Nov. 2 Voting Made Easy

If you live near North Park University, you now have absolutely no excuse not to vote on Nov. 2. I have done the hard work of reviewing the endorsements of the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times for the contested races since I am not going to take the time to look at each race and make a decision on my own. If you can relate, read on!

To my surprise, they agreed on the majority of their endorsements. I indicated this with a thin green line on the ballot. They differed on the big ones - amendment, senator, governor, treasurer. Since the Tribune leans Republican I highlighted their endorsements in pink; the Sun-Times leans Democrat so I highlighted their endorsements in blue. There were a few smaller races where the Tribune made an endorsement and the Sun-Times had none. For those, I just highlighted pink.

This linked document is the "Specimen General Election Ballot Style 218." You can get an advance copy of the ballot you will receive here. A general list of everyone running for every position is available here (but it's not as useful).

Now you have NO excuse not to vote on Nov. 2!

Inches from Crawling

After being home with Eli today, I am going to make a guarantee that he will start crawling in November. He's up on his hands and his feet, has taken "steps" with his hands and with his knees. All he needs is a little coordination and our life as we know it with a stationary child will be history.

TwitterFeed

I just started an account with TwitterFeed that will automatically take my blog posts and push them out to Twitter and Facebook. Consider this a test of the new service.

Eli's First Night in Germany

Jen and Eli are in Germany with her mom visiting her sister and new nephew. Here's her account of the first night:

He did great on the flight and during the first day here.  Last night... solid food, bath, and to bed at like 8:30.  He slept for 2 hours, then woke up.  I fed him and he didn't go down... not even sleepy.  burped him, rocked him, fed him again.  still playful.  warned mom i was going to let him cry it out...  he screamed his head off for 1:15 and then, since that's the longest he did at home and here he's sick, in a new place and in a new time zone... i picked him up (we're sleeping in the same room).  He immediately stopped crying.  i rocked him a few min still he stopped gasping (you know, that post crying, calming down breathing) and he fell asleep in my arms.  i put him down and he didn't move.  that was that.  he slept until i woke him up at 9. 

September Photos

I've started using Picasa Web Albums instead of Flickr. I'm also transitioning from iPhoto to Picasa 3. With over 8,000 photos, I don't see this project ending anytime soon.

End of September

Difficult Day

Today's a difficult day. Eli hasn't slept for more than 45 min at a time despite waking up before 6am. We gave him carrots last night for the first time. Changing diapers after eating solid foods is no fun. So far, peas and carrots are my least favorites. Enough said. Worse than that, I bent over and kissed him on the changing table right as he spit up and onto my lips. Tasting your own throw up is bad; this is the first time I've tasted someone else's; it was worse (and yes, I did just use two semi-colons in a single sentence).

Today's highlight was going through the automatic car wash for the first time. He liked the beginning and the ending but the middle was quite noisy. I had to sing pretty loudly so he wouldn't get scared and cried. Mission accomplished.

Eli makes noise