Random Musings

Just got home from teaching my last training class for the upcoming election. It seems that half the classes will have at least one person that is either a) in disagreement with at least one policy and is excessively vocal about it, b) wants to throw out incredulous scenarios that have less than .001% chance of happening, or c) thinks they know everything so therefore don't need training but yet, are getting 50% of the exercises wrong. Today was a great class until the very end when we encountered scenario "a".  Don't like a policy? I understand that. But we're not going to like everything that happens on election day either, but rules are rules. Ranting about how the board of elections should be changed, blah, blah, blah is not appropriate. If you want to change a rule, go through the process and get it changed. But to bad mouth your boss and hope to have him fired is not a good mindset nor a good appearance to project to your coworkers and the public. I'm ...

Every week, I'll have one day where as I'm in the middle of something (like making jelly, cleaning the bathroom, etc) and I'll  have several "that'll make an awesome blog post" moments. But since I'm in the middle of something, I don't write them down. When I finally do sit down at the computer and open up my blank page, I can't exactly remember what it was.  Yeah. That old age thing. So here's a few topics that I've thought about the last few weeks, but don't want to write about. Immigration - a college friend's Mom is going for yet another interview in an attempt to get an American visa. She's only been waiting for 20+ years. Organ donation - my cousin's husband and a former co-worker, both my age, are now on kidney dialysis and both are on the transplant list. Makes me miss Mary all the more. The View and Nursing - never watched the show and have no desire to do so. Not surprised or upset they dissed nursing. Shoc...

Last week my oldest niece helped plan an college activity. They did a 1980's throwback party. Seriously. So while I'm digesting the fact that college kids today see my tween and teenage years as historic, a friend from high school posted this on Facebook (and I've edited to cover their names): Conversation on the way to school this morning as we passed the Bankhead House. Child - "mom, did you see that house right there, the big one?"  Parent - "I do" Child - " It has clothes in it from the 80's!" Parent - "the 80's" Child - "Yes! And from a battle!" I guess the 80's for her would be like the 50's for me growing up.   Talk about starting the morning off feeling old!   So if I had any doubts about the matter, I am officially old and historic!  And to make matters crazier, I'm wondering if items from "a battle" would be items from WWII, Vietnam, or the first Gulf War, w...

People always talk about eating healthy. I find that I will do okay with eating healthy for a few weeks, maybe a month, and then I'm done. It's not always a conscious "enough of this", but more of a "I just want one meal/one day/one weekend off." And once off that wagon, I never totally get back on.  Last month I was looking at various websites and trying to get some comprehensive understanding of the different views of "healthy eating" (and believe me, there are a LOT of VERY different ideas out there), when I found this on the American Diabetic Association's website: This was the simplest method for managing sugar levels I have ever seen. They have a video to go along with it, as well as a print-out for foods that fit into the vegetable category (which includes many fruits), and foods that fit into the starch category (many southern peas, slaws, etc). So we've been doing this for almost a month now. The craziness of the last week a...

The last few years, I've been using some of my sporadic free time to research family history. And in some areas, I'm stuck. I have quite a few records from aunts and uncles that I've been entering into ancestry.com. Sometimes their records match census records; sometimes they don't. One of the craziest things I've encountered with one side of the family is that the family names, births, marriages, and deaths recorded in the family Bible have no link to anyone in our family tree that I can find. It's driving me crazy. I have a small family tree mapped out, but no clue as to how it relates to my family.  Or I have names and dates, but they don't match anything in the census record. Or you simply can't find anyone at all. It's quite frustrating. Before the internet searches became so huge, a library in Raleigh offered classes once or twice a year on how to start researching your family, but I've not seen that advertised in a very long time. And th...

For years I took lots of pictures. Many of them are still waiting to be sorted into albums. I still take a lot of pictures, but now they're stored on the computer. At first I thought that was horrible, but I actually see many of those more than I do the printed forms. They're much easier to find, and it doesn't involve dragging out or putting up boxes when I need to look for one. As I age, I'm finding I have many mental photographs that were never taken that are forever burned into memory. As we came home from a friend's memorial service today, I've thought about that quite a bit. There are many mental images that come to mind when I think of Steve Anderson, but I don't have an actual photograph for any of them. One is a Sunday morning scene. Steve would sometimes dress up, but he usually wore khakis or blue jeans with a dress shirt and sport coat on Sunday mornings. He taught the 1st-3rd graders, and he'd be on one knee, chatting with the kids. And ...

I think this may be a first...a harvest of pears, apples and grapes...all in one year! I don't think this has ever happened before. Usually we lose at least one, if not two, of those harvests. But this year...we've got all three! September is an unusual line-up for us. The last two weeks of this month I'll be teaching a training class for the Board of Elections and gearing up for October's election, where I'll be overseeing precincts I've never visited before, as well as "mentoring" a coordinator in training. That last part scares me a little. The first election I worked as a coordinator, it was to be as a substitute, and my coordinator would be back the next election. That was 3 years ago. A year after I started, they began the mentoring program, but since I was then considered "experienced" I was never mentored. I've always wondered if I were doing things correctly, or if there was a better way to do things. Yes, I'm one of thos...