We learn from our mistakes. Hopefully.

A mistake we made was to allow an eleven year old to campaign with us. He was our youngest volunteer, and he would just not stop talking. I'm not in any way close to saintly when it comes to patience with younger children, and so when it was my turn to take him in my car, my already frazzled nerves gave way and I told him and everybody else in the car(though they couldn't hardly talk anyway) that we were going to have a moment of silence for everyone who had died in car accidents today, and that moment would end when I said it did. It worked for a little while.

The next day, he was in a different car. Mistake! I should have kept him with me. The driver of the car accidentally locked her keys in the car. While they were waiting for help to arrive, this boy without the driver's knowledge, tried to pick the lock of the trunk by sticking leaves and sticks in the lock. So when the driver did finally get the car keys, the car's trunk wouldn't open, and all their literature for distributing was in the trunk. It was one big mess. I feel really bad for the driver of the car, and I hope they can get their trunk fixed without much trouble.

District 39 is now a better place to live

Thanks to those who voted Beau McCoy into office.

The Campaign for Beau McCoy:

We left early Saturday morning- no one should have to get up as early as we did, but we had to get to Omaha by 7am. Saturday, our first day, we had about twenty volunteers going door-to-door doing lit drops and some sign waving at the big intersections during rush hour. That evening a few of us did phone calls and when we stopped making calls at 7pm(There was a football game starting then) we were all worn out. But the dollar theater is right next to the Republican office, and the temptation to see "Wall-e" was too much to resist, so we went to see that and didn't get to bed until late. Our hosts graciously took us to church on Sunday and we tried to rest up, but it's hard to do that when you're in someone else's house. Monday morning we were back at it again, with more sign waving and lit drops. We had about ten people on that day. Tuesday- the big day- was unreal. By this point Jen and I were wearing down from lack of sleep, lots of exercise, and the stress of organizing the volunteers. We had roughly twenty people that day, and we did even more sign waving and lots more phone calls. Not as many lit drops, though, because it almost wasn't worth it at that point. The weather was a campaigner's dream, perfect temperatures and sunny. Tuesday was the only day we had weather trouble. It was very windy, and that slowed us down a bit. We quit sign waving at 7pm and then headed over to the victory party. And this time it actually was a victory party, because sometime around 10pm the governor called and congratulated Beau McCoy, District 39's newest State Senator. Whew! I know we had a part in this victory, and I am so glad he won.

We went back to our host's house and tried to sleep, and eventually exhaustion took over and we did get some rest. Next morning we left to go home. Kind of anti-climatic. The rest of the day was spent re-adjusting to real life, thinking, wait, we won- and now it's over? Aghhh! And we were all still pretty worn out. Jen and I talked about the campaign and all the mistakes we made, and how we would like to do it better next time, but now we have to wait two whole years. We feel like we made a lot of mistakes. The fact that we are now looking forward to having a liberal Democrat in the President's office makes me feel like we need to do even more work, starting now, to get Christian men into office.

So there's how we spent our days leading up to the Election:
Doing action-packed and educational volunteer service.

I did have time to visit another cemetery last week...

What a beautiful day. But so very windy.

It was German too. Go figure.

Lost

I came home from Lincoln on Friday. On my way home I wanted to make a stop at Cane's, a fast food restaurant known for its deliciously unhealthy chicken fingers. I wanted to take some home to Jen because she loves their food. As far as I know, there aren't any Cane's in Omaha and only one in Lincoln. But on my way to Cane's, I got very very turned around(LOST). Before last week, I hadn't done any driving in Lincoln at all, but now I know almost all the major streets and areas, because in the week I was there I got lost three times. When I finally got to Cane's, I had no idea how to get to the interstate, so I just headed in what I thought to be the right direction, and I eventually got to the right street. But I felt so bad about all the gas I wasted getting lost- it almost made stopping at Cane's not worth it. With that added driving time, the drive home took almost two hours. I was so tired I had to stop, so I decided to stop at a cemetery on the way. It's been on my list of goals for a while to stop and visit that cemetery before we move, so I am glad I finally went there.

It was kind of sad that the cemetery isn't being properly taken care of- there were several stones that were broken or sinking, and in one case the caretakers had just stuck the broken stone in a pile of concrete.

This cemetery is mostly German.

Who do you look to when you are lost?

Out and About in the City

I've spent the past week in our Nebraska Capitol city of Lincoln helping out a pregnant lady. She has five very sweet children, and her condition is such that she can't do any hard work. Yesterday she had me get out the kids winter clothes from the basement, and carry them upstairs to the bedrooms- it took about four trips up and down! When that was done, I got down three garbage bags of clothes from the top shelf of the closet, and then had to put them back up at the end of the day. I had to stand on a bar stool to reach! So I actually got my exercise yesterday. Today I just cleaned wooden blinds- there's really no efficient way to do that.

I've been staying with another friend at night. I have so enjoyed having a whole huge bathroom all to myself. It's so luxurious! In return for room and board I've been doing some work for her, too. When I get back tonight she wants me to get out her winter clothes too. At least I won't have to carry them up two staircases- she only has one.

I've been doing a lot more driving in the city than I've ever done before, and I doesn't stress me out anymore, but I've gotten lost twice. Navigation by street names rather than by landmarks is hard to get used to.

Highlights from vacation:

We got to see old houses, older than anything we have in NE. They were beautiful!

We went to the new Creation Science museum in KY. It's expensive, but very well done.

I was able to spend an hour in the Lexington, KY cemetery. It's beautiful and rich in history.

We saw family in Ohio that we hadn't seen in ten years.

Lowpoints of vacation:

We were in tents. Jen and I shared one and everyone else had the other.

It rained, and everything including us got wet

I had to cook over an open fire from limited supplies

The bathrooms were always a long ways away

We had to set up and take down camp more than five times.

There is the short version of our two week vacation.

Vacation does not mean you will have time to relax

In the last two weeks I've been to Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Kentucky, and Missouri, and now I am finally home. My favorite part of our two week vacation was visiting the Lexington KY Cemetery. I'll post more about it later- we're still unpacking. When we got home we found that our water distiller had leaked all over the floor and it had gotten moldy and ruined the wood flooring. Ugh. And tomorrow Dad is being ordained as an Elder in our Church. There's so much to do!