I was a good citizen today!

Whew, it feels good to sit down after an afternoon of running around!

Guess what we did on our first stop? We voted, baby!

And we had to wait in line for a while! I was so excited to see that many people there, and we didn't mind waiting at all. Things moved really quickly. I asked the lady that I checked in with about the turnout, and she said it's been that way every day. Ken said that his lady told him it's been that way since October 6. I told my lady that if this is any indication, there is going to be a huge turnout for this election. She agreed, but said that she read in the paper that they are anticipating that one-third of voters will vote early.

So is that cool, or what? I know this might sound weird, but I actually got verklempt when we were there. We are so privileged to be able to vote this way, and I love exercising my right and duty, and being a good citizen! After I filled in my ovals, I looked at my ballot for a moment, and got verklempt again. What an amazing and historical election this has been, and it's not over yet. We're going to see history made.

I suspect that our county (St. Joseph) will break for Obama. We have a fairly large black population, and there were plenty there today--I'd say about half of the folks voting were black. Maybe not quite that many, but close. The county also leans Democrat, and the city of South Bend is definitely Democrat. Around us, I've noticed a lot of McCain yard signs, but in town, there were plenty of Obama ones. In the primaries, St. Joe county went for Obama over Clinton by a narrow margin.

Anyhoo, it felt great to vote today, although I'll kind of miss our usual polling place--a former elementary school that is now a church. We vote in the tiny gymnasium, with its brick walls, and the booths (all three of them) are out on the basketball floor. It seems kind of appropriate for Indiana!

Then it was on to our other errands. Our main goal was to find exercise equipment for our new workout area, and after looking at a few places, we went back to the first place we stopped, Dunham's. We got a weight machine and an elliptical machine. Ken also got an incline bench, but we got that at Dick's. All I can say is that I hope I get as much exercise using the equipment as I got when we unloaded the elliptical from the truck! Yikes! That was not fun, but we got it done. (It reminds me of when I had a townhouse in Indianapolis...I had an exercise bike, and I always said the most exercise I got with the damn thing was when I carried it from downstairs to the spare bedroom upstairs! I'll do better with this, because I don't want to "puff up" now that I'm not working. So far, so good, but I know I need to be more active.)

I'm not going to get all muscular, because that's not my goal, and it can be hard for women to do that. Although when I was in college, I built up enough muscle that my friends would say, "Do the shoulder thing!" and I'd flex like bodybuilders do...arms curled in front so that the muscles in your neck pop up. It cracked 'em up every time!

We did have a bit of difficulty finding a weight machine that would work for both of us. On many of them, the bars for chest work were just too high up for me! I told Ken it makes it kind of hard when there's a foot difference in height between us! But we found one. It's not the exact one pictured, but close enough for rock and roll.

So it's nice to be home. I have no idea what I'm going to do for dinner, but it will be something involving ground beef. Ha ha! Hope you all had a happy Monday.

Oh, and we watched it snow a little bit a few minutes ago. Yuck. But it's not cold enough to stick yet. It feels good to be cozy inside!