Archive for December, 2016

Well.

Tuesday, December 6th, 2016

Okay, I missed Monday entirely. I’ll try to do two entries another day to make up, but Mondays are tough.
You see, I procrastinate. Shocking, isn’t it? A writer that procrastinates. Mondays are deadline and well, I’m normally pushing that. In fact, pretty much every week I am.

I try, but when you’re covering stuff literally all day long, both weekend days, stuff gets pushed back. This weekend all sorts of wintry Christmas stuff on Saturday and a gospel event that lasted 6.5 hours on Sunday.

Yeah, writing wasn’t happening Sunday night.

It’s funny though, if I have a major story that happens on Mondays, I typically can slam stuff out so it gets in that week. Or, on the website if it is just too late.

A couple weeks ago, an incident happened at a council meeting and I had it covered within a short time of getting home. Then, other weeks, nothing exciting happens and it takes me three days to write a meeting story.

With the council we have coming aboard, I don’t think it’ll be difficult to be excited about stories and writing them quickly come January 1st.

Small town politics are interesting. You know the people on town council, school board, and the planning commission. In some cases you grew up with them, in others, you have known for years as they are typically people involved in the town.

They run for election, you have to write about them, without putting your personal feelings into it, and even if you don’t, you still get crap from people.

I have been hollered at, called names, bitched about, and had people tell me they were going to get me fired over things I have written. People fuss about what I have written on their Facebook page forgetting they have friended me.

Most of the time I let it go. That means they’re reading, even if they don’t like what I’ve written, they’re paying attention.

It was easier when I lived outside of town limits. I didn’t have to face the people I wrote about just because I was in my yard or talking a walk. Now, we live in the center of town and everyone knows where we’re at.

Yeah, that’s fun.

Still, I love my job, I love what I do. I feel appreciated by the community, most of the time, and I think we provide a needed service. Everyone should know what is going on where they live.
Local politics and government have an astounding effect on our day to day lives. They affect us way more than the President or Congress typically does, yet, we focus on the higher offices. It doesn’t really make sense.

It’s the local government that controls so much – local taxes, schools, infrastructure, water rates, etc, etc. Those things change our lives more than that Senator from Maine deciding that they need to add on a project for some random bill.

Yet, in non-Presidential election years turn out is so much lower. Hell, we elect a governor in Virginia next year and turnout will be low. People got excited this year when 1400 people, out of 2400 eligible had voted.

That is so disheartening to me, that so many don’t use their right to vote.

I’ll just keep voting, in even the smallest election, keep writing about what is happening locally, and hope people keep reading.

Day 4.

Sunday, December 4th, 2016

I just spent 6.5 hours at a Gospel Sing celebrating a group that has been together 18 years.

No, lightning didn’t strike, nor did they turn me to their ways. I did enjoy the music as even if I don’t share their beliefs doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate good voices and a great show.

 

It did however go on hours and hours longer than I anticipated. 11 groups of gospel singers from DMV, Delaware, NC, and one from Mississippi. I got some great pictures including one incredible church lady hat.

I just love church lady clothes and hats. I grew up Catholic and you dressed for church. Head to toe, perfect hair, beautiful, normally stiff dress, tights, and shined shoes.

I’m old enough that women still wore hats, a lot, when I was a child. I remember loving the different hats on the women.

Unfortunately, I am really out of time for tonight, so a picture from the evening.

churchladyIsn’t the hat amazing? It was even better in person as it sparkled. And, I love the sparkle.

Day 3- Lighted Boat Parade

Saturday, December 3rd, 2016

It’s late, I’m tired. Have some lighted boat pictures. Click on them to see them at their proper dimension/widths.boat1 boat2 boat3 boat4 boat5 boat6 boat7

Day 2

Friday, December 2nd, 2016

I just got home from trivia with my best friend of, oh, 25 years or so, her Mother-in-Law that we all just call Mom or Momma V, Kyrstin, and her girlfriend, Christal. We only stayed through two rounds, but we won the second round with a perfect score!

The fact that we were home  prior to 10 o’clock on a Friday night doesn’t mean we’re old. Not at all. We’re just tired. and cold. and yeah, okay, maybe we’re getting old.

 

The wind tonight on my ride back and forth, as I use the scooter of whee for anywhere within its battery power, was rough. When you live on a peninsula, a small one at that, the wind off the water will blow you around. By the time I got from start to finish my hands were frozen.

Frozen because my dumb ass can’t find my gloves. I can’t find them anywhere. I have looked all over the house, everywhere I thought possible and no sign of them.

This bodes so wonderfully for a day when I’ll be out in the wind and weather all day.

Tomorrow is WinterFest, Santa’s Parade, the lighted Boat Parade, Downtown Colonial Beach’s informational meeting and I have to be at all those things. The first starts at 9 AM, then they pile up one after the other.

I have learned though that I don’t have to stay the whole time through all activities. I’ll go for the parade, grab some cute kids waiting for Santa shots, then come home until it is time for the boat parade.

In years’ past, I have just stayed out through it all, then come home exhausted and freezing. Tomorrow, I’m going to come home.

I will come home to charge batteries and warm up. I will come home to use the bathroom as handicap accessible port-o-johns suck.  I will come home and….

Who am I kidding? I know better. I’ll get distracted by taking pictures of cute kids and that will be it.

Oh well, happy day two of Holidailies. Time for me to get some sleep.

Holidailies day one – 2016

Thursday, December 1st, 2016

The easiest day of Holidailies and I almost forgot to post. Okay, I didn’t forget, I’ve been busy. Researching stuff all day, a meeting this evening, then home to whine that I didn’t want anything we had to eat in the house, and now here I am.

Welcome to Holidailies 2016. This is one of my favorite holiday traditions, even on the years I slack and don’t post all that much, as I love reading blog posts that are like the early online journals instead of how so many blogs are focused to one subject.

This afternoon, after a false start yesterday as they weren’t playing here*, I got to see Tre and Charlie play middle school basketball together.

Their age difference is just enough that they won’t get to play together all that much in high school so it was a delight to watch them. Heck, there were even a couple kids close to their size.

You see, Tre, 13, and Charlie, almost 12, are short.  They’re tiny and they come by it honest. My brother isn’t tall and actually was fairly short until he was about 15 or so, their mother is short, as is her whole family.

Their classmates, and teammates, tend to be much larger than them. In fact, I saw a picture of Tre at a football game (yes, tiny, short kid played JV ball this year) standing with his teammates, who were all kneeling.

He was the same height as them. They also are all about double his weight, but, he will tell you, “I’ve got heart” and then go out and tear up whatever field he is on.

Charlie is the same way. Tonight, I only got to see him play for a few minutes, but he was in your face aggressive on the court and just showing that it doesn’t matter your size on the court.

They won, by the way, which is awesome as last year I don’t think the middle school team won a single game.

They actually beat the team from the school I graduated from. They are rivals dating back to long before I went to W&L and a tiny bit of me feels bad for going against them, but as long as the niblings are at CB, that’s where my heart is.

I had to leave at halftime to cover a Planning Commission meeting. As I swooped out of the parking lot, on my gimp scooter, as that is my transportation in town, I took note of the time.

16 minutes, door to door, without having to wait to cross any of the streets due to traffic luck. My little gimp scooter sure can fly.

Now, imagine this.  Great big woman, bright tiedyed, rainbow colored dress, super bright red sweater, and to top it off, pink hair. Then, add the scooter that is zipping down sidewalks as I giggle.

I’m a sight, but it was so worth it to be able to see them play for a bit.

So, good day, all in all. Day one of December and Holidailies, got to see two of my niblings play, got to fly down the sidewalks, good PC meeting and I’m now home, safe and warm in my house.

Not a bad start to the month. (especially after the dumpster fire that most of November was. Holy shit, can y’all believe how rough of a month it was?)

 

*Yesterday, I went to the school, got into the cafeteria, one of Tre’s friends recognized me, and told me their game was an away game. Oops.