INDIANA'S VOTER REGISTRATION DEADLINE OCTOBER 6. THE LEAST WE CAN DO IS VOTE.

The week of September 28, Hong Kong citizens are staging civil disobedience for the right to vote. All we have to do is register online and show up!

In Monroe County Indiana USA, we have an election coming up on November 4th.  Yes! This November 4th.

Voter registration ends on Monday, October 6. Yes. You have 4 (FOUR) working days to get it done (or the full six if you do it online, www.indianavoters.in.gov).

Early voting begins October 7 and below is the location and schedule.

Your vote is important. This November's election is important. You will be electing the US Representative from Indiana's 9th District, Bill Bailey is my choice for that spot, and your state representatives to the Indiana Statehouse - we have many good Democrats running.  Things might run better in Indiana if there was a better balance up in Indianapolis.

Most importantly, you will be voting to fill many local government offices.  LOCAL GOVERNMENT IMPACTS YOU THE MOST DIRECTLY AND THE MOST IMMEDIATELY. So why would you ignore this election cycle and the candidates running to serve on the County Council which is the body that decides how the County's revenues will be spent and holds the County Commissioners, the County's executive officers, accountable.  Other offices, or county responsibilities, up for election this November include County Recorder, County Sheriff, County Assessor, and all the Township Trustees and Boards.  It blows me away that anyone would blow off this election.

Register to vote by Monday, October 6 and it can be done online

Early or Absentee Voting at 401 West 7th Street, Bloomington, IN 47404 

Voting Information 812-349-2690

FIRST DAY OF WALK-IN VOTING: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2014

HOURS:  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 7 thru FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10

8:30 AM until 6 PM

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 14 thru FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17

8:30 AM until 6 PM

MONDAY, OCTOBER 20 thru FRIDAY, OCTOBER 24

8:30 AM until 6 PM

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 25

9 AM until 4 PM

MONDAY, OCTOBER 27 thru FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31

8:30 AM until 6 PM

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1ST

9 AM until 4 PM

LAST DAY!  MONDAY, NOVEMBER 3RD

8:30 AM until NOON

Why I Knit - Reason #2014

When I am feeling low and ineffective about all the evil being done in my name as a citizen of the United States, I can knit a pair of baby socks, a hat, or a sweater and send it to a basement near Market Street in San Francisco.  Once there, my knitted items will be packed into boxes with other woolens, by kind-hearted volunteers, and packaged to be shipped half way around the world. After travelling over sea, by air, over rocky roads, and through battlezones, my little socks or hat will finally make its way to its destination. This could be a school or a maternity hospital where it will warm a baby's tootsies, a student's head, and another mother's heart.  I may not be changing the world or my government's actions, but I can change the world for a moment for one other human being.

Click to see what this summer's Baby Shower brought.

Photo courtsey afghans for Afghans

We Retain 10% of What We Hear and 80% of What We Say and DO

Source: medium.com

When communicating with others, especially about complex topics, it's important to understand how human brains work and what we are paying attention to and how we learn and comprehend.   Keeping it simple and accepting that repetition in diverse ways will help.  In my first full time writing job many moons ago, my boss had us writers read magazine ads as part of on our training on how to get the point across succinctly, and to grab our reader's attention immediately. When I have been part of a workshop or class, I retain the most when I can do along with listening and reading and watching.

This is the article from medium.com that got me thinking about this:

https://medium.com/i-love-charts/3-types-of-visual-information-we-use-everyday-and-why-they-work-2ac85ecc87f0

Reflections on Mother's Day Plus an Alice Walker Poem

Selfie on November 2013 Excursion

Sometime in my daughter's growing up, I read Khalil Gibran's chapter on parenting in which he says that our children are not our children. They do not belong to us.  Our task is to love and raise them up, and then to let them go.  We are not to hold onto them as if they were possessions to keep and admire, or servants to take care of our needs for affirmation and love, or mirrors of our vanity.  As the single mother of one child, this was incredibly important advice for me to heed.  I did my best.  I can say that my daughter is self supporting, self-actualizing, loving adult who is on her own exciting wonderful journey.

I feel very blessed on this Mother's Day.  Here's a poem I found in the section called "Forgiveness" in Alice Walker's 1991 collection Her Blue Body Everything We Know

Hilary at one month old.

EVEN AS I HOLD YOU

By Alice Walker

Even as I hold you

I think of you as someone gone

far, far away. Your eyes the color

of pennies in a bowl of dark honey

bringing sweet light to someone else

your black hair slipping through my fingers

is the flash of your head going

around a corner

your smile, breaking before me,

the flippant last turn

of a revolving door,

emptying you out, changed.

away from me.

Even as I hold you

I am letting go.

This Must Be The Way

February's snow and cold outside my window

Bloomington Township Trustee

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Township_Trustee