America, The Beautiful - er somethin

Sooooo, does this seem messed up to anyone else? I got this from an AP article entitled "Black Friday shoppers out in force, but cautious."

"Even for the growing number of parents who were limiting their gift buying to just their children this year, financial troubles were forcing them to be stingy.

"I have never slept here before to save a few bucks, but with the economy so bad I thought that even a few dollars helps," said Analita Garcia of Falls Church, Va., who arrived at a local Best Buy store at 7 a.m. Thursday with 10 family members. She bought a 32-inch LCD TV for $400, slashed from $500, along with an iPod and several DVDs.

"This year a lot of people I know won't be getting Christmas presents. I have to pay the rent and bills, and I have two little ones at home to think of," Garcia added."

What The?! Poor Analita. I'm sure she wanted the 42-inch. My heart goes out to this woman struggling to get by on the scraps thrown from the tables of the rich and heartless.

Who needs diapers anyway?!

Today I put Ryan down for his nap the normal way. 15 minutes after I had left the room he was still singing, so I went in to check on him. He had taken off his socks, pants and then diaper. Yep, he was thrilled with himself (you can see by the big smile on his face).

This summer Kalli learned how to ride her bike without training wheels and Meg learned how to pedal a big bike with training wheels. We had lots of fun rides together. Last Saturday we took Mike on our favorite ride, the Lagoon trail. We packed a picnic for us and some rotten bread for the ducks. These are the days when we feel real joy. Families are so great!

So?

So there's been a lot of talk lately about Barack Obama and this historic election.

• People won't vote for him just because he's black (racist)
• People will vote for him just because he's black (equally racist)
• People say they won't vote for him just because he's black (and then vote for him in the privacy of their own booth)
• People say they will vote for him and then don't (in the privacy of their own booth) - because he's black.

Remind me again what the critical issues were in this election?

I guess I just don't "get it" - I've been fortunate enough to grow up around pretty cool people. I wasn't raised to look at someone's race as a determining factor as to what that person will be like. Bottom line - there's a lot of lazy/industrious/crazy/stupid/smart black's (african-american), white's (I prefer swedish-american), asians, latino's, etc...

I hope President (elect) Obama does a great job - and wish him all the best. Just don't raise taxes on ammo - that's all I ask.

The Big 1!

Ryan's 1 year old today! He's all growed up. Its been an amazing year with him. He went from a little bundle that was fun to just cuddle, to a curious little man that is fun to play with and then cuddle when he gets tired. But soon the cuddling will stop. And that's where it gets kind of depressing. Does he really have to grow up?

Lately he's taken an afinity to basketball, football, big screen televisions, and grunting (well, it's more like "hoo hoo" instead of, um, [insert grunting sound here]) so it's not totally depressing to see him grow up.

Although I have to say that it's nice to know that, no matter how big he gets, he's still my little man.