Good deeds

I've been in a bad mood lately so rather than post about that, I thought I'd write about something nice instead.

A few weeks ago, a relative went to get his flu shot at a local clinic. The wait was really long and his back was starting to hurt so he squatted down to relive the pressure. The man in line in back of him got him a chair and everytime the line moved, he moved the chair. This went on for 45 minutes. When they got to the front of the line, he put the chair back where he got it. I was so touched when I heard about this man's kindness.

Awesomeness at the LSS

LSS = local scrapbook store for the non-scrapbooking readers

An LSS had an "open house" today with almost everything in the store on sale (but they had a 30% off coupon you could use on a new item that wasn't on sale). Minimum sale price was 25% off with some stuff 50% off. Now I wish I had bought more cardstock. You can never have enough cardstock you know. ;)

They had several awesome make-and-takes...for free! Awesome, awesome, awesome! I made a cute little Christmas hanging decoration, some very cute to/from tags, and an incredible cookie recipe book. It was incredible; I even bought an extra to use as a gift. The women who designed the projects did a huge amount of prep work. Everything was not only cut out, they were all preglued also. Now that's above and beyond. I could have stayed all day, but alas, I do have a life outside of scrapbooking.

Anyway, it a lot of fun (plus I got to spend some time with L). Just wanted to share my good day.

I'm a cranky old lady

At least that's what I feel like at work today. There were lots of conversations of why can't we, and why don't we, and why did he/she? I'm not against progress and I'm not into pointing fingers (and honestly, I don't think most of my coworkers are either), but having these conversations one after another just puts me in a bad mood.

Really, all I want you to do is get to your point so I can respond and move on. And if you don't want to hear my opinion, don't ask.

Scrapper Wish List

With all the holiday wish lists being advertised, I thought I'd create my own here. So if I could have any scrap-related gifts I wanted, here are my top five picks:
1. Someone to organize my scrap stuff
2. The new Quickutz Revolution and Washington font
3. A trip to the Heidi Swapp/Bazzill convention thingie in AZ next year
4. A large format scanner (even though I don't have too much trouble stitching)
5. An unlimited supply of Bazzill

What's on your scrap wish list?

Odd dream

A few days ago I had the strangest dream. I dreamed that I was having trouble seeing so I decided to take out my contact lens. As it turns out, my contact lens were the problem...because I was wearing several pairs on top of each other! They were different size and different colors; I think I was wearing three pairs. Now, that's impossible (I assume it is impossible though I haven't tried it). Anyone care to analyze this dream?

Veteran's Day

Is it appropriate to say Happy Veteran's Day? Does anyone care? I was quite moved to hear all the publicity and interviews on the news and NPR. I think I have a different point of view from many of my peers because of my background. I'm somewhat of an in-betweener. My father served in WWII, but before I was born. So I don't have any experience with a father/relative being away at war like someone older or younger than me might. I was vaguely aware of the Vietnam War growing up, but didn't know anyone who was drafted. Hardly any of my coworkers have parents or brothers who were drafted. The majority of people I know are anti-military. So as not to start any debates, I usually keep my mouth shut.

For my father and most of my relatives who served in WWII, there was a lot of pride in their military service. We flew the flag on July 4th, Veteran's Day, Memorial Day, etc. I loved seeing the flag wave in the wind. We always went to watch the parades downtown and there were always events at the American Legion posts.

It saddens me when I think about how my father was turned away when he first tried to enlist. They didn't want his kind. But those he served with didn't have any choice when he was drafted.

We don't talk about the war, about how it affected him. A bit of lost history there. Maybe it is enough that I'm proud of my father and uncles who served. Happy Veteran's Day Dad.

My voting adventure

When I got my sample ballot in the mail, I noticed I had a new polling place, a fire station a few blocks away. I was a bit concerned about the location because I knew there was a lot of roadwork going on in the area and parts of that street were blocked off.

Yesterday morning, I'm off to vote. Traffic is heavy in the morning so I took a slightly longer route to the polling place. Just as I feared, the street was blocked to southbound traffic so I drove several blocks around the subdivision to enter from the opposite side. Unfortunately, the street was blocked on that side also. So I went home to call the Registrar of Voters to make sure my polling place hadn't changed. No it hadn't and they gave me an alternate route to the fire station.

So off I go again. This time, I had no trouble getting there, but had to park a block away from the fire station (no biggie). There was a line of people (the polling place was in their huge garage) so I had to wait a bit (not unexpected, and again no biggie). Then a poll worker announced, "We're having technical difficulties." Great, just great. Only one out of the eight or so electronic polling booths work. No wonder there's a line. Somehow, we find out paper ballots are available, but she can't offer them to us; we have to ask for them (must be some legal restriction about offering alternative voting forms). I decided not to wait for the electronic poll and ask for a paper ballot. So I had to go through the verification again because they had to figure out which ballot to give me.

After I finished voting, I leaned over to place my ballot in the ballot box on the floor. When I stood up, I hit my head on some tubing that ran from the floor to the ceiling. The poor poll workers were besides themselves with worry. I wasn't hurt at all; the tubing wasn't hard and I really just tapped my head. I sure was glad to get my "I voted" sticker; I think I earned it this year.