Greetings!

Greetings! My first blog. I've been wanting to start a blog for awhile seeing as I have a lot to say an no one to say it to, but I've never taken the time to find out how to do it. My cousin, Angie, started blogging a few months ago and inspired me to do so as well, so here we go...

The election is Tuesday. I will be so glad when it is over. I am so excited at the prospect of an Obama administration. I am dismayed, though, at the incredibly negative tone this campaign season has taken on. I just want to shake the candidates (mostly McCain and Palin) and remind them that on November 5, we are all still Americans and this divisiveness that they have created and allowed to flourish will not do our country any good at all. I am really disappointed that we have seemingly not come as far as I thought we had. I think we are all just afraid and worn out after 8 years of GWB.

I'm helping at school tomorrow with their mock election. I told my kids not to be upset if Obama loses the popular vote there. We are in a pretty red school with lots of staunch republican parents. Like my kids, they will copy what their parents believe when they vote. I think it's important, though, to teach our young people the value of voting so that they might carry this with them into the future and become regular voters throughout their lives.

I remember when I was a kid during the 1976 presidential election. Our school brought in one of those booths where you go in and pull the lever and the curtains close and you get to vote. We all got to vote for president that year in our own mock election. It was so exciting! I used to go vote with my mom, too, and she would let us go into the booth with her and show us which levers to pull down for the candidates she was choosing. It was such a big thrill to open those curtains and know I had helped her vote. I could not wait until I was 18 and could vote for real! I wanted to go behind those curtains in my own private booth and make my selections...Too bad for me that by the time I turned 18, we were using paper ballots and pencils! It's just not the same as standing in private, in your own little booth, choosing your candidates. Oh well, I guess that's progress!

So Tuesday, we get to choose the course for the country for the next four years. I don't know what I'll do if Obama loses. I will go into a major depression, I think! I did in 2004 when Bush won a second term. Hopefully, things will go the other way this year. I think the country is ready for a change.

I'm keeping my fingers and toes crossed!