niece’s age. This is the first year I had at least one of them saying “trick-or-treat” at most of the houses (usually before the person came to the door to hear them). The other one was still too shy for the most part. Then I had to remind them to say “thank you” every time. (Even though they spontaneously say it, even to their lowly mother, at home.) Thank goodness for understanding neighbors!
Miss A was really into it and she’d sing “trick-or-treat, trick-or-treat, give me something good to eat” at each house. I am not really fond of this rhyme, because it sounds rather demanding, but I guess that’s the whole point, right? And at least she was opening her mouth for a change. So I let it go.
My sister went with us, and I had to threaten her to keep her from teaching my kids the “whole song”:
Trick or treat,
smell my feet,
give me something good to eat,
if you don’t,
I don’t care,
I’ll pull down your underwear!
Not that I want to deprive my kids of this important custom, but I think we should wait until we can rely on them to not actually sing it on the neighbors’ porches. I don’t think we’re there yet.
I remember that song! I’ll have to teach it Bailey! LOL
The problems with my niece is she comes here every other weekend. The custody schedule. So my brother feeds into the whole whiny bit, I want my daddy! Any time she gets told no, she cries. Any time she is told to do anything, she cries, “I want my daddy.” Because daddy doesn’t discipline. Daddy says, “you will get a time out next time.” No she won’t! He has created a monster. I know kids will misbehave, and test their boundaries…but the whole point is you have to actually set boundaries.
I know, it is really hard when kids get inconsistent signals. I have that problem too, with all the various adults around, and that’s why I take my kids “away” as often as I can. At least I can pull rank as “the Mother” when I get thoroughly fed up.
I’m not commenting on the voting part, but Hunter had so much fun lastnight!! I’m so proud of him for saying Trick or Treat and Thank You at all the houses. Everytime I said ok Hunter lets go this house, and he would say yea mom this house!! He was checkin out all the costumes. Got really excited when he seen some little kid wearing a Spongebob costume. He was really eyeing him down! He hung in there all night and when we got home he stayed up for alittle while and ate some carrots…yup carrots. lol Then he crashed once he hit that bed. Very proud of my lil boy!! 😀
He was so damn cute. I had a great time seeing him and I’m glad you guys brought him over.
That is such a fun age. He’s such a cutie pie, and so good. None of this surprises me…I’d be proud too! 🙂
I saw those pics of him at Halloween and I could just tell he is a very sweet boy.
lol…don’t let those sweet pictures fool you!! He IS a brat, sometimes. This is such a fun stage for us.
Today was such a long day, this past weekend seems like so long ago! Trinity starts basketball practice tonight after the meeting and her first knowledge bowl meet is Thursday. I have no idea how a knowledge bowl meet works, but I won’t be able to go anyway. I have had candy overload already today and it’s only been like 12 hours since they TorT’d! I’m in trouble!
I will vote tomorrow, but I’m still unsure. I would like them to outlaw smear ads all together, but we all know that won’t happen! Mum, if you want to go with me tomorrow sometime to vote you sure can. That’s about it. I’m tired and ready for bed already, but gotta watch DWTS!
I thought I’d go vote after my swim and then Paul can go vote after his massage from Jenny. I’ll let you know if that changes.
what time are you going swimming? Lucky duck!
I hope to go right away after I talk to my mom at 9:30. If I wait too long in the day I won’t go. I want to get in the habit of going right away.
What is knowledge-bowl and where is it??
Knowledge bowl is where a team of students answer questions in various categories (like Jeopardy, but in a team) and you compete against other schools. Her meet on Thursday is at St Elizabeth and I don’t know where that is!
How come you can’t go?
Sounds like everyone had a good halloween. It great your swimming Joy I guess it does take awhile to make somthing into a habit I’ve heard it can take two weeks to create a new habit. It will be a busy day tomorrow I’ve thought about absentee voteing before, but never have it just seems easier to make the trip into town. I had an allergic reaction the last two days so hoping to feel better tomorrow.
I was going to write a post before about absentee ballot voting and people who vote for one state and live half the year in another. I’m not all sure I feel that’s right anymore. I’ve seen it really abused and it costs a lot more money. I almost feel that you need to live in one place all year round to vote and everyone should vote on the same day. Is that bad of me to think that?
The only reason I say that is I know someone, a really good friend who lives in one country but keeps a fake residence (says she lives with someone else) in another country and votes in a country she doesn’t even live in. I hate to say more. She reads here sometimes. I just don’t feel that’s right.
It irked me to no end when she voted in our last presidential election and she doesn’t even live here.
I agree. Absentee ballots=Al Frankin
What burns me is the Exit Polling that takes place in the Presidential Election. They get crawling all over the exit polls on the East Coast, and their polls are closing at 8 PM… which is 4 PM on the West coast. So here’s the press, declaring that “So-and-So is the Projected Winner!”, and it’s only halfway through the day in CA, AK and HI! What the heck?
My brother (Mike the Lurker) suggested last night that there should be (A) No Absentee Voting, (B) Polls should be open on one day only, but for a full 24-hour cycle, so nobody has an excuse, (C) It should be an enforced holiday – no businesses open AT ALL (including school), except for emergency services, like fire, police, and hospitals, also so there’s no “I couldn’t vote, I had to work,” and (D) NO Exit Polling, and NO reporting of any results until ALL polls closed, coast-to-coast
And don’t EVEN get me started on the whole absentee voting thing… you’ve heard about the Military/Prison Debacle, haven’t you? Especially in Illinois (read: Chicago), but I’ve heard reports elsewhere… They couldn’t get the Absentee Ballots to the members of the Military serving overseas in time for them to vote and return the ballots to be counted. But they managed to get absentee ballots to PRISONERS IN JAIL in plenty of time. Their solution? The Military can go online and fill out an internet ballot, which will then be transmitted to “volunteers” in Chicago, who will happily transfer the Military Votes onto paper ballots… all in good faith… because there is NO CHANCE of corruption in Chicago…
I live in Texas and we have “early voting” here. They open voting for a week or two 2 weeks before the regular voting to ease the crowds on voting day. I always vote early and this year I got to tak my oldest daughter to vote for the first time. It felt kind of nice to take her to vote. I asked her who she voted for and she said, “I believe I have the right not to tell you!” I felt so proud of her!
I’m so glad you did that with her. It’s such an important things to teach our kids. They do after all learn by example and not the “do as I say” thing.