Jacquelyn's Space

Not much to share. I basically worked and stayed home. Didn’t plan any big trips because I didn’t want to get or spread COVID. Didn’t want to add to the selfishness traveling people, didn’t want to add to the madness. Tried to set a good example. It was good to stay home regardless.

We did go up north to my dad’s a few times. We spent a week up there in the fall and had a lovely time along the Manistee River, looking at the fall colors. We did spend a few days on Mackinac Island. That was awesome as usual. We spent a night with my nephew, who lives near Traverse City. We got to see his house and party it up with him and his fiancé, their friends and my sister-in-law CeCe. It was fun–more fun that I expected.

I didn’t get laid off in 2020. Yay me! I’m essential, lol. I did lose some hours but gained them back again because people at work quit or took a leave of absence because of COVID. Then I found a new job, a better job. And found it, got it, during a pandemic!!

I probably made more money in 2020 than I’ve ever made, especially with all the bonuses I received.

Best of all we got rid of trump in 2020. We voted his ass out. I wasn’t sure it would happen but we made it happen. I was part of that in small ways.

Now I need to work on making 2021 a better year, a more exciting year. Do I want a more exciting year? I don’t know. I would like to travel more but I am not sure about doing that in 2021. I have some financial and fitness goals I want to work on first.

Do I need to make resolutions?

I probably do, probably will, but I am not quite ready to do that yet. I need to think on them, make resolutions that are attainable. They are probably going to be the same resolutions I make every year but I need to narrow them down, refine them…

Perhaps my only resolution should be to constantly refocus myself on my goals. Daily. Weekly. So I don’t get lost. I tend to get lost in day to day life, and all the drama in the wider world.

I am so happy it is a new year. I almost broke down in tears at midnight New Year’s Eve. I didn’t think me or my family would make it out of 2020 unscathed but we did, pretty much anyway. My dad had a stroke in December but luckily it was mild. He does have a carotid artery that is 100% blocked (right side) but I am hoping he will be alright with the proper care. He doesn’t have any damage from the stroke that I can tell, though his memory is getting a little bad but that was happening before the stroke. He still moves really well and seems to have his wits about him. He is changing his diet drastically and he quit smoking (so he says). I have hope for the best for him but I worry. I worry about my mother too. She had a stroke in 2019 and didn’t fair as well as my dad. She is home though, and gets around with a walker. She lives in a town so while I do worry about her, I don’t worry as much about her as I do my dad, who is alone in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of 20 acres.

SIGH

So I just found out my brother’s girlfriend is pregnant. Supposedly. TBH the ultrasound picture he posted looks like a puppy. What can I say?

SIGH

But we all survived COVID-19 thus far. My husband and I have received our first doses of the Moderna vaccine. No ill effects from it. We are on our way back to “normal” so to speak. I just feel for all the people that have died or lost family members to coronavirus. It could have been handled so much better. I have a co-worker fighting for his life in the hospital. I wonder, even if he beats it–and that is still and IF–even if he beats it, will he ever get back to normal?

SIGH

But thankfully, we are turning the corner. It’s a new year. We will soon have a new president. There is hope for the future yet.

I am so happy to report that Joe Biden won the election. We did indeed dump trump. It took some doing though. It is unbelievable, how many people still support trump. It depresses me actually. I try to look on the bright side. Biden got 78.6 million votes to trump’s 72.9 million. People came out in record numbers to vote. Well, many voted absentee ballot, voted by mail. Trump and his supporters are up in arms about that. They hate that so many people voted and they try to cast doubt on mail-in ballots. They are crying fraud but they are wrong. They are really just crying because their fuhrer lost. This election was the safest and most secure election in history. Lots of people voted absentee or by mail (not necessarily the same) due to the pandemic. Early voting was opened up because of it. Early voting as I did, and that was by absentee ballot but I actually went to the clerk’s office and filled it out and turned it in. Well, trumphumpers want all those thrown out. Trump refuses to concede the election and has his base all fired up. He has also filed a bunch of frivolous lawsuits in swing states but the lawsuits are going nowhere. Biden has won the election fair and square.

Personally, I am still uneasy. This country needs to heal but I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Trump and trumpism has widened the divide and you really can’t talk sense to those that support him. They are, for the most part, ignorant and/or delusional, or worse, are willfully ignorant and just plain mean. They consistently vote against their own interests. Those are the delusional ones. Like the ones that are on government assistance or have relatives on assistance but vote for a candidate that wants to cut “entitlements” and programs that help the poor. They view education as a bad thing, something warded off with the cross and holy water. Those are the willfully ignorant. It is hard to explain, hard to detail. They don’t see the damage “conservative” policies have done to this country over the years. Just give them a tiny tax cut and their happy and cry independence. Cut a few regulations (never mind the future) and they claim manufacturing jobs are here and here to stay. They are blind to the fact that in recent years the Democratic presidents have actually cut deficits and grew the economies. Republican policies have only grown the deficits and hurt our economy. Perhaps not trump, his economy was moving along nicely before the pandemic but it wasn’t really his. It was still growth from the Obama years. Trump cut some regulations, sure, but I don’t know that helped the middle class or the poor. I think it just helped business owners and CEOs.

Trump made us look bad around the world, but his supporters don’t care. They think believe his rhetoric that his foreign policies were awesome. I’ve actually heard good and bad on it. Even if he had some successes, overall he has damaged our standing with our allies. Trump bungled the pandemic response–they don’t care about that either because they don’t believe the pandemic is real.

I was planning on getting up early and voting on Tuesday. I really wanted to feed my ballot into the machine and see it counted. Then I was listening to Barack Obama speak in Flint and he said you can vote today so I got all fired up about voting. Sure enough, my township clerks office was open for voting today. Cool! So me and my husband went down there. We voted. But we voted with an absentee ballot.

Ugh.

Now I am anxious my ballot won’t be counted. Really, there shouldn’t be a problem except that I was wondering about my signature. Does it have to be exactly the same as on my voter registration card that I haven’t seen in many, many years. I don’t have a set signature. Sometimes I use my middle initial, sometimes I don’t. Did I use it on my voter registration card? I don’t remember. I didn’t use it on my license. I know that. And the they saw my license at the clerk’s office. That really should be verification enough. Hopefully everything will be okay and my vote will be counted. I really wish I would have waited til Tuesday though. It’s good that it’s done, in case it’s really busy on Election Day. It’s just that I wanted to see it counted. I want to be 100% certain my ballot is accepted.

Biden 2020!!

Dump Trump

86451132020

It really has been a beautiful autumn. I wanted to write Beautiful Fall for the title but I thought it might set this post up for something deeper than it really is. I don’t have much to say right now, only the usual ranting, ha. I am too relaxed to start that up now anyway. Just wanted to check in to remark upon the autumn colors, fading faster now. I want to carry a camera with me when I work but I am afraid I might get distracted. For instance, I drove by Glenwood Cemetery in Flint today, a couple of times, and the trees are all orange, red and, gold. It was glowing. I wanted to pull my bus in there and snap some shots but alas, I was working. And I only had my phones with me, not my camera.

My husband and I did take a week off at the beginning of October and went up north. We went to my Dad’s house, then to our usual haunt, Mackinac Island for a few days, then back to my Dad’s. It was nice. The best part of Mackinac this time were the sunsets and the spa pool at our hotel. I would have like to have squeezed more into the trip but I was too tired and couldn’t get up and running. We saw lots of color going to and from my Dad’s to Mackinac. Colors weren’t quite at peak at my Dad’s nor on Mackinac. Colors were peaking around Mancelona, MI, Petoskey area, and Gaylord but we didn’t have time to stop. On the way back from the Island we went trough the Tunnel of Trees near Good Hart, north of Harbor Springs. There was barely any color through there but it was gorgeous in Harbor Springs. I would like to go up there again in the fall. Spend some time. Visit some wineries.

My Dad took us along the Manistee River and there we saw some color. It was peak in places, not so much in others. Hit and miss, but I did get some gorgeous pictures. I’ve yet to upload them though.

So we had a nice time, tried to relax, and of course a week is never long enough.

I did get some house cleaning done before we went, trimmed a couple of days of our 10 day vacation to do it. It was nice coming back to a sort of cleaned up place but we do nothing but mess it up again. And I’ve been too tired to care or do much since we’ve been back. I just want to chill so chilling is what I’ve been doing.

“Dissents speak to a future age. It’s not simply to say, ‘My colleagues are wrong and I would do it this way.’ But the greatest dissents do become court opinions and gradually over time their views become the dominant view. So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today, but for tomorrow.”

“Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”

“I tell law students… if you are going to be a lawyer and just practice your profession, you have a skill—very much like a plumber. But if you want to be a true professional, you will do something outside yourself… something that makes life a little better for people less fortunate than you.”

“Real change, enduring change, happens one step at a time.”

How she would like to be remembered:

“Someone who used whatever talent she had to do her work to the very best of her ability. And to help repair tears in her society, to make things a little better through the use of whatever ability she has. To do something, as my colleague David Souter would say, outside myself. ‘Cause I’ve gotten much more satisfaction for the things that I’ve done for which I was not paid.”

May her memory be a blessing.