Today my husband learned that his band The West Columbus Marching Vikings have been invited to the Governor's Inauguration Parade. I am so proud of him and his band, they have worked hard this year, and have performed brilliantly, they achieved their ultimate goal of being crowned grand champions of the Stallion Classic with thier show "The Lion King' an award that my husband has been working for for ten years. This year it came to be. The Inaugural Parade is just the icing on the cake. Here is "The Lion King"

Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF-7zC-9VvQ

During the campaign I was privileged enough to see a campaign event with Michelle Obama. Due to our giving up our office for the Obama campaign I was one of the first people they called to invite to the event. I was delighted to accept, with he proviso that my mother and her beau Norman could attend. We arrived at the venue with hundreds of people lined up waiting to get into the event, I wandered over and found Jason (the Obama staffer) and asked what we should do. I was lead to a table where the "VIPs" checked in and we walked right in. The atmosphere was electric, various people who were seating the audience took turns in riling up the crowd with Obama chants. Me, Mum and Norman took our seats, and Mum proudly sat there in her Obama t-shirt



Jason came out and did his thing, he fired up the crowd like I never would have believed, Jason (bless his heart) is a nice young man, I would never have believed that he could get so emotional and fire up the crowd like he did.... he was amazing...



After a little while the secret service came out, it was at that moment, that particular moment that my heart froze. There they were, steely eyed and determined, NOT ON MY WATCH, NOT ON MY WATCH, may whatever god you believe in bless the secret service, and may they forever be vigilant.



Eventually Michelle came to the stage, Mom said she almost felt like crying right then, I have to admit so did I. She spoke eloquently and passionately about her belief in military families, she was bright, she was beautiful and she was passionate. I knew, at that moment, that I was looking at the next first lady of the United States, and I was so proud, I was so proud. There are no words, or at least if there are they are cheap, this is my president, and this is my first lady. I am proud.

One of my favorite channels is HGTV, I tend to watch that (and BBC America) more than any else. There is a show "My house is worth what?" whereby people for whatever reason get their house evaluated by a real estate professional to see what it is worth. I have watched this show for a while and for the most part people are happy with the evaluations (while having said that their expectations are usually way high). Recently there was a couple who had bought their house for something like $45,000.00 (it was on a beach somewhere) they had put in about 150K of improvements, so basically they had 195K invested in the property. They were really hoping that the place would sell for approximately 750K as it was the evaluation came in at 650k AND THEY WERE DISAPPOINTED! They had seen an appreciation of almost half a million dollars by doing nothing but sitting in a house and they were upset! If my house had appreciated by half a million dollars then I would be happy as a clam, as it was these people were upset. I have no words.

I came home this evening to the entire contents of the cat litter box spread across the kitchen and living room floors. There is nothing like cats and dogs to keep you real. For the past couple of days the cats have been bringing me dead moles. Now to be honest I never thought I had a mole problem, I have never seen any mole hills in my lawn or in any of my flower beds but obviously there is a healthy mole population that my cats have been hunting. This morning while I was in the bedroom drinking my tea I heard a rustling sound and figured out I would check to see what it was, it turns out Cueball had dragged the large (17lb) half-full bag of cat food into the living room and was merrily sat there with his head in the bag chowing down on the cat food. As soon as he saw me he bowed down with the classic "ooooops busted" look and I took it away from him. This leads me to the "it is not in your bowl" syndrome. Every morning I give Lucky a snack of dried dog food after he has been outside for his morning constitutional.(The same thing in the evening, this being due to the fact that Cueball the monster does not allow him to go to the feeder) After he has done eating both Judy and Cueball almost fight for the remains, because for some reason unknown to this simple human mind, dried dog food that is in another dog's bowl tastes a whole lot better than the dried dog food in the "endless" dog food dispenser that is the other side of the room and from whence it came. I don't get it, I really don't? How could the action of taking two handfuls of dog food from the dispenser and putting it into a bowl suddenly, magically transform said dog food into ambrosia? I am baffled.

Finally, I have been crying alot less in the past couple of days, yesterday I had an episode cause Jason, my tame Obama staffer came to say goodbye. Today I saw the dancing in the streets in England and I welled up again. I am hoping that this will pass cause damn I am about out of tears.

I really didn't think we could do it, despite the fact that back in October of 2007 I told everyone that Barack was the one I was still nervous yesterday and I was still concerned that the country couldn't do this. As the results came in last night I began to cry, then as it became more obvious, my tears were more intense, today I have been either on the verge of tears or in tears, really it has been that way. I really cannot believe that this country actually did this, they did. I am so proud to live in this country right now. Yes we did. I am so damn proud.