Voting for the President

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/07/barack-obama-speech-full-text

This has taken a while (6 months) to come up with, because I just didn't understand it, and no amount of reading carefully worded explanations on the internet appeared to help me get my head around it.
Here is my best explanation that I can think of for how the President of the United States of America is voted into office.
The Presidential vote is not a direct popular vote. The president is voted in by a group called the US Electoral College, and each state gets the same amount of electoral college votes as they have representatives in Congress (ie, population based) EXCEPT territorial possessions (Guam and Peurto Rico) who don't get any say what so ever, and Washington DC (District of Columbia) that isn't a state, but gets the same amount of representatives as the least populous state.
I can't clear up whether the US Electoral College is made up of people, or theoretical people. I think I will go with the theory that it is actual people. Somehow this group is elected, and then they pledge votes to either side (generally, since 1868 it appears to have been a two party election between the Democrats and the Republicans). I don't know how they decide to pledge votes, but I'm guessing this is where the state election comes in - to decide for them? Then, the person with a majority of votes from the US Electoral College is the President. This is the same way that a Vice-President is selected, although I'm unsure if this means a lot as I presume that the VP chosen by the President will get in, since the voting obviously favours the President in the first place. States get to chose how their electoral college votes are decided - which is why people talk about a candidate 'winning' Ohio. And there is that map of the USA divided into red and blue. It is also why it is confusing as to exactly how the election for Electoral College goes, because there are a million and one (fifty two, max, I guess) exceptions to any method described.
But... There is a popular vote for the President, and I don't quite get the connection between this popular vote and the voting for the US Electoral College, and it is possible for someone to win the popular vote, but lose the US Electoral College vote. Although this happens rarely.
One downside is that voter turn out doesn't affect how many Electoral College votes a state gets, so voter participation isn't that important except in swinging states.

Martinak State Park

Spent a very full weekend at Martinak State Park, about an hours drive East from here. Not any bush walking, but we hired a canoe and took it out on the river, and the kids enjoyed riding their bikes and playing with the rest of the kids from the group we were in. And of course, there were campfires and S'mores...
State parks are run by the state (as opposed to the National parks run by the National Park people), and seem more to be nature reserves for leisure activities - that is, fishing, bike riding, hunting (I think), boating etc.
On the way home, we went half an hour out of our way into Delaware, to Vanderwend's Icecreamery. Highly recommended!

Throw Away Culture

I'm seeing how there is more throwing away here. This entire setting at a brunch for mums - tea cup and saucer, bigger food plate, a knife and fork, a little spoon, and tablecloths, was disposable, and chucked out at the end of the brunch. I think an entire wheely garbage bin was filled.
Our office has very limited crockery etc, and supplies paper plates and plastic cutlery.
Bottled water is all pervasive, and super cheap (like, $10 for 30 bottles sort of cheap)
Parents were specifically requested to send their child in with a 'reusable water bottle' for a field trip, which sent me slightly cross eyed until I realised I could just send my child in with his normal water bottle.
Church morning teas, dinners, you name it, all use disposable. I felt like the trend in Sydney was to put in a commercial kitchen with commercial dishwashers and have a mountain of crockery to be able to serve the congregation food and drinks. Here, they have approached the problem from the other end by buying disposable everything.
Even in smaller groupings inside the home, there is a tendancy to use disposable rather than deal with the clean up. I remember having to help with washing up when I was younger at the end of an evening with friends. That doesn't seem so fashionable any more.
On one hand, it is incredibly easy, and does make the clean up easier.
On the other, however, I never feel completely comfortable with contributing so much to all the full bins.

Back sheds

The back sheds here look like little cottages!! or mini barns (think, Little People barns). So much cuter than the corrigate iron sheds back home. I love the windows with the planter boxes...

Lets plant that garden

Home Depot's nursery is empty during the winter, but right now, it is in its peak. They have some sort of supply arrangement with a professional nursery, and they've taken up some carpark, and people are buying. Not just one or two plants, but whole palets, whole trolley loads of plants. Because the winter kills off pretty much everything, lots needs to be done in the spring, it is a really busy time. They also sell predone mixed flowers/grasses in pot arrangements for the front steps, and a whole heap of fruit and flowering trees down the back.

Mayday in Annapolis

On 1st May, there is a tradition to put a flower arrangement up on your door in down town Annapolis - not just the businesses on Main Street, but also the houses in the down town area. I think there is also a competition, and maybe a garden club judges?
While the arrangements done by the businesses tended towards the thematic, and were quite clever, I enjoyed the private ones better. This would also be because I had a tired 3 year old with me, who was struggling to cope, and there were crowds on Main Street making it worse.
I loved the concept of purposefully celebrating the spring with some flowers, and a bit of gussying up of your front steps (often there are pots of pansies around now).

My reading lately

I have read some books recently (in the last 3 months...) that I would love to recommend:
1) Curly Girl - Lorraine Massey. She is a hair dresser who has created a method of looking after curly hair. As a result I have made some changes to my hair care, and am hoping my hair will appreciate it and stop being quite so unmanageable.
2) Overwhelmed - Work, Love and Play when no one has the time - Brigid Schulte
Part documentary, part self discovery. Brigid looks at "time pressure and modern life" according to the inside cover. She looks at the family, and work and leisure, and how no one feels like we have any quality time any more.
At the end she has a section of practical suggestions in the area of "Work", "Love"(family, roles, etc) and "Play" (which relates to having hobbies, remember them?)
One thing she mentioned was being aware of unconscious bias - on roles in the family. She mentioned gatekeeping by mothers which prevents fathers from having more than a 'helper' role with babies. And for work she mentioned chunking time - and committing to building up the muscle to sit there and concentrate on work/one thing, without checking emails every 5 mins. I know I have the Twitch - to check news websites when I'm frustrated with my work, instead of looking out the window, stretching and getting a glass of water.
And when I was looking for strategies for decluttering, I found The Minimalists - two american guys who have (they mention often) left their thing centric life and their 6 figure salary and found peace in minimalising, and are now, I guess, preachers of the lifestyle.
3) All That Remains - Joshua Fields Millburn - written as a series of dated essays over the two year period that he started being minimalistic. I don't always enjoy the writing style, especially the "conversations" that sound a bit preachy, but as an exploration of the idea of not organising 'stuff', but simply not owning it, the book is quite intriguing, and the length is such that you can read once, then go back and reread sections. A compelling argument for not owning as much is that it frees up time and money to spend with your family, because you're not having to clean, organise and look after all your stuff.