Happy Election Day!

Last year I said I really wanted to get more in touch with state and local news and politics. I’d planned to dedicate time every day to read up on my current events and know what my elected officials are up to. I told David this morning that I’m at about 50% of where I want to be. I’m in a much better place as a citizen of the world than I was at this time last year and considering that the health issues have been HUGE this year, that’s pretty impressive. Well, I’m impressed with me.

David and I had planned to vote this morning and go to breakfast because the weather was supposed to be on the cloudy side, getting cloudier. Before we left, he asked me what I was voting on issue 3. We had three issues and I’d researched the heck out of all of them and knew what I planned to vote, remembering the number and yes or no, so I asked him “which one is that?” The look on his face seemed to question my actually knowing the issues I was about to vote on.

I told him I’d carefully researched and considered many arguments and my voting was “1, 2, 3” and then the planned votes yes or no. Then he smiled, I think I had proven that I had a better grasp of why I was going to the polls this year, and told me I should change my vote on one of the issues. I asked if that was because we’re the same on the other 2? He proceeded to tell me why, which was a valid argument, but I gave my reasons for voting different, also valid. (and David, if you read this, it really has NOTHING to do with same sex marriage) Our votes cancelled each other out, but isn’t that how democracy works? It’s not a majority out of 2, it’s a majority from the whole state. We’ll see what happens. In reality, I was pleased that we disagreed on one issue. While I think it’s important to have similar views on some of the base moral political issues, I’d have a really hard time enjoying married life with someone who agreed with everything. I love my man for HIS mind, not because it’s the same as mine!

So, after we voted there was a glimmer of sun! A few calls to friends in Ohio outside of Toledo told us there was more sun! So we gave up IHOP for this morning, although with an IOU because the pumpkin pancakes won’t be around after Thanksgiving, we did drive through McDonald’s and picked up breakfast for the road. It was too nice day to pass up after all!

Shot at about noon today in North Baltimore, Ohio

I got some nice trains and a few barns, even this one:

Putnam County Ohio Bicentennial Barn

But this one is my official weekly “Barn Charm:"

Defiance County Ohio Bicentennial Barn.

There were 88 barns painted with the official Bicentennial Logo in 2003, one in each Ohio County. Scotty and I had gone to Tall Stacks in Cincinnati on the Saturday of the festival and one of the things being passed out to attendees was the information about the Bicentennial Barns. I thought it was so cool and mentioned that I’d love to see some of them. But we were headed home, drove right past one of them on the I-75, but in the dark had no idea. As a Michigan resident at the time, I soon forgot about the neat barns in Ohio and didn’t pursue seeing any of them.

In 2007 I became an Ohio resident. In 2008 I began to photograph and scrapbook the barns. Including the one I got today, I‘ve only shot 9, although I’ve seen a few more but the lighting at the time was poor. The Defiance County barn is the only one that has the Bicentennial Logo on 2 faces. We stopped to get it on the way home from Indianapolis in June 2009.

Now I’m off to look at some more Barn Charm. It’s already 8, I feel like such a slacker because blog surfing is something I usually do at breakfast or lunch, not almost dinner. But it was a nice day away!