Mental Health Day

Chocolate chip cookies, a glass of milk and a Cubs shirt. 

(Phoenix wore his Cubbies T also today. Had to REPRESENT!)

Thank you, Rio, for being sick today. I needed a day off! Not because I'm sick of work (I actually enjoy my job for once!) but I needed TO SEE THE SUN for a few hours and the election hoopla!

I suck. I didn't vote. I didn't do the absentee ballot thing like I should have. Just never got around to it. But I counted on Obama winning Illinois anyway. We were up late last night watching BBC and looking up results online. This morning I jumped out of bed to continue watching BBC. I admit, I got all wrapped up in the emotions of it...of disenfranchised people finally getting the dignity they deserve, John McCain's speech was beautiful (those rednecks booing was kinda funny too), the diverse group of people in my home turf gathered in Grant Park cheering and crying together, the students I taught on the south side of Chicago and how meaningful it must have been for them, voting for the first time in this historical election. I thought of Obama's book title "The Audacity of Hope" and the reality of those words. This world can be so cruel yet people still find hope. I am amazed. He has the world on his shoulders though. Both the demands of being "the first black president" and pleasing his other supporters as well as the whole world it seems. 

At 8am my time I felt like I just had to call someone. But everyone in the US was sleeping so I called Jackie, an old friend who just moved to Germany. It was so good to talk to her and share the strangeness of experiencing this momentous occasion from a foreign country. I was quit emotionally exhausted after the conversation but very thankful for her friendship.

Then Rio and I went to a parent meeting in his daycare. Afterwards I called my best friend Anna and wished her a happy birthday and now I've baked a batch of chocolate cookies. I tried a new recipe.