Today, I'm thankful for a lot of things. Foremost, that I've been able to leave work earlier lately (4pm!!!), which has helped alleviate a good amount of that burned out feeling I've had at the end of every day.
Added to that, I had a great time teaching the kids about the election process. We pulled up a map of the electoral votes from last night from cnn (here) and we talked about why states were red or blue before the election and what the yellow battleground states meant. Then, they got to click on the states to turn them to one side or the other. We played out what actually happened, and then looked at what would have happened if certain states, like Ohio, went the other way. Then they got to play. Some kids made the whole map democrat; others - republican.
This of course brought up a new set of questions - what does it mean to be democrat or republican? So, back to the room we went. We read an article together on the 2 party system, with it's history and general policies and made a list.
I tried to be very neutral in my explanations, emphasizing how much both sides want what's best for people, they just want it in different ways. Light bulbs went on at the end when one kid finally made the connection that Obama was a democrat, since his states on the maps were blue ones. Afterwards, I had them "vote" for their party. Surprisingly, almost all voted democrat! It made me wonder if they matched their parents or if our talk was the convincing factor. In any event, it was really fun to teach about a very current issue and get the kids excite about politics :).
I'm also thankful to have this guy visiting.
Ed's brother is spending the night since he had some business in Phoenix. It's always fun to have family around.
We had a super yummy dinner of Pork Marekesh.
I am also thankful that I correctly used the power drill for the first time, and we now have hooks for our keys! Step by step, our laundry room is getting completed :)
I hope tomorrow is another great day
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