About a hundred toddlers decked out in high tops and rain gear held posters and stared into my camera with wide-eyed innocence. They skipped up and down. They held hands. They clapped off-beat to "this little light of mine". One girl wore a sign saying, "I'm three, don't forget about me." The 'b' in about was backwards. Precious moment in real life - give me some ceramic , I'd make a statue to sell.

Combined with the adorableness of my subjects -today's story came together like the ultimate gift. I had plenty of time, plenty of material, enough shots to be creative and no audio/visual problems to cramp my style. Such a fantastic feeling to leave work with a smile!

I went to the school to cover the story...

minutes after she left the building.

Yep my friends...welcome to press pool pain. Some camera guy cruised around the cafeteria, while I cooled my heels in the parking lot. Once the First Lady left, my cell phone rang and I walked through the front door.

You know you haven't made it when...

Today, I struggled with the latter.

After pulling together three days worth of threads on proposed budget cuts downsizing Arlington fire fighter's trucks from four to three man teams...I knitted myself into a knot. So many angles to choose from, I ended up creating a prism. Not so much effective when clear and concise define broadcast stories.

Thank goodness for Malissa and her genius with the delete button. She deftly broke through my prism prison and opened up the story to TV life. Gloriously, teamwork exists in newsrooms as well as in fire stations!

Then - WEATHER.

My assignment = tackle the high seas of North Beach, MD. My silver, sparkly flats didn't stand a chance so Malissa sent me home to find rain boots instead. My roommate's room to the rescue!  A pair of plastic/rubber umbrella speckled boots were strewn across her floor. I snatched them up and slid them on. Then running (flopping on occasion) out the door, I dialed my GPS to the Bay and hit the gas.

Windshield wipers slid from slow to medium to fast as my car approached the Chesapeake. Once I parked, my body served as barrier to the wind and I shouldered my way to the boardwalk. Unfortunately the extreme gusts that made the weather so rough made my video looks like garbage...so I couldn't use those shots. However, local shopkeepers didn't seem so concerned. They directed me to a low intersection where water tends to rise. I went, put on the microphone and recorded my stand-up standing calf deep in water. The boots in action - my toes were toasty and dry.

Too bad my camera was wet and that part of the footage suffered from massive digital hits. One-man banding wild weather doesn't exactly lend itself to perfect shooting...or looking good on camera after basically submerging one's self in a cloud given shower. Thank you mother nature for the extra bit of hydration...next time, I'd prefer a water bottle on my desk.

Unable to contain my stomach rumbling, I switched from recording the speech to recording the snack. Cookie, cookie, cookie. Were they soft? Were they chewy? Were they as good as they looked? As official after official passed the microphone, I conspired. How could I work chocolate chip cookies into a story about the Tysons Express bus service? The minutes passed, the interviews followed. My feet lead me to my tastebud's desire - the cookie tray.

First bite and a follow-up to make sure - they tasted less delicious than they looked. Not to be twice trumped, my motivation to include the cookies only increased. You'd better believe that beautiful display of sugar, egg, flour, chocolate and butter highlighted my story. Where there's a will...there's a way...so while the cookie may not have been for me, it most certainly made it on TV!

Interviewing a professional political operative today, I heard campaigning parallels offense while policy relates to defense. Reece Collins prefers migrating from one campaign to the next because he feels connected to the voters, the message and the football. He gets to march down the field and factor into the score. "Policy wonks" as he called them, do not.

It turns out the political arena pits more than just Red and Blue across the line of scrimmage. Rather, tension exists between the campaign staffers and elected candidates' staff as well. Collins says policy wonks regard campaigners as slick soundbyte machines. Whereas campaigners look to the policy people and say, 'YO! You wouldn't be in office without us!'

So how does the classic football-ism, "offense wins games, defense wins championships" play out in the political arena? Perhaps it means a good campaign can get a candidate elected but the candidate's ability to create good policy will keep the them in office? Hum...maybe sports analogies and politics are as accurate as Peyton Manning after all.

After visiting various campaign offices, I saw the countdown to election day calculated in weeks, days...even hours. So it was no surprise that today - the day after the election - was a giant black hole. Inboxes were full. Emails not returned. The oiled campaign machine ground to a stop around midnight. Campaign workers who operated for weeks on little sleep and long hours celebrated or consoled their candidates. Candidates long groomed to get out their message no longer needed a public platform to pontificate. It was over.

Today was the day for personal phone calls. Thank yous to the volunteers who made winning possible or losing an unfortunate turn of events. Today was a day for sleeping in - or as one candidate's wife told me - a nap. Today was the day for taking a deep breath, until I banged at the door. That's the thing about the news. Even when the political campaign ends, the political coverage continues. I needed a follow up story even if I had to drive 100 miles around the Commonwealth to get it.  Which I did.

So while the candidates may have been relaxing and luxuriating in the comforts of their homes, I was the crazed reporter flying from county to county, hoping to make deadline without winding up dead. Glorious results in my own race against time: I made deadline. Now I'm going home to unwind!

Now - what struck me was that many of the candidates campaign on a 'pro-environment' platform. Just how environmentally friendly are thousands of plastic signs that plunge into the ground? They last for a few days, weeks maybe, and then what? The dumpster? A huge pile in someone's garage? One candidate with a sense of humor said any green advocate should vote for him because he's reusing signs from the last campaign. Not a bad commercial...

However, I have a better idea. After one particularly gruesome year of campaigning, my high school limited the number of posters and fliers student council wannabes could hand out. It was brilliant. I recommend it on a national level.

Turning from campaign trappings to getting trapped...the elevator and I had an extra long moment of connection today.

We need a key card to access our floor. I dug through my giant bag containing everything from microphone to notepad to pen to cell phones to keys to lipstick to random receipts to pennies to you get the point. It's a giant sinkhole that contains everything necessary in my work life - everything but my key card.

Standing in the elevator with camera, computer and the contents of my purse spread out around me, I waited looking at the locked doors and wishing for a latte. Please anyone, come rescue me from a Rapunzel like exile...unfortunately, no dashing prince pried open the doors and whisked me to my desk. Rather, I punched the mezzanine floor and hoofed it all the way home.