Inauguration

I posted last year about our voting experience and Election Night, so I wanted to round out the story by talking a little about the second inauguration of the President. This is for my own personal memory keeping. If you don’t like politics, or my views on them. feel free to skip this one.

We watched the first swearing in on Sunday morning. It was pretty low key. The thing that struck me the most was the commentary from the reporters. They talked about how we are one of the few countries that has had such a long history of peaceful transitions of power. I’d never thought of that. A transition of power without violence. That is a truly amazing thing in a historical sense.

(Yes, my Christmas tree is still up. It will be up until February. Don’t hate).

The next day was when the real party inauguration took place. I was disappointed that Jason was so super busy at work that day and couldn’t watch any of it. But I kept him entertained with texts and pictures of the TV. I recorded it and we watched it together that night.

I also texted with my mom a bit. I think I’m the only one who liked Michelle’s new hair cut. But I’m partial to bangs 🙂

The President’s speech was one of my favorite parts. I know many disagree, but I think it was one of his best, especially towards the end.

“It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.”

As nice as it was to hear him talk about gay rights, which is such an important issue in my family, the part that had me jumping off the couch was the part about not being forced to wait hours in line to vote. Yes, let’s address that please!

Don’t worry, I’ll go back to my regularly scheduled scrapbooking and recipe posts after this 🙂

Documenting Election Day

Well the results are in. And unless you’re Donald Trump, you know who won the election.

Okay, okay that was my one allotted snarky comment for this post. Moving on.

Amid all the stress and hoopla from last night, one thought kept running through my mind. I am So Glad that I scrapbook now. Not just scrapbooking, but documenting in general. I’m so very grateful that I’ll have a record of last night in some form, whether it’s a LO, this post, or whatever. I’ll have it and be able to remember what we were thinking and feeling on this night. That’s pretty sweet.

I didn’t have that last election. I wasn’t scrapbooking. I wasn’t journaling. I wasn’t on Facebook or Twitter. It was just me and Jason piled up on the couch watching the results come in. Or that’s what he tells me. I honestly don’t remember. How sad is that? An historic election that changed our country forever and I have virtually no memory of it. I remember going to vote and that it only took about 20 minutes. I remember work the next day even. But almost nothing in between. That’s kind of sad.

But this time it was completely different. I have a boatload of tweets and instagrams to remember this night. Yay social media!

So here’s our election day story. (This was our voting experience if you’re interested).

We were both pretty nervous throughout the day, but kept ourselves busy. I did a couple of LO’s, posted Layout of the Day at SDD, blogged, and did some general forum stuff. Jason worked really hard all day (as usual). He helped fix a carousel thingy that is way too technical for me to attempt explaining here, plus other assorted IT work type things. We had lunch around 2 and texted a bit.

By the time he got home it was already dark. (Ugh Daylight Savings Time!) We did a little shopping at Family Dollar and picked up a new front porch rug and a few snacks. Then we went to our new favorite place, Checkers. We eat there way too much lately, but we really needed garbage food for our stress.

 

We got pretty ridiculous with the amount of screens we had going at one time. Our TV has the multi view thing so we could see what was going on with four different channels. Plus we had two iPads and Jason’s laptop going so we could be up to date with every little thing. Mostly we stuck with CNN. I did some instagraming and we both kept an eye on Twitter and Facebook.

 

It was so stressful. And nerve-wracking. Now I can look back and think it was a bit funny how much we were stressing out. But at the time… There was a lot of hand holding and trying to reassure each other, but we were very careful not to say certain things, so as not to jinx the outcome.

 

Miss Kitty was quite unaffected by it all. She slept through most of the night, but did deign to come out for a little loving.

 

We were of course glued to the Florida results, especially Palm Beach County and Miami-Dade. It was hours before we saw that Obama had won PBC. (As of right now, the totals for Florida still aren’t in yet, thanks to the ridiculously long lines. #stayinline trended big on Twitter most of the night).

It was So Close in FL for most of the night. Sometimes the polls showed a difference of only 600 votes. A real nail biter!

Then we got the results from Ohio.

Soon after that, at 11:18, the news networks started calling it a win for the President.

It took a while for the news to really sink in. I think a lot of people, us included, were expecting a much later night. It was almost surreal.

We wanted to try to wait up for the speeches. In the meantime, we switched back and forth between channels on the TV and I had a lively discussion with Megan from the Nerd Nest on twitter. Somehow my phone fell between the couch cushions and I missed a bunch of texts from my mom. Sorry mom!  It was a crazy emotional roller coaster of a night.

Romney gave what I thought was a very gracious concession speech. He said that he prayed we could set aside our differences and start working together to better America. Something I hope we all can really do.

Obama gave a fantastic speech. It was DNC Obama all over again. He was re-energized and hopeful. It was seriously one of the best speeches I think he’s ever made. It closed the night out on such a positive uplifting note.

Te New York Times tweeted a mockup of what the paper will look like this morning. I actually have a paper from the day after the 2008 election, but it’s pretty neat to have this in digital form.

There were of course many other elections and props on the ballot yesterday. Republicans kept their majority in the House, while Democrats have it in the Senate. Medical marijuana was legalized in Colorado. We have our first openly gay Senator. And gay marriage  referendums won out in the Northeast. There also seemed to be a backlash against the candidates who’ve been making so many inappropriate comments about rape and abortion lately.

 

I think we finally rolled into bed around 2 or so. We get up at 6, so that’s not a lot of sleep last night. I had some stressful dreams about Project Life last night of all things. That’s the third time this week, so I think I’m having unresolved PL issues 😛

I’m going on only a few hours of not fantastic sleep, so if I’ve left out anything shoot me a comment. I’d love to hear how others spent last night.

30 Days of Lists- Day 26

Trends I cannot stand-
Skinny jeans. They are only flattering on about 10% of the population. The rest of us should steer clear. We will all live to regret this trend, mark my words….
Colored pants- see above
Yellow
The overuse of chevron. I really like chevron, but do we really need to plaster everything that will sit still in chevron?
Patent infringement lawsuits
Mustaches (fake or otherwise)
Big 80’s frames for glasses
Candidates on both sides spewing hate instead of facts
The term “Obamacare”, or anything that puts a candidate’s name in a word or phrase like that.

Now I feel kind of bad for writing all that. Usually Jason is the only one who sees this incredibly bitchy, judgmental side of my personality. I should say that with the exception of the political ones, these trends only annoy me.  They’re fine for other people. If you want to go around in yellow chevron printed skinny jeans, big glasses, and a mustache, more power to you! Just don’t bring up Apple v. Samsung or Obamacare, because you’ll get an earful 😛

List made 9.25.12

Curious about 30 Days of Lists? Check them out here. See all my lists (so far) here.