In April Margie and my Dad said that they would give us a chest freezer for my birthday. It was impossible to buy one in April due to the fact people had purchased them like crazy all over the USA in February and March due to COVID-19. In July I placed an order with Lowe's. Most stores were still not accepting any orders, but Lowe's had a few that could be ordered online. Originally, they said it would be delivered in October, but not long after I placed the order they moved the delivery date to November 3. They called today to confirm that they are actually planning to deliver the freezer tomorrow morning! This means we'll be able to keep our meat in our own basement instead of at Millie's bakery, which is 80 minutes from our house. I'm looking forward to having a place to store food when I find a good sale and want to stock up on something that is perishable.
I don't win any prizes for being an artsy/craftsy mom, but the boys did have fun with some model magic yesterday morning before we went to church. We discussed All Saint's Day and Day of the Dead this weekend as we're learning about holidays around the world this year. In honor of Mexico's Day of the Dead, we had pan de Muertos (bread) last week, made sugar skulls yesterday afternoon, and ate churros today. We talked about Grandma and Uncle Maurice when making the skulls as that is the point of the holiday - to remember relatives who have passed away. This summer I ordered a deep fryer. I had never owned or used one before, but I saw some of the international recipes I was planning to try included frying. I contemplated buying an air fryer (certainly would be healthier) but ended up buying a deep fryer after reading many reviews. I used it for the first time today when making the churros. Between making the churros, Norwegian waffles, sausage, scrambled eggs, and also some rigatoni noodles as Paul doesn't eat waffles, I spent a little more than two hours cooking dinner plus cleaning up the dishes. Whew. Normally when I make waffles, I just use a buttermilk pancake mix. I have made waffles from scratch before when making something special such as pumpkin waffles. Nadia takes after Paul and isn't a fan of pancakes. French toast, or waffles. She will eat them (whereas he totally avoids them), but she prefers to eat leftovers if possible. The boys and I agreed that the Norwegian waffles were tastier than our usual ones; I think I'll make these again but not necessarily every time I make waffles. I definitely will not make churros very often, but Nadia said she might ask me to make them for her birthday. Yesterday I made chicken gyros, a Kenyan banana dish, and a Vietnamese sweet potato recipe. I'm taking it easy tomorrow in terms of food preparation and picking up pizza from a restaurant in our town! The kids really liked the pita bread, but they weren't fans of the dressing that was used in the gyro. I don't think I'll ever make gyros again, but at least they all know what a gyro tastes like now. It was also Paul's first time eating a gyro. There were peanuts on the sweet potatoes and bananas. Nadia and Oliver picked all the peanuts off. Paul didn't try the bananas or sweet potatoes. Ian and Nadia ate a tiny bit of sweet potatoes only because I required them to do so. Oliver and I LOVE sweet potatoes. Paul and Ian love peanuts, but if the others are going to pick them all off I think I'll add peanuts to the list of ingredients I will try to avoid when cooking. Speaking of Kenya, one of the five kids we sponsor lives in Kenya. We just received new pictures of Morgan (see above). He's the youngest child that we are currently sponsoring. Isn't he adorable? We've been praying fervently that the kids we sponsor and their families will not contract COVID-19.
Our getting a freezer tomorrow might be a big deal to us, but it is trivial compared to the election tomorrow. Every year I always look forward to when the election will be behind us. I never like seeing all the political signs up all over the place, even if those signs are for the candidate I am going to vote for. It also means an end to all the junk mail related to the election, and this year it means an end to the incessant text messages I've gotten regarding voting. I never like being in suspense. Sometimes I would get annoyed with how I let myself get too emotionally involved in a football game, for example. The first year I was old enough to vote, it was an off year election. I was twenty years old when I voted in a Presidential election for the first time in 1992. I can't recall whom I voted for in 2000. If I voted for Bush, that is the only time the Presidential candidate I voted for in a general election won. I didn't vote for Bush in 2004. I voted for a third party candidate, which is also what I did in 2016. Although I didn't vote for Trump four years ago, I am voting for him tomorrow. Do I think he's the ideal candidate? Absolutely not. None of us are perfect, but some of our character flaws are more noticeable than others. I wince at times over the things Trump says or tweets. I had very, very low expectations for him after I found out he won the election four years ago. I have been pleasantly surprised by the majority of his actions, and actions are more important than words (albeit it would be heavenly if he could better control his tongue). I have opinions on a wide range of political issues - the environment, taxes, gun control, the size of the deficit, etc., but I think if I had to boil it down to the TWO most important issues to me, they would be #1 is the candidate pro-life and #2 are they going to try to grow the size of the government? My ideal candidate would work to SHRINK the size of the government, but I doubt that will ever happen. I want government to preserve our liberties - freedom of speech, press, religion, right to bear arms, etc., and otherwise I'd like them to create as few regulations as possible. For example, in one place in the US they recently enacted a regulation that grocery stores must display fruits/vegetables in the checkout lines (not candy). Seriously?!? I can't see our founding fathers thinking that is the role of government.
Because I have always voted pro-life, that means if I am voting for someone from one of the two major parties, I'm going to end up voting Republican almost all the time. There was one time when I did vote for a Democrat because he was pro-life and the Republican running against him was pro-choice. Four years ago I was certain that Pence was pro-life, but I wasn't sure if Trump was actually pro-life. Now I am convinced that he is pro-life. His most recent Supreme Court nomination greatly impressed me. If I asked my kids who is one of the worst people ever, I am quite certain they would say Hitler. Hitler was obviously a very evil man - responsible for the death of at least 6 million Jews. However, our "Ally" - Stalin, was responsible for the deaths of between 20-60 million, and the Cultural Revolution in China (Mao) was responsible for the deaths of 20-30 million. Hitler doesn't seem like he'd win the prize for "the worst" if those numbers are accurate. But what about the USA? I think most people view slavery as our worst crime. Slavery was and is very, very awful. 10-12 million slaves were brought to our country. I wish that wasn't a part of our history. I wish that women didn't have to wait so long to be given the right to vote. I wish that blacks weren't treated so terribly (especially in the south) for almost 100 years after the Civil War ended. The list could go on. People aren't perfect, and if you study the history of any country or civilization, you are going to read about atrocities. As awful as slavery was/is, murdering babies is even worse to me. In less than 50 years more than 62 million babies have been killed in our country, which even tops the high estimate for Stalin. People recognize that what is inside an eagle's egg is a baby eagle because there are serious penalties for interfering with an eagle's egg, but some say that if a baby is inside a woman's body, that baby has zero rights. In fact some (ex. the Governor of Virginia) say if the abortion is botched and the baby is born alive, they still don't consider it infanticide to just let the baby starve to death. So we shall see if I actually vote for a Presidential candidate who wins an election for possibly the first time in my life. The bottom line is that God is in control no matter who lives in the White House or which party has the majority in the Senate. Hopefully our country doesn't become a socialistic country. A look at the history of various countries over the past 80 years shows what a train wreck socialism is - Venezuela being one of the most recent casualties. It's easy to feel anxiety over the election and the direction our country might be heading, but I keep reminding myself that God is our sovereign El Elyon.
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