Blessed Nation

Call me a Scrouge if you want but I get a bit sick of reading the thankfulness for the day from 72 friends on facebook during the month of November, but then today I read about a bunch of idiots wanting Texas to secede and it brought it all into perspective for me.  Are you ready for it.....I WAS WRONG.  I was wrong to think that it's annoying to read what all of these people are so thankful for.  I admit that and now wish that these idiots wanting to secede could start doing the same!  America led the Civil Rights movements that brought freedom to all kinds of different groups. I personally think the movement served its purpose and should have died a few years back and now people are taking all types of liberties in the name of "Civil Rights" that were never intended to be rights. A student of History might well know how bad the world has completely and utterly sucked in the past. Someone who takes the time to truly learn what happened before would be able to ascertain that America is the greatest nation in the history of the world.  America has experienced military might beyond what any nation before has ever known. America has experienced and granted freedom like no other before. And today, even in the midst of "financial hardships" American's have known wealth like no people before us.
But, "we don't like him" (read that in your whiniest voice) so we're going to what? Secede? Run away?  What are we the French? Texans are supposed to be rough tough cowboys. John Wayne and Clint Eastwood are our celebrated heroes and yet now that "we don't like him" we're going to turn and run away from the greatest nation that ever existed?  How stupid could you be?

If you take a look around at the wealth and freedom we have, I don't care what's going on around that you don't like, you have to admit that we have it pretty good.  Speaking in American terms here, my family is in a bit of a tough time financially right now.  Even though we walked through Dave Ramsey's program four years ago and got out of debt we are having a tough time now.  It's because we are out of debt that we are not freaking out right now.  We barely have enough to get by right now...like $0.78 in the bank account, but we're making it.  Now let me break that down as it realates to a huge percentage of the rest of the world. My complaining because we barely have enough and I'm currently unable to fund my retirement account and we've had to do without a lot of things lately is nothing compared to the majority of the world. We own 2 paid for vehicles, we live in a 2-story house in a really nice neighborhood.  It's not the country club or snob village, but then again my truck isn't getting stolen out of the driveway so in my opinion it is a very nice neighborhood. We have the opportunity and availability to eat 3 meals a day. And usually like a main entree with a side. And there's always something sweet for me to much down after dinner.  Hell I have a blog called the uglycheesecake for cryin out loud. My point in all this is that the majority of people in the world, according to studies, statistics, and mostly second-hand stories with a few experiences of my own, don't have it near this good.  We are sitting here complaining because we don't have "adequate healthcare" while my aunt goes to Africa every year to work in a hospital with mothers who miscarry and the stories she has of "adequate healthcare" would blow your freakin mind. We cry and moan when we don't get to eat what we want, but the little kid we sponsor through Compassion International doesn't even know that it's an option to cry and throw a fit when he only gets to eat two meals a day, much less because he didn't get what he wanted. And that's a kid who is sponsored by an American family...he actually gets to eat twice a day, but I'm not entirely sure that his brothers and sisters do. Definitely there are kids that he knows that might not get to eat some days. I heard the story just this past weekend of a guy in Haiti who started an orphanage in his house because he watched one of three sisters die of starvation and couldn't stand the thought of the other two dying too.

We truly are blessed, so much that we can't even see it anymore. So why would we want to leave America instead of sticking around to help make it better?  Now if California or any of the North East want to secede I say let them, but as for me I think I want to stick it out through another 4 years of a President I don't necessarily agree with.  The people who put him there had to suffer through 8 years of my guy so how hypocritical would that be to turn and run now?

Barefoot, Pregnant and in the Kitchen....

Just look at that beautiful wife of mine standing there barefoot, pregnant, in the kitchen.  And don't be fooled, she wasn't the one cooking that cranberry sauce, she just wanted to pose next to it for some strange reason. All I ever wanted was to get a picture of my beautiful wife to share with the world, so everybody could see how much I'm suffering, I mean how much she is suffering dealing with the awful discomforts of being "on-the-verge-of-exploding pregnant".

Doesn't that gooey cranberry gelatinous blob look so yummy? If you want the recipe it's on the bag of Ocean Spray Cranberries.  1 cup sugar, 1 cup water and a bag of berries boiled for 10 minutes...pretty easy but man is it good.  And why am I making cranberry sauce 11 days before Thanksgiving you ask???? Who knows!  Call it an impulse buy that required action.  I was standing in the store thinking that I had seen some amazing recipe that involved cranberries so I bought them.  Then I couldn't find the supposed recipe anywhere and I have a bag of cranberries getting closer and closer to the day when they have to be thrown in the trashcan.  I get so tired of throwing food in the trash so...when life gives you cranberries, make cranberry sauce! I always say.

Have I mentioned lately how much I hate my electric stove?  I hate, hate, hate it! There...and now I'm better.

Tonight we took our beautiful daughter to the park.
 Look at her, isn't she just the cutest thing in the world?  Yeah, I know its blurry, but I never claimed to be a photographer.  This picture is obviously not at the park tonight.  But while we were out Britt decided she wanted pancakes, so what did I do being the good husband I am???? I made her waffles!  Yeah, yeah I know...but we had waffle mix and not pancake mix.  I even tried to find a good from scratch recipe for pancakes but even that was a bit of a bust. I unashamedly trust Pioneer Woman when it comes to anything cooked, so of course I went to her for a pancake recipe. And by "went to her" I obviously mean searched her blog. She had what sounds like an incredible pancake recipe but it calls for cake flour, a commodity which up until tonight I thought I had always on hand but we searched everywhere and couldn't find it.  So, being 9-months pregnant and hungry, Brittney punched me in the back of the head and started gnawing on the meaty portion of my neck...uh, I mean she politely suggested that I just make waffles instead.  And that's how we came to have waffles tonight!