The Mystery of the Missing Backpack

Subtitle: The Irony of Organizing
Alternate Subtitle: Career Day Causes Chaos! 

Since realizing my house is a cluttered and disorganized mess, as I do about 3 times a year, Eric and I have been decluttering and cleaning like fools this month.  He spent the weekend sorting junk in the garage. I cleaned Big Girls room a week or so ago and spent my weekend in the mess that we call our playroom.  Tonight I tackled the deceptively deep hall closet. Things are looking good! The next goal is the upstairs linen closet.

Big Girl has managed to keep her room clean for a whole week! Mostly because she hasn't been playing with the toys now that they are in clear storage tubs, and instead lays around on the couch in her pajamas sucking on her 2 fingers and whining that she wants to watch Cupcake Wars. (To Big Girl's future husband: I am very sorry. I am doing the best I can!)

Today kicked off National Lutheran Schools Week. For those of you who are lacking insight in the world of Lutheran schools, it is essentially "spirit week" from public school.  There are theme days and the kids dress up. There are some special events like book fair and science night.  Today's theme was "Career Day", so last night I spent time with both kids figuring out clothes to go with their career.

No surprise, Little Man wanted to be a "worker man". But I couldn't find the "worker man" shirt he wore at Halloween (when he was also a "worker man"), so instead he was going to wear his fighter pilot dress up outfit. And bring his red guitar. ("Because I want to play guitar in the airplane.")

Big Girl decided to be a teacher. This was iron clad because she wrote it on a handwriting paper at school which is apparently A VERY SERIOUS COMMITMENT.  Dressing up for career day as a teacher has got to be one of the lamest clothing adventures out there. Unfortunately we do not have a denim romper with an apple patch.  I gave her the choice between two jumpers and she seemed fine with that. (Equally lame is dressing up like a "mom". I'm not saying teacher and mom aren't good careers, I'm just saying if you have an excuse to dress up for school you should really go for it! But I guess the young ladies in question just wanted to be true to themselves. Yada yada yada.)

This morning we got up and I started my daily ritual of herding the kids around the upstairs repeating, "Put on your underwear. Get your clothes on. Did you brush your hair? I said put on your underwear. Get your clothes on. Did you brush your hair?"  Little Man started crying because he doesn't want to be a guitar playing fighter pilot anymore. He wants to be a "worker man". Thankfully, the missing "worker man" shirt was located and mom saved the day!

In the meantime, Big Girl decided she no longer wanted to wear the jumper she picked last night. She wants a different jumper, the one she can't reach that needs to be ironed. Done and done.

But then it is time to go to school and I can't find Big Girl's water bottle to fill up before we leave. Not uncommon, she regularly leaves it in her backpack. So I asked for the backpack. And...

It is missing!

Have you seen this backpack? 

I ask, how is it possible that in our newly cleaned and organized house the backpack is now missing? (Along with the water bottle I just spent $15 on at REI not even 2 weeks ago! And her folder. And my Burts Bees chapstick that she stole from me.)

I told her to look for the backpack and she came back with her other backpack. The one she got for this school year but doesn't ever use because it is a messenger bag (which she selected) and she doesn't like that it is a messenger bag. She was all, "It's ok, I'll just use this one."

But I am not as easily able to just let it go. I applaud her "roll with the punches" attitude, but inside I'm thinking, "You don't just lose your brand new fancy water bottle and not care about that!" "You don't just lose the backpack you have taken to school almost every day for 3 years and just say, 'On to the next, personal items be damned!'"

I have since looked around for the backpack. I sent her after school on a backpack hunt. Her Daddy even did a thorough search. No backpack.

So we now have a cleaned and organized house, and now somehow Big Girl's backpack is missing. Finger crossed that we did not throw it away!!

5. A Smile

I decided to take a picture of Little Man smiling since he has one of the best smiles I know. Unfortunately, capturing it on camera is a little difficult at times. He let me take his picture, in exchange for giving me feedback on the layout and design.  The photo of the day label for this picture is all his doing.

#MarchPhotoaDay

4. Bedside

The most important thing I keep bedside is the stack of books I am reading, or will be reading soon. 

#Marchphotoaday

3. My Neighborhood

"It was a cold and blustery day in my neighborhood. Uncharacteristic overcast skies in the distance..."

#Marchphotoaday

Today I Did Something New: Primary Caucus!

Today I did something new! I attended my first ever presidential caucus! Washington recently switched from primary voting to caucusing, and I have never lived in a caucus state before. Everything I know about caucuses I learned from watching CNN.

Today's Republican presidential caucus was an open caucus, so I trotted my Independent opinions down there with my mom, ready to vote for Ron Paul.   Washington is considered "in play" for Ron Paul -- you know, crazy liberal West coasters we are! -- but I actually live in the more conservative part of the state.  Heading over today, I was fairly certain that Mitt Romney would be the preferred candidate by people voting from our county.  His business background is sure to be a draw, and there is quite a large Mormon population here so that isn't a distraction.  And while people here are fiscally conservative, they might find Rick Santorum too "Christian".

We arrived just after 8:30am to check in for the 10am caucus.  The published information said doors opened at 8:30am.  In the paper this morning, the predicted voter turnout statewide was expected to be around 60,000 people, and I heard a county guy saying that they expected about 3000 people at our county caucus location here.

The entire county caucused at the convention center. I think they would probably re-think that plan after today.

So first, we waited in line...

            

My mom said, "Look around. These are your peers." Apparently my peers are middle aged white people who like to drink Starbucks.  I noticed quite a few Ron Paul related t-shirts and hats. Not much in the way of merchandise for other candidates. But there were a lot of Romney stickers.  Romney definitely had the most "ground game", with Paul a close second. Gingrich and Santorum did not have anyone there handing out stickers, buttons or pamphlets, as far as I saw.  

We stood in line for about a half an hour.  Some kind of official came down the line apologizing for the wait. He said there were already 4000 people inside at that point. (If he was correct about that, I would guess that there were at least 6000 people there today.)  Behind us, the line snacked up and down through the convention center lobby about 5 times. 

A random guy walked through with "Ron Paul donuts", meaning he was giving free donuts to people wearing Ron Paul gear. Unfortunately, I hadn't found the Ron Paul sticker man yet, so I missed out on a really yummy looking donut. 

When we got to the check in area, they had run out of the little badges for each precinct, so instead they wrote on our arms.  I was in precinct 2641. Want some blurry proof?

That was written with a Sharpie, so I will probably be able to prove it all week if I want to.

There were 2 large convention rooms in use for the caucus. And no obvious rationale about how the precincts were organized within those rooms. So I headed into the large room that included my number.  Thankfully, I saw a lady standing at the very first table with my precinct number!

Part of our precinct, with one of our members holding up the precinct number. 

We had one small table for our precinct and I got the 8th and last chair.  It quickly became apparent that my Ron Paul sticker and I were in the minority. In fact, the whole table pretty much said (in a joking, not threatening, manner) that the precinct is for Romney, but I could sit with them if I wanted.  See the ladies in the picture above? All of them knew each other.  Walking partners. And their husbands. 

A few more people came along to our precinct/table.  I thought everyone was very cordial in the way that I kind of expected.  They boasted about their candidate and then asked why the other person liked someone else.  The Romney people all talked about how the number one goal for the Republicans ought to be defeating Barack Obama and Romney is "the man to do the job". (Why? It's a mystery!)  The Santorum people liked that he is a "true conservative".  I noticed that there weren't a lot of details.  It was like people were supporting caracatures of the candidates, and they may or may not have known many details about the people they wanted to vote for. 

The room got more and more crowded. I was thankful we were near the door, because I might have had a crowd induced freak out if I were in the middle. 

The caucus was supposed to start at 10am and around that time we started hearing that the doors were going to be closed at that point with no one else let in. Even the people who had been in line since before 10am.  There was some booing.  This was posted on our local newspaper's facebook page earlier today:

Kim *** 

I love the way the news is stating that...probably got this wording from the unorganized republican party in charge of the caucus "had to be turned away" How about "were denied their constitutional right to vote"? I think that wording fits better. I have voted in every primary and general election for as long as I can remember. But the governor took away the primary and gave us the caucus. So my husband and I got up early on a Saturday and went and stood in line to have our chance to vote. I have a migraine, so standing in noisy room with 6000+ people was not my idea of fun, but I take my civic duty seriously. After being in ling for quite some time (and the line snaked the full length of the lobby of the 3 rivers conv cntr 5 times) we were at the back of one of the loops when they announced that those with voter registration cards could come to the front. Mayhem broke out and the lines were history....they all melded into a mess and we ended up at the back of it. We patiently moved slowly forward with a crowd about 20+ people wide. When we got near the front...they announced if you weren't already validated you would not be able to particpate in the caucus or in the voting process!!! By this time I look back and there are still hundreds of people behind us!!! Seriously!!! I will be very busy tomorrow making calls to all of the candidates, the county, the governor, the republican party, our representatives..etc....

about an hour ago ·  ·  3

After some lengthy instructions on how to vote in a straw poll and elect delegates. We finally got to the real action. Which lasted all of 15 minutes.  

We voted in the straw poll. Our precinct ended up with 15 people in attendance.  7 for Romney, 7 for Santorum, 1 for Paul.  And then we were to vote for county delegates. 

As a dutiful Ron Paul supporter, I know that as the only Paul member of our precinct, I am almost FORCED to nominate myself as a county delegate. Even though it costs $50 and is on my mom's birthday.  There are 5 of us nominated for 3 spots.  7 of those fools actually voted for me!! I don't think they understand the role of delegates -- that by voting for me, they are sending a Paul delegate to the county level. I think they just thought I seem like a nice, young, naive and optimistic girl.  Fortunately and unfortunately, I was 1 vote short of being elected as a delegate. 

But now you can say you know a county delegate ALTERNATE. Ta-da!

After straw polling and picking our delegates (2 Romney, 1 Santorum), we were dismissed. I went and found my mom, who was causing all sorts of problems in her precinct. I wouldn't expect anything less! 

The overwhelming mood of the caucus was... crowded.  It was ridiculously crowded. And too loud to hear the instructions. I know the local Republican people in charge of planning to caucus were very overwhelmed. One woman took the microphone to make an announcement about something else and essentially said, "This is our first time doing this and I am very sorry" and then starting crying.  I felt bad for her. 

So, that was how I spent my morning today! I have to say that I am more interested than ever in how the caucus process works in states like Iowa where it is tradition and a well oiled machine. And if other caucus states are more like that, or more like us? 

2. Fruit

Stopped in at my favorite grocery store for some apples and potatoes this afternoon, so I figured I'd take a picture of some beautiful fruit, instead of the overripe bananas and 1 pineapple I had at my house. 

#Marchphotoaday

1. Up

Victory! I took a picture with my phone! It uploaded to my computer! I edited it and figured out how to get it on my blog! I hardly recognize myself...

Today's picture is "Up".  This is the view when I walk out the door to my back porch and look up! We have a pergola that I love. Now it has white lights that I also love. And it was a sunny day. More love. 

#Marchphotoaday