The Votes Are In!!!

All 7 (SEVEN) of them!!! That is how many people voted in our precinct yesterday in the special election to elect the Republican candidate for the 18th Congressional District. But we (the poll workers) made the best of it and we had a very good day! I believe all five precincts had a combined total of 65 voters!!

First of all, I just don't sleep well the night before an election as I am the presiding judge and I do have alot of responsibility and now that positive ID is required from every voter, the provisional voting will increase and there's alot of paperwork and little details to that. Anywayyyyyy......all of the little details go 'round and 'round in my head all night long. I can't help it; it's just the way it is. I finally went to sleep at 12:30am and slept till 3:30am. I lay there until 4:15am and finally got up. I started fixing Spanish Rice to take as all of the pollworkers take food to have that day. Well, I headed out the door at 5:30am and set the dish of spanish rice on the porch railing so I could turn around and check the door to make sure it was locked and all and I heard this "THUD". Ohhhh Noooooo!!!!!!!!!! Rocky had come from somewhere and knocked the dish off onto the porch!!! I hurried into the house to get some water and a broom to clean the mess up and he started whining and barking because he couldn't get to the food through the porch spindles! Thankfully, it didn't splatter everywhere and my dish didn't break, so I hurriedly swept the mess out into the grass and took the dish in and put it in the oven and headed for the polling place. When I got there the first thing I told my co-workers was, "The dog ate my food!" Do you know how untrue that sounds???? *smile* We had a good laugh over it and , trust me, didn't none of us go hungry yesterday!!! Whooooeeeee, did we have the food.! You see, there were five precincts at this location....Lee's Banquet Haus.....meaning there were 21 people. Anywayyyy....at least four husbands brought in boxes of donuts and the ladies themselves really hauled in the food. There were two crockpots of homemade vegetable soup, one of beef stew, the most delicious spinach dip I've ever had!!!, homemade chicken salad (the best I've ever had, too!! *grin*) on croissants, taco salad, broccoli salad, numerous chips, crackers and munchies, little pecan tarts and too many desserts to even mention! Oh, and did I say we had DONUTS ????? Now, being on Weight Watchers (17lbs. lost to date!), I took a chicken salad from KFC and some legal munchies. But I did have a little of most everything that the ladies brought. Now I am not much of a sweets eater, but I did have one of those little pecan tarts and was it ever delicious!!!

And then, to entertain myself, I took a word search book, a bible crossword book and my bible, two Reader's Digests, a couple of books (light reading stuff) and my yarn and hook. I got ALOT of crocheting done! *smile* Really, I did!

At about 4 o'clock, we all started playing "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire". One of the ladies had brought a hand-held game. We had soo much fun and finally, thanks to Mary Grant, who is 80-something, we finally won $1,000,000!!!! She is a sweetheart! And another lady was working a crossword and we all helped her get the answers she couldn't and we talked and laughed and had such a good time. It is always amazing to me how quickly the time passes on election day and we are talking a long day because we get there at 5:45am and usually leave at approximately 8:15pm. Some of us also went outside and walked around the building at different times of the day and got some exercise and fresh air. I made some new friends and got to visit with old friends. In the words of D.R., it was good times. *grin*

Now onto November!! And I've no doubt we will have more than 7 voters!!!