Weekend recap from October 13/14… I’m behind!
My weekend kicked off on Friday night with a campaign event I had been looking forward to for a while. The Sports Stable, a big athletic complex in my town, has a cool space within it called Fairways at the Stable – which has a bar plus a number of golf, football throwing, and rifle shooting simulators. The owner of Fairways decided to endorse me and three other candidates, and he offered to host a free event for people to come try out the simulators and get to know us.
I got there a few minutes early, and was unsurprisingly the first one to arrive for the event. (Though there was still an unaffiliated crowd of regulars hanging out.) While I waited for people to arrive, one of the golf pros gave me a quick five minute lesson on how to golf. Yup, I embarrassingly don’t play! I was pretty terrible at it, but luckily, guests for the event started arriving and I was saved to go chat 🙂
Overall, the event was a lot of fun – I got to meet a lot of people I didn’t know, plus hang out with a few friends too. And it was so nice to have my mom at the event, and when I got home to debrief! I think part of why this campaign has been so lonely is that I’ve been missing that check in debrief after things – I want confirmation of my own impressions of who likes me (and who hates me), plus reassurance that I’m not totally screwing this campaign up.
Saturday morning dawned bright and early – it was doorknob hanger day! While originally I had been thinking my mom and I would work together to cover all 4000 homes in the neighborhood over 10 days, that… was very aggressive. Instead, I unleashed the “kid army” – my friends’ tween / teen children who are always looking for ways to make money when they’re too young to get actual jobs. It was well worth the money to have the entire town covered in one day instead of the weeks it would have taken my mom and I!
However, managing the “kid army” took some time. It was really just bringing them flyers and a map, then returning to pick up the extra flyers and pay them, but with more than a dozen kids in my “army”, that was a lot of driving around town! I ended up having to leave my mom to finish up the drive and dropping, while I headed to my town’s Oktoberfest to hang out with friends and also meet lots of new friends.
While last year’s Oktoberfest was extremely cold and windy, this year was absolutely perfect – clear blue skies and temps in the high 60s. Amazing! I met a few new-to-me neighbors while I wandered around, then ended up hanging out with a few of my closest friends and discussing the election and my campaign. It was such a relief to be hanging out with close friends rather than being “on” all the time – and especially nice to be out in one of our beautiful parks on such a glorious fall day.
Soon, though, it was time to head home and get ready for my final event of the day: a charity poker tournament / silent auction at my friend Leslie’s house, to benefit Avista Hospital! I was setting up a photo booth at the event to help advertise my political campaign, but also there to enjoy the festivities myself.
It was a fabulous night hanging out with lots of friends, other candidates, and neighbors I hadn’t met before but whose company I loved. I know I probably write this every weekend, but the best part of this campaign has been getting to meet lots more neighbors I haven’t met yet. This party was the perfect example of that! Although it was hosted by two of my friends, they invited many friends I didn’t know, and I loved getting to sip wine, enjoy a great taco bar, and raise money for a great cause, all while…
…the snowflakes swirled down outside! Yup, we got our first snow of the year, and I walked out of Leslie’s (after midnight – oops!) and had to clear off my car to drive home. I was really bummed that winter was already here, as I feel like I haven’t nearly taken advantage of all the amazingness of fall. This election is keeping me busy!
Sunday, though, was finally a bit less hectic. I got to spend the morning sorting through all my winnings from the silent auction part of the event, which was really fun. Usually when I go to silent auctions like this, I put in the opening bid on a lot of different items, assuming I’ll get outbid on most of them – but every so often, I win more than I expected. That was the case here – but I got some really great stuff! I think the prize that I am most excited about is a certification class to learn to drive the Zamboni at our local ice rink. When I was in college, I always thought it would be hilariously fun to drive the Zamboni, so I was psyched to win this and make my dreams come true 😉
After chores around the house, it was time for some volunteer work. While I had originally signed up to volunteer with Heartfelt Hugs (a nonprofit that provides special experiences for siblings of children with terminal illnesses), that event had been moved due to the snow. Instead, though, I was able to volunteer with my town’s Cultural Arts and Public Spaces committee to help several troops of Boy Scouts paint pieces of a mural that will be installed near one of our trails!
The mural set up was pretty cool. We commissioned an artist to do the overall design, and then it was divided up into squares with a template to copy for each square. Then, it was up to each volunteer artist to trace the pattern onto the canvas in pencil, being sure that the edges were exactly to scale so it would all fit together properly. Once satisfied with the sketch, the kids got acrylic paint to finalize the work. The designs were not at all easy!
After the first group of kids had come and gone, and the second group was all settled in, I tried my hand at completing one of the more complicated tiles. I started with the simple big blocks of color, but the last step was using a tiny brush to outline the flower petals in black. I dreaded this part, and hated how sloppy it looked when I first started painting… but by the end, I was pretty happy with how it came out!
From there, it was off to run a couple errands, then home to catch up on work and some campaign things. Ballots were getting mailed out Monday morning, so it was time for my final push before voting began! One of the most time consuming parts is keeping up with social media, so I had a lot of catch up to do there. (Plus some catch up on my actual work… so basically a lot of computer time.)
This weekend in campaign land had some negative comments and things that upset me – both online and off. Overall, it’s frustrating to have people second guessing me all the time, and thinking I have some kind of secret agenda / malintention rather than just trying my best to do the right thing. I’ve always been a little awkward about self-promotion (though I’ve gotten better about it at work, and now this campaign is teaching me a lot more about how to do it) – so I can’t wait for campaigning to be over! Three weeks to go.