Campaign Update

Small town politics are very small...last week only Ron showed - he is a current city council member. We talked for awhile and then he had a list of 4 questions he had each of us answer. It was really kind of fun and interesting but not a vote building exercise. Looking back I realized that instead of gabbing with the other council members about local events/problems I should have been out in the hall/outside handing out Vote! magnets and trying to get people to come in. There was actually quite a bit of traffic past the City Council chambers from people going to football/soccer games and to the fitness center. Oh, well...Lesson learned.

This morning I put a poster board out by the road outside the City Hall/Library/Fitness Center (3C's) complex. I put the muffins and fliers outside the Council Chambers, wheeled the white board out too and wrote, Meet the Candidates...etc. Still after doing all of that it was pretty slow. There weren't any games this morning. Just my luck! The mayoral candidates hung out talking issues in the room and I would waylay people as they came in the door to go to the gym. About 1/2 weren't from Huxley but from neighboring towns, but everyone else got my 1/4 page "profile" and Remember to Vote! magnet. I handed out about 12. Put some outside the library and chatted with the one other city council candidate that was there. Sad really... No wonder the other candidates weren't really excited about the Open House.

The next plan: hand out profiles/magnets on Halloween to the parents while the kids get glow-in-the-dark bracelets. I think we will hand out bracelets every year from now on. You can pick up a 12/15 pack at Target or Micheal's for a dollar. I like them because they are way cool, you can see the kids in the dark better and you can't eat a whole bag of them before Halloween. Tell me I'm not the only one that has happened to.

Check out this fun 5th grade campaign story at Design Mom. Too bad we didn't do formal speeches. :)

Reasons Why I'd Vote for My Mom

1. uummm... Oh! Because she's my mom!
2. let's see, she's cool and nice
3. Oh, I know! She'd make me!
4. ?
5. Bla, Bla, Bla...
6. She's nice and pretty
7. :)
8. ?????????

I was getting everything ready for tomorrows Meet the Candidates Open House and Emily gave me the list above. Hopefully other people will vote for me even if I am not their mom.

Tomorrow I am bringing name tags, my candidate profile, Remember to Vote refrigerator magnets, a red table runner, blueberry and banana muffins in blue papers on a white cupcake stand. Red, white and blue. Cool, huh? Brian says red, white and blue is too republican. WHAT?? Anyway, last time they did something like this only 4 people showed up. Hopefully more will be there tomorrow morning at 9 am?!? Oh, well...

Baby Brian's Blanket

Last April, I heard about the Blogger's Quilt Festival but lost the link so I held my own quilt show. This year I found the link and have spent all day cleaning, looking at quilts, feeding the baby, cleaning and looking at more BEAUTIFUL quilts. The blogging community is AMAZING. The quilts and stories behind them are INSPIRING. Over 650 people have posted links to the favorite quilt they have made. Go check it out and post your own favorite quilt too.

I think this is one of my favorite quilts. It is the only baby quilt I have made for my children that was finished before they were born - or a year old. I tried to collect all sorts of different blue fabrics - my mom even sent me some scraps from a shirt and dress she had made.

The design didn't turn out exactly how I had imagined (I was trying for a double Irish chain look but didn't use a pattern, oops). But I was (and still am) soooo proud of myself for free motion quilting those leafy/flower things in the white space. I loved it and the dark blue binding was perfect.

However, Baby Brian was stillborn at 40+ weeks. Husband Brian suggested perhaps we could bury him with the quilt but I said, "No way!" Part if it, I must admit, was pride - I had worked hard on his quilt and didn't want to bury it! But the most important reason was I felt his quilt was the only thing of his, the only memory, I had which I could really hold on to. So he was buried with another snugly blanket and all of my next three girls have used this blanket too.

Creepy Classics

A month or two ago Brian brought home Interview With the Vampire. After reading it I realized that my knowledge of vampire and other creepiness was sorely lacking. So I decided to do some creepy reading in preparation for Halloween. First I read Frankenstein, because the library's copy of Dracula was missing and they had to order one in. Frankenstein was pretty good. The beginning was slow to say the least and I really don't know what Frankenstein was thinking when he created his "being" but a good read. Dracula was a bit weird. I think they expected you to know a bit about vampires because the precautions against them are not well explained. Also, why did Dracula ship all those caskets of earth? Can he hang out all day - like when he was checking the other caskets hiding places? Not well explained - or maybe I was just reading it late a night and had "baby brain." The ending also seems rushed and anticlimactic.

So what other creepy classics are there? Jekyll and Hyde, Poe...? Got any ideas? I read the first few pages of Pride Prejudice and Zombies in the bookstore and almost died laughing but I don't know if that counts as a classic. :) Is there classic zombie literature? Or is that an oxymoron? Give me some Creepy Classic Reading Ideas!