Disney pop star evening

Before the show.

Took Amy and her pal Maddie to a Sabrina Carpenter concert tonight at Jammin' Java. It was Amy's first Disney star show, and I'd say she's all in. The place itself is pretty unassuming from the outside (to put it nicely) so when we drove up, Amy was like "this is it??" and I explained that while it's not fancy, it's a terrific little venue and a great, small place to see someone you really love. I'd say she came away agreeing with me.

Amy and Maddie both sang along to pretty much every song, which was so much fun to watch! Sabrina has all the Disney training and put on a really fun show for them.
I hope maybe Amy's old enough that she'll remember this show. She'd actually been to a few shows at JJ to see kids' performers, but of course she doesn't remember it.

I'm so glad that Amy likes going to concerts! It's a fun connection to have, even if our tastes don't overlap much. Maybe they will one day.

The only song they didn't know through the whole show was the cover "oldie" that came out before they were both born - Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" (2002). *Sigh*

It made me think of another teen pop star's show, many many years ago. Shaun Cassidy. Somewhere around 1978 or so.

Amy's reaction was somewhere near my Shaun Cassidy feeling,
but not quite this whackadoo.

But it was nowhere near Jennifer's reaction to Shaun Cassidy...total tears! 

Geeking out over design!

How awesome was this – I picked Amy up from the Girl Scout financial literacy program I forced her to attend, and she started talking about going to art school, asking me what graphic design was (AWESOME), talking about college costs.

She also wanted to show me the certificate she got for the class, and give me her critique.

Her opinions: she was mostly annoyed about the photo of the badge, where the badge is half in the shadows. [My later add-on: absolutely. I would have taken a good photo of the badge (assuming it wasn't already available digitally) and removed the background so just the badge was showing.] She didn't like the font they used for the heading because it had a shadow and she thought it was hard to read. [Me: agreed, and all caps should be used more judiciously than this as well.] She thought her name should have been pre-printed, not written on. [Me: would have been nice, but sometimes people run out of time.] She also thought having the Girl Scout Promise and Law was unnecessary. [Me: eh, maybe.]

I told Amy she really has an eye for this kind of thing. People tend to think that design is easy and anyone can do it – but doing it well is different than just getting it done. Maybe this is where her art will take her one day – who knows!

Happy #14!

This baby boy turned FOURTEEN! Pretty awesome day for him - gifts in the morning (including new phone), flag football in the afternoon, and then off to the Alamo with his pals Harrison, Robbie, Sebastian and Matthew to see "Doctor Strange."

Reed is growing into a respectable human being, bit by bit....he does his chores without complaining, is kind to others, and has a great sense of humor. It's a pleasure to be his parents and watch him grow!

Well that didn't quite turn out how I wanted it to

I can hardly express how disappointed I am with the election results. I am so proud to have supported Hillary and voted for her. I feel like we let her down, though, by not bringing this home. She deserved better. In an email to supporters, Hillary wrote:

And to all the little girls watching right now, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world.

She makes me proud. I'm proud that a woman was finally the presidential nominee for a major political party - it took long enough. I hope it won't take quite so long for it to happen again.

Amy is upset with the election results, especially the fact that Hillary won the popular vote while losing the Electoral College. It actually helped me to have to explain to her that even though our preferred candidate didn't win, we have to stay positive. It's not as if we can root for him to fail, because then we fail too. And I'm also telling myself that even though the Republicans have control of the House, Senate and the Oval Office, Congress really doesn't see eye to eye with the Donald, so I don't think he can implement every frightening thing he's proposed.

It's going to be even more important to support the LGBTQ community now, and all people of color. I'm frightened that they may lose the slow, hard-earned progress they've made. The rest of us will have to step up more and support him.

I do honestly believe that the long months on the campaign trail have had some affect on Trump. I doubt he ever in his life had so much interaction with "real" people, and I think maybe he 'gets it' a little more. The question will be - is it enough?

For the sake of our country's future, I certainly hope so.

Heading into the election tomorrow

Tomorrow is election day. It's been truly the worst election cycle in history, as far as I can tell, and I think our country is worse off for it. The level of discourse has been lowered to such a level that I'm not sure how we'll recover.

But what I want to say, for the record, that I am appalled by the popularity of Republican candidate Donald Trump. The laundry list of things he's said and done that should have disqualified him from office began with his campaign announcement where he called Mexicans rapists and drug dealers and has only gotten worse. I really cannot fathom how people support him, I think he is a truly terrible human being. His campaign has brought out the worst in our fellow Americans, allowing racism and sexism to be more acceptable. From everything I know about him, his primary mission in life is to make money for himself, at the expense of anyone who gets in his way. He is not someone who is capable of having others' interests at heart. We cannot let this country go backwards in how we treat LGBTQ people, or further erode the rights of non-white Americans. We cannot. We don't need to "Make America Great Again" because it's already great.

Hillary Clinton is not a perfect candidate. But she has lived a life of service to Americans, working to improve the lives of people who need a little bit of extra help. In this election cycle, she has been painted in a negative light for living a life of public service – that really ticks me off. I have seen first-hand how dedicated public servants make a real difference in people's lives. I think the email 'scandal' is a case of much ado about nothing. Benghazi was horrible, but is the unfortunate cost of doing American business internationally – it's not the first time and won't be the last, most likely. She has done the best she can (though I'm guessing if she had it all to do over, she'd probably not set up a server in her home). HRC has my support, and will have my vote tomorrow.

I hope Clinton prevails tomorrow, because I honestly fear for the future of our country should Trump be elected. I just wanted our kids to know that their parents were not 'fans' of Trump....I want you to know we were on the right side of history.