Thursday Thoughts - I just might love you forever I hope you warm up to me

Burning this candle. The wick is wood and while that's cool and all, it doesn't burn the same as the other Evil Queens I've burned through that left zero anything on the side of the candle and burned clean and straight down.

Buying a Butterball turkey from Aldi for 87 cents/pound. That's a great price. If you are in the market, check your local Aldi. Their sales are Saturday to Saturday so get on it. 

Looking forward to the weekend.

Painting my nails with Sally Insta-Dri in Midnight Drive and Essie No Place Like Chrome.

Being a slug. I blame 5 pm dark.

Rejoicing in local victories. A black single mother from North Philly took a seat on City Council to beat out many republicans and showed the establishment democrats who belongs where in Philadelphia this week. This is the first time in 70 years a candidate outside of the two party system has won one of the minority seats on Council. You're on notice, Philly politicians of both sides - work for the people or the people will vote you the fuck out. Thank you Working Families Party. More candidates like this who will govern for the middle class and poor and not cater to the rich and corporations running for seats across the country please. News is good in all surrounding Philadelphia suburbs as well. Local races send big messages and there were lots of messages sent out of southeastern PA yesterday. KY and VA too. I hope you voted Tuesday. Local elections matter. Shit rolls both up and downhill in politics and if you don't attack it at all levels, you aren't doing your job as a citizen. Start figuring out now when your primary is in the spring. Who is running that represents your values? What can you do to help get them into office? 

LOLing because I say bag of dicks all the time

Sending Christmas cards again this year. I took last year off. After the election I didn't want to do a fucking thing to put myself out there more even to people I know. I still don't, most days. But I'm back on the card train. They're ordered, they've arrived. I'm halfway finished with my Christmas shopping too. I don't have much, but still. I don't love the Christmas season so I make it as stress-free as possible. That way what I'm doing that's holiday related at the end of November and throughout December is stuff I actually want to do. 

Glimpsing the fall foliage that's left on the trees. The past few storms haven't been kind.

Reading advanced reader copies in November. That's the plan, anyway. Except, of course, what I'm reading right now because whenever I make a blanket statement I must immediately contradict myself. Show Us Your Books is Tuesday. That came up quickly, didn't it?

Listening to Charlie by Mallrat on repeat

Reminding you to surround yourself with people who will encourage your growth and grow with you and adapt as you change and your relationship with them changes. Don't stand still for any damn person.

Ecarding 

What's new with you?

Linking up with Kristen

Message of the Day for Tuesday, November 5

Consider participation in local elections mandatory

If you live in America, you have an election coming up. When they're not presidential or senatorial elections (every 4 and 2 years, respectively), they're often called "off-year" elections which infers that they don't matter as much and is straight up bullshit.

It came as a shock to me, post-2016 presidential election, that people legitimately did not know there were elections every single year, not just for presidents and senators. Yes, yes....there are primary elections and local elections that take place outside of the "bigger" elections of president/congress.

Listen. In order for the system to work as intended, you have to vote in every election. You have to know what positions are up for election, what the people in those offices actually DO, and how that connects to you and your quality of life.

Most elections are on November 5, 2019. You've got your governor elections in Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi and your legislative elections for both houses of the LA and MS legislatures and the VA general assembly as well as the lower house of the NJ legislatures, but otherwise it's very local.

Ballot measures, mayoral elections, city and town council, school boards, county commissioners and executives, district attorneys, etc.

The people that control the things that happen in your backyard. I'd say that's fucking important.

THERE IS NO LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT THAT IS MORE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR SERVING YOU AND YOUR COMMUNITY THAN YOUR LOCAL ELECTED OFFICIALS. NO LEVEL.

Yet so many people treat local elections as optional. People, that's fucking crazy. What you are saying when you don't vote in local elections is that the quality of your schools, public transit, what public services are available, the safety of drivers/cyclists/pedestrians on roads, the price of rent, marijuana and alcohol ordinances, community health and wellness, access to treatment for addiction and mental health, treatment of animals in shelters, local taxes, neighborhood cleanliness and viability, crime, environmental conditions around your home, potholes on your roads, minimum wage, on and on and on etc etc etc  DO NOT MATTER TO YOU.

Is that true? I mean, according to neighborhood facebook pages wild animals can't fart in the street without people having something to say about it so lower than 90% turnout on every election day makes absolutely no sense to me. It's like people want to complain but also sit inside on their couches behind their screens and not do a fucking thing about it. That's not how life works.

Local elections are often decided by a handful of votes. If the community you live in matters enough to you to complain about anywhere, it matters enough for you to vote. When candidates knock on your door, open it and talk to them. Throw out the mailers you get from the candidate's opposition because no one sends mailers about their opposition that are not meant to skew information. If the mailer is about the candidate’s stances alone, read it. But also go directly to the website of candidates and see what they're about. If you can attend an event they'll be at, do so. Meet them face to face. Find out who lines up with you. If you have questions, contact them and ask. If one is an already in office and running as an incumbent, pay less attention to what they say in campaign materials and more attention to how they have voted on those issues, all of which is public record. If you need help navigating that, let me know.

If you are unsure of how local elections connect to congressional and presidential elections and who does what, let me know. I will help you see the connections and who is responsible for what.

Don't just sit in your house with your teeth in your mouth reading and writing complaints on your neighborhood's facebook page. You are responsible for what happens in your community, including the people who are in charge of running it. So hire them as employees and hold their feet to the fire to work for you. That is what politicians do - they work for constituents. In some cases they have forgotten that and need a reminder. You are the one to remind them.

There are no off-year elections. Up next in this vein: what to do if you want to be involved but hate the political machine and know corporate/dark/big money doesn't belong in politics.

My Top Five Organizing Tips

One of my favorite things to do is to purge and organize. If I had to choose a different career, I'd be a professional organizer. Since this month's Choose Your Own Adventure Goal Challenge theme is Organize, I thought I'd take this opportunity to share my top five organizing tips with you. This post was initially written as a guest post for Helene in Between.

Let's do it.

1. Do not get involved with piles. Deal with it the first time it's in your hand. There should be a place for everything and everything should be in its place. This message about piles that appeared in the June 2014 issue of Real Simple says it best:

2. Make sure every item you own has one of these connections: it must be useful, beautiful, or beloved. If the answer isn't yes to all or at the least one of these questions, it's time to get rid of it.

3. It's easier if you organize by zone. If you say I'm going to organize my bedroom this weekend, you might avoid it because that sounds like a big job that could be long and grueling. But if you say I'm going to organize the top shelf of my closet this weekend, I bet you'll do it. And you might even be inspired to tackle a drawer or two after. Set yourself up with 10 minute projects and see what you can get done in 10 minutes. 

4. Use a laundry basket during your cleaning and organizing. Put whatever doesn't belong in that room in the basket to be transferred to other rooms instead of running back & forth while you're in the middle of cleaning. You can tote your cleaning supplies in there too.

5. It's never over. Purging and organizing is circular because life is circular. Life happens around us. Something you organized four months ago could probably use an update. New stuff has likely come in, old stuff has gone out, and how you use the space probably needs to be reevaluated. You don't organize something once and then never have to do it again. It requires upkeep.

I could talk organizing all day, but those are my top five tips. Do you have any to share?

One more tip for you...get out and rock the vote today.

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Haikuesday

Election Day! Now.

Some people dream of voting...

Exercise your right.

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