Voting, Mindfulness, and Big Bang Theory

This evening I was feeling frustrated.  Work was very frustrating; I was about ready to pull my hair out.  I can't breathe or taste and have a headache.  There are a couple of other things that were aggravating me too, you know, just normal life stuff.

I came home and started supper (chicken pot pie) and then went out to vote.  My polling place is just up the street from my house so I decided to walk, in hopes that the cool air might clear my mind.  I grabbed Josh's huge Maglite and started walking.  It was cold and I could see my breath puffing.  I got to the polling place and it is this tiny Methodist church.  All the volunteers were quite old, at least 80.  The woman who found my name could not hear it thunder and mumbled in that way that the very old do.  Her husband, who was even older, gave a short speech to every voter.  All the volunteers cheered when a 18 year old girl came in to vote for the first time.  They really cared about what they were doing.  They had none of the cynicism that I and most of my friends have.  I walked back home in the dark.  My little house was warm compared to the outside and the pot pie smelled good.

I've been reading this blog lately that mostly ticks me off, but occasionally has some good points.  The woman who writes it has views that are almost completely opposite of mine.  She leans toward Buddhism  but I read something interesting she said about mindfulness.  Basically, mindfulness is being present in the moment and focusing on what is going on in the here and now.  I am so bad to get focused on all the crap that is going on and I get so swamped and I forget to just enjoy this moment.  I took a quiet pleasure in the process of voting and the smell of the food I wanted to feed my hungry hubby.  I'm trying to be a little more mindful of the nice things that I am very grateful for, in an effort to get in the Thanksgiving spirit.  Hooray for Thanksgiving!

Now I'm going to take some serious cold medicine and watch the votes come in and Big Bang Theory, mostly Big Bang Theory cause it makes me chuckle.