Friday, November 28, 2008

Happy Gobble Gobble!!!

What a great Thanksgiving we had! We had so much food! Let's see, we had turkey, sweet potato au gratin, yucca, arroz morro, stuffing, pumpkin pie, cappuccino spiced cookies, apple pie, cake, and ice cream. That was only for dinner. We started off the day with little hot dogs in pastry puffs, taquitos, and pizza. Needless to say, you had to roll us out of Dan's aunt's house. We truly had a great time.

You know me, on days like these I go crazy baking and cooking. The turkey was curtesy of me. Every year, I'm the designated turkey maker. I don't mind either. I know I'm patting myself on the back for this, but my turkey rocks. How could it not? I wrap it in bacon. This year, I wanted to make some different stuff. So I made sweet potato au gratin. This was by far, my favorite dish of the night. Deadly to my hips, but oh sooooo good. I'm making another batch this weekend. The sweet potatoes just melted in your mouth. The next thing I made was pumpkin pie. It was such an easy recipe, but it was also so delicious. I'll be making this quite often (after a week of serious dieting). The last thing I made, which isn't new were the cappuccino spiced cookies. I made them last year for Christmas and heard that everyone still remembered them and wanted them again. I obliged. They're so damn good.

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy your four day weekend for those of you lucky enough to have off. I'll leave you with this great picture of Will enjoying pumpkin pie.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Why? Why? Why?

This story breaks my heart (Child left alone in tub dies). This little girl was only 14 months old. That's how old Will is. Just the other day while I was giving him a bath, he was trying to climb out of his tub. He wasn't in the mood for a bath and stood up crying while a bathed him (something he never does). Imagine I would have a walked away? He would have climbed out of the tub and probably fallen and hurt himself badly.

I'm not sure if this woman is overwhelmed. Maybe she has too much on her plate. She has two other boys and was cooking dinner at the time of the bath. Trust me dinner could wait and so can a bath. I don't bathe Will everyday because he gets eczema behind his knees and bathing him more regularly would aggravate his condition more. I wouldn't bathe him during cooking time and I would never, never leave him alone.

This woman has to deal with the fact that she killed her daughter over something that could have been avoided. We always try to do too many things at once and it's just not worth it. Please don't leave your child unattended.

Thursday, November 06, 2008

Emotions Riding High

What can I say about Barack Obama being elected president? A million things. I cannot begin to tell you how overwhelmed I felt when I heard CNN call it. I sat there speechless. Actually, I said "Holy crap Dan, they just called it." Amazing. I stayed up to watch McCain's concession speech, which I thought was very well put. If he would have sounded like this throughout his entire campaign and hadn't picked Palin, his chances of becoming president would have been greater. The outcome probably would have been different. I was very disappointed in how the crowd was booing, but that's a result of the negative campaigning McCain/Palin ran.

I stayed up to watch Obama's speech. Mind you, I woke up at 4:30 am to vote and he didn't begin his speech until midnight. You could imagine how delirious I was at that point being awake for 20 hours and knowing that I had to wake up at 5:30 am. Anyway, back to the speech. I saw people crying, laughing, cheering, and shocked in that crowd he was standing in front of. Jesse Jackson was standing there crying. I'm not a big fan of his, but watching him moved me. I couldn't stop crying either. Obama's speech was perfect.

I have to tell you a little story about where I voted. The place I voted at is one of the grammar schools I attended. I went to this school for half of 1st grade through part of 3rd grade. Back when I went to school there, hispanic kids were definitely the minority. Not so much now because the area I live in is probably 90% hispanic. I wasn't treated horrible, but there are few instances that stick to my head.

One of my teachers would always call me stupid and slow. If this was because of my ethnicity, I'm not sure. Needless to say, this teacher wasn't nice. I was put in a speech class for my "S." You know we hispanics tend to pronounce our S very hard. This teacher would make us read on our own. I was always done first. I read very fast. I could read very fast in English or in Spanish. Apparently, the teacher didn't believe so. She would call me a liar and make me reread and reread until the other kids in the class were done. I sometimes would sit there and cry while reading the same story four to five times.

Last but not least, I was put in a low reading group. Why? Well, I guess because my S was thick and I obviously couldn't read. God forbid anyone would ever ask me to read out loud. I hated that school. So when my parents decided to move to another town, I was happy. Guess what happened at the new school? I never had to take a speech class (I guess my S was fine) and a week after being in the low reading group, I was placed in the high reading group for the duration of my elementary years in that school. A WEEK!! Imagine that?

I can only tell you that when I walked into that school at 6:15 am I was beaming ear to ear. The irony of stepping into this school twenty-five years later to vote for an African American to be our president is beyond me. It's priceless. Listen, I'm sure this school is great now and those horrible teachers aren't there anymore or if they are they've changed their ways. I also don't hold grudges. These lessons I learned early on in my young life have shaped me in ways I never expected. What I hope that comes from this historic time that my son won't have to face discrimination like I or anybody else has. Being called a spic or made fun of because of my strange name or told that I'm lucky for being hispanic because I get to go to college for free (yah, I'm still paying my student loans) or countless of other things I've been told, won't be told to my son. It's been a long time coming.