Mississippianna

I’ve got the franchise, how ’bout you?

Happy Election Day!

Every year around this time, I try to look back and be thankful that I have the right to vote. It’s an easy thing to take for granted. Did you know that the movement for voting rights for women began in 1820, but the 19th Amendment wasn’t ratified until 1920? Did you know that the House passed the amendment for the first time in 1918 and that it took 2 years of failed attempts before it was finally passed by the Senate?

Hundreds of American women were imprisoned, and brutalized in their attempts to gain suffrage, many of them middle to upper-middle class. A lot of women went on hunger strikes and were force-fed by authorities.

Today, I want to remember Alice Stokes Paul.

Alice Stokes Paul (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American suffragist leader. Along with Lucy Burns (a close friend) and others, she led a successful campaign for women’s suffrage that resulted in granting the right to vote to women in the U.S. federal election in 1920.

Take a moment to read the Wikipedia article, it’s good stuff.

Thank you, Alice, and to all the other women who fought so hard and succeeded. I’m going to vote today, and I promise to always exercise this right with pride and humble thankfulness.

I love the cold weather. It’s my favorite time of year. When I can wear my favorite hooded sweatshirt and crank up the fireplace. We turned ours on for the first time last night.

This is when I drink a lot of hot beverages. I love curling up in front of the TV with a hot mug of decaf coffee in my hands. I like having an excuse to brew up a cup of tea in the afternoon at work. I stocked up on teas at the Twinings store at Epcot. It’s going to be a good winter.

Cold mornings are when I most want that extra five minutes. It takes a lot of will power to make myself get up. Especially when every time I hit snooze and roll back over my cat gets right back on top of me. It’s like she is holding me down. She wants five more minutes, too.

When it gets cold, my cat gets more snuggly. She’s so stand-offish the rest of the year, but when the temperatures drop I can’t keep her off me. Every time I come back to the couch she crawls right back into my lap. Anyone with cats knows that when they want to be near you, it’s one of the best feelings in the world.

It’s a crisp sunny day out there, and the leaves are all shades of orange and red. That’s another thing. I love how you can take a fall day and call it crisp. Like it’s something fresh and new. When the sun is out, and the weather is crisp, I feel awake and alive, and just grateful to be here.

Long overdue, but hey… we’re back! Well, we’ve been back for a while. We didn’t take a lot of pictures, but the better ones are now online. Except for record high temperatures for October, it was SUCH a great trip. I wish we had stayed longer. October seems to be a great time of year to go, too. Lines were short, and that totally made up for the heat.

We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, and I highly recommend it. It’s the farthest from the Magic Kingdom and Epcot, but really that just means it’s a 15-20 minute shuttle ride. It wasn’t too bad. Our room was comfy. The view wasn’t as good on our side of the hotel, but there are several common areas where you can see animals.

If you go to Disneyworld, stay on the resort property and book through Disney. I can’t say enough about how great that made our trip. We got SUCH a good package, with a dining plan and park tickets included. You just can’t beat staying on property, I think. You can get shuttled everywhere, and they make it all so easy. We saw toll roads all over the place, so no doubt you save money riding a shuttle. Plus, they drop you off right at the front gates at all the parks.

I have to say the best place we ate was ‘Ohana at the Polynesian Resort. (I would love to stay there sometime.) It’s a family style place, with no menu. They start you with salad and fried wontons with three dips (Keep the dips. They’re good for dipping the meats to come later.), then shrimp and teriyaki chicken wings, then you get some sauteed mixed vegetables and cheesy potatoes and then the meat starts coming. There are waiters moving around you contantly with skewers of roasted pork sausage, turkey, beef and pork and you just ask when you want more. They had bananas foster for dessert. It was ALL so gooood. Dinner here was included in our dining plan. We were there the night of “Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party” which is a special ticket event at the Magic Kingdom, with a special fireworks show. ‘Ohana has a great view of the fireworks, and when they were starting they began playing the music that goes with the show in the restaurant. Disney thinks of everything.

The most surprising thing for us was how much we liked the Animal Kingdom. It’s a great park! There’s a lot of shade. Bonus! My favorite new ride of the trip has to be Expedition Everest. It’s an awesome roller coaster at the AK.

I could go on and on. To sum it up, I’m ready to plan my next Disney vacay now. I really can see how people can go every year.

P.S. I think I might use the word great a lot more than I should. Great is a great word, and I had a lot of great things to write about. I promise to work on learning a word that I can use instead of great. That would be great. Yeah. GREAT!