On pins and needles.....I’m writing this Monday night before Election Day on Tuesday, so I don’t know how the election is going to turn out and can’t speak intelligently about the voting yet (if ever).

I have bets all over town for all kinds of contests. I wish I had written them all down. Any one can just come up to me on the street and say, “Hey, Bev, remember that bet we made about XXXXX? Well, you owe me your car.”

For example, I even bet my daughter-in-law, or as I affectionally call her, “the mother of my grandchildren” about who would come in SECOND for the governor’s race. I bet on Bell-- she bet on Strayhorn and the winner has to purchase, bring home from the grocery store, and put in the refrigerator a 12-pack of Diet Coke. (I’ve been drinking Diet Coke for YEARS and I’m still fat. I think they put something in it to make you fat, thus making you a customer forever.)

Anyway, just as life as we know it in Fort Bend comes to a halt during County Fair week, it seems like life as the cable news stations know it has come to a halt during the past two Election weeks. Except for the loss of life, I would have been hoping for a hurricane. Maybe one that almost hits land but in the final hours turns and misses land altogether. Or maybe even a kidnapping that turns out good with the hostage released and the kidnapper captured. We need a news break from politics.

I hate write-ins.....The Fort Bend Star usually goes to press Tuesday afternoon for Wednesday delivery. However, on election days, we usually hold our front page until almost midnight on Tuesday in order to bring you the vote count on Wednesday. After all, what are newspapers for anyway? The simple answer is NEWS, and having to wait a whole week to find out about an election somehow doesn’t seem right unless you live in Alaska or some other far away place.

Of course, with the internet and sudden interest in Fort Bend by the Houston media, we realize that our vote reporting isn’t that necessary anymore as there are other places to get the results.

But we’ve always done it before... This year with the write-in for Tom DeLay’s former congressional seat, we fear the final vote tally may be sometime about Wednesday noon.

Therefore, we are going to publish the vote count we have by 10 p.m. and only the vote count for Fort Bend County although that congressional district encompasses three other counties.

Is that clear as mud? as my mother used to say.

I’m never really bored.....Most of my faithful readers know how crazy I am about my grandchildren. I think they are the smartest kids in the world. Unfortunately, Kathryn is in junior high and since she gets grades, I now know she isn’t the smartest, although she’s still pretty smart. And to keep her grades up, I pay her for “A’s” so I can continue to brag on her.

But Carter and Jack aren’t getting grades yet so I can still think they are smarter than your grandchild.

Once when I was bragging about 2 1/2 year old Carter, I asked, “Where in the world did he come up with that?” Bookkeeper Lisa answered, “He’s been reading ‘The Book Under the Bed’.”

According to Lisa, when children wake up smarter than when they went to bed, they’ve been reading “The Book Under the Bed.”

So I have started a journal about my grandchildren and when I have nothing to do, I write about their latest exploits and sometimes even include pictures. I am going to give it to them when they are older.

When I taught school, I made my English students keep a journal to get them used to writing. They had to write a half page a day about any topic. Many have told me it was the one thing they did in school that helped them in later life.

In this day of computers and digital pictures, we can all be authors and illustrators. I encourage you to do this as well. I’m having such fun doing it that I thought that many of you might want to do the same.