pumpkins

Pumpkins are EVERYWHERE. As are mums.  And I think they're beautiful. But I've not bought any. Not a one.  And I probably won't.

A few years ago I did buy pumpkins, but I didn't have the heart to throw the insides away, so I made a ton of pumpkin sauce and pumpkin pies.  Okay, maybe not truly a ton, but it seemed like we ate pumpkin pie FOR-EV-ER.  And I can't bring myself to buy a pumpkin and then throw it out. Just when I think I've reasoned with myself enough to do it, I remember two things: Buster and Little Dog. Those dogs will eat or chew on anything. If they see me touch, their mouths or tongue must go to it. Tomatoes, pecans, apples, pears - they've eaten/sampled them all. I can't imagine the dogs treating a pumpkin any different.

I've been amazed to see all the beautiful fall decorations at homes I've visited recently. Even my Mom had me pull out ceramic pumpkins for the table while I was at her house last week. I don't remember her ever decorating for fall before. If I manage to get my one set of fall flowers on the dining room table and my pilgrim people and turkey out and change the yellow flowered towel out of my utensil basket to the squirrel one with a fall background, then I will have accomplished all the decorating that will happen for this season.

But come the last weekend of November, we'll be talking decorations. :)

overthinking

I'm one of those crazy people who sometime over-think things.

Today was my first day of conducting a training session, and I went a little long (meaning we had to eliminate the last exercise) so tomorrow I need to watch time as I talk and not answer so many questions during exercise time.

Sometimes during feedback (whether after a session or during the trial one) someone will review things for 5 minutes, and one phrase will stick with me the next few days as I ponder "What did they mean by that?"  Sometimes it's something totally innocuous; but I can't help but wonder if the speaker was implying I crossed a line or talk too much or if they were politely telling me to get my act together.

Despite my self-absorption (Let's be honest - that kind of stuff is really nothing but selfishness and pride), I'm mostly enjoying this process. I was exceptionally nervous before we started today, but once we got going, it was awesome. I don't think I would want to do this all day long or lecture for a living, but I enjoy being with people who truly care about the process of voting and want to do a good job.

precinct supplies being packed for election day delivery

I will say the more I work with Wake county Board of Elections and the more I learn, the more impressed I am. Wake BOE is truly a very well-oiled machine that operates efficiently. Yes, any time humans do things there are mistakes, but overall I have been blown away with how detailed and customer-service oriented this government group is. I love how they listen to feedback from their poll workers, and how they train workers (even if it often seems like overkill) and then check up on them to make sure procedures are being followed.

Hopefully tomorrow I won't be so long-winded. I know I won't be able to hold and use both the clicker and the laser pointer at the same time, so I'm no longer stressing over that. I'm just not wired that way. But I hope my training sticks, and that this will be an election where coordinators are rubbing their necks and saying "What am I missing?" because everything seems to be so meticulously in order.

lunar eclipse

Due to the dogs, we didn't drag out the telescope to look at the moon. Therefore my pictures are from my small camera (it has a better anti-movement/hand shake censor).

I was amazed at how red this turned out. It certainly didn't look red with the naked eye, and only had a pinkish hue with the binoculars, but the camera captured it as looking quite red.

At this point we moved over to my mother-in-law's house because the moon dropped behind the trees at our house (she's a little higher up on the hill). We could still see the moon here, even better through the binoculars, but my camera didn't capture it all. :(  And by the time the sun started coming up, it all but disappeared from view through everything.

So we can now say we've watched the moon disappear.

quickly changing!

 The scene early Monday morning:

And the scene Monday evening:

The construction of South Garner High School has begun!

who needs cardio class?

As if my intense dislike of exercise wasn't enough to make me think gym classes were non-essential, I came up with another reason this week: I get enough cardio at home.

 While it was only between 6-8" long, this little booger scared my heart rate into a high aerobic level this week when I stepped towards my car, and realized it was hanging out there in the garage...in my path.
And of course, I was almost running late, wearing flip-flops, and yet I knew that thing had to be dealt with before I left. Thankfully there was some metal thing in the hall corner (left over from when they put the stove in years ago....so glad now it was still there!), so I grabbed it and started smushing.  And no, I didn't examine its head to see if it was diamond shaped (which means poisonous) or not until I was done. I DID know that it's little head was up in the air when I walked out and its tiny tongue was flickering like crazy.

And these guys?

Little Dog and Buster TOTALLY ignored it. Buster even stood over the snake at one point while I was trying to kill it, demanding petting. I couldn't believe it.  They prodded it a time or two with their paws after I had taken care of it, but they've not touched it once. And yet, they'll eat my grape tomatoes and tear the scarecrow off the front door or dig up anything I plant inside their fence line.

Cardio?  Who needs it?  I get enough of it from everyday life!

speech class

I hated speech class in college. I'm not jesting. I actually H A T E D it. On the days new speech assignments were given, I felt as if a huge weight descended on my shoulders. When the morning my speech date rolled around, I would quickly head to the bathroom before class, sick with nerves. Only after the person after me had been called (meaning I was through with public corrections and critiques from the teacher and the dastardly deed demanding a grade was done) would that weight somewhat lift.

This week, for the first time ever, I was grateful for that speech class and my teacher. Oh how I disliked him during my college days. It irked me that he was from my home state, and yet so callously picked apart every single word I said and how it was pronounced. I felt humiliated, as if I had temporarily crawled to the button hole of that proverbial pocket of ignorance one high school teacher told us we lived in, saw the world, showed them my crumb and dust-covered face, than slid back down to the bottom of the pocket. It really was that bad.

Yesterday I had to present a practice run of the 2.5 hour lecture I'll be teaching soon before a group of BOE employees. Thankfully, we had some things go wrong so I'm now prepared for those scenarios during the actual class times. But as for my teaching style and presentation, there were very few critiques. THANK YOU Mr. Jones, wherever you are. Because of those horrendous hours I spent in your class for an entire year, I can face my students and look them directly in the face, I can "own it" when I mispronounce a word or something goes wrong, and sometimes I can even laugh at myself. I've finally got the concept that knowing your subject backwards and forwards truly makes all the difference in the world in confidence level, and that practicing in front of the mirror is not reason to dread the day. I'm not sure you'd recognize my delivery style if you saw me. I've come so far since that 18-19 year old girl whose hands couldn't stop shaking and literally cried in relief and frustration as soon as class was over.

There have been very few times in my adult life when I've been afraid to speak in front of a crowd. And a good chunk of that I owe to what I learned in Introduction to Speech.

slow, not quite steady

Fall is a whirlwind. It always is.

And with some unexpected events, this fall seems a little busier than normal.

Some events are positive. I was asked to teach some training classes for our county's Board of Elections. So far I'm enjoying the preparation process (though my real prep work begins this weekend), but the thought of being the official "trainer" is also a little intimidating. I don't feel old enough to be in this position. It seems unreal that I have worked as a poll official for more than 10 years, but I have.

Other events are necessarily bad, just requiring an adjustment of our schedules. I'll be posting more about that in a few weeks.

Meanwhile, I'm trying to figure out how to finish up the yardwork while having very full days the rest of the week. I'm reminding myself of the mantra "little by little" as I tackle small projects in small time frames. And on days like today, I remind myself that I know what has been accomplished, even if no one else does.

I may not be winning races, but I am still walking!