Happy Thanksgiving, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving!

From our family to yours  ♥

Every day through the month of November, I wrote down something that I am thankful for. Looking back, I realize I have a pretty good life, and a lot more to be thankful for than I realized.

Day 1 - I am thankful for inspiration, because without it, I couldn't be as creative as I am. Inspiration drives me to do what I love most.
Day 2 - I am thankful for my family. Friends may come and go, but blood is blood. Without my Mom and my daughter, I don't know where I'd be. They are like rocks above and below me that protect me, shelter me, and shield me.
Day 3 - I am thankful for convenience! It's so nice having the things I need without having to make it myself, like bread that is already baked and sliced, to take with ibuprofen for my toothache!
Day 4 - I am thankful for magazines. I guess I take after my Grandma by tearing out the articles I want to keep  LOL
Day 5 - I am thankful for music! I posted this about it 3 years ago. It still means the same to me, even now:

Day 6 - I'm thankful for people who are raised with RESPECT and the patience to practice it, because SOME people act like they don't even know what that is.
Day 7 - I am thankful for the drive and passion to do what you love! For me, I know I'm not the best at it, nor am I the worst, but I love singing!

Day 7 - I am thankful for the drive & passion to do what you love! For me, I know I'm not the best, nor am I the worst, but I love singing pic.twitter.com/jX8PNakTUe

— The Multi Mom (@TheMultiMom) November 7, 2016

And then here's another, because it's
my favorite song at the moment @ladygaga #millionreasons #joanne pic.twitter.com/SWjPXUvSqo

— The Multi Mom (@TheMultiMom) November 7, 2016

Day 8 - I'm thankful that these elections only happen once every four years, and I'll be glad when it's over!  #SickOfIt
Day 9 - I'm thankful for pizza. That is all.  ;-)
Day 10 - I am thankful for having air conditioning in the summer, and heat in the winter! Nice warm showers when I'm freezing cold on days like today...
Day 11 - I'm thankful to have Tricity to make me laugh, to share my feelings with, have deep discussions with, and love me unconditionally. She's my world, and the missing piece of my soul.
Day 12 - I'm thankful for culture. Different cultures inspire different styles, traditions, and foods, making the world an interesting place. Without diversity, the world is boring.
Day 13 - I'm thankful I have a home and a bed to go home to at the end of the day. Not everyone has that privilege, and I do not take it for granted.
Day 14 - I am thankful for experience. Thankful for the experience I have gained because everything you go through is a lesson learned, and I'm thankful for those in the past who found out what is safe and what is poisonous, so we already know what to avoid and what is helpful.
Day 15 - Today, I am thankful for balance, that things can only go so far down before they have to go back up. You can't have good without bad, and vice versa. Everything eventually evens out.
Day 16 - I'm thankful for my Grandma. I miss her so much with all my heart, and I'm proud to have inherited some of her quirks. I'd like to think she is proud of me and Tricity.
Day 17 - Today I'm thankful for old photographs that allow us to connect to the past and bring back the memories that happened at that moment. (I'm a picture addict! LOL)
Day 18 - I'm thankful for the REAL people out there who don't feel like they have to lead double lives to hide anything or impress anyone. People are going to judge you no matter what you do, so why lie about it? Just be true to yourself.
Day 19 - I'm thankful for when TRULY good people have good things happen for them. They are those who deserve it the most!
Day 20 - I'm thankful for what I have, and appreciate what has been given to me. Don't take a gift or a good deed for granted. People don't have to do good things for you. You are entitled to NOTHING. If they choose to be good to you, be thankful they took a moment out of their day just for YOU.
Day 21 - I'm thankful to have been raised by someone who taught me to be respectful, have an open mind, and to think of others, which are strong qualities that I have passed down to my daughter, as well. Thank you Mom, I love you.
Day 22 - I am thankful for compliments! Compliments go a LONG way, and when a customer at works assumes I'm in my 20's, it sticks with me! LOL Flattery will get you everywhere ;-) hahaha
Day 23 - I'm thankful that when I'm on the right track in life, I can tell by the good things that happen & how everything falls into place
Day 24 - I'm thankful for my life. More than you know. There's at LEAST 3 times in my life that I could have died, but I miraculously lived!
1 - I was in a car accident and we flipped 3 times
2 - I was walking and it was a hit and run at night
3 - I was robbed and beaten at work

An Attitude of Gratitude

It doesn't matter what time of year it is, or what holiday is coming up - it's always the right time to be thankful and giving in the world around us. But seeing as how Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to talk about giving, and how it's never too early to learn how to do so. (Nor is it ever too late!)

So what does it mean to be giving? It's not just donating your used items to charity. It means sharing with a purpose. Going above and beyond what is expected of you, because you WANT to. It's not just sharing your items with others, it's the sharing of experiences, and feeling better on the inside, knowing you helped make someone's day just a little bit brighter.

Why not be giving? Not only are you helping someone else out in the process, but you help yourself feel better as well, knowing you did a good deed. You may not see the effects of your efforts directly (meaning you may not see the child who receives that toy you donated to Toys For Tots) but you know that somewhere, there's a thankful parent who worried they weren't going to be able to provide a good Christmas for their kid, but you helped ease their burden. You may not see that person keeping warm in the blanket you made, but you know that somewhere your favorite hobby of knitting or crocheting has helped someone out there to stay warm this winter season.

So why is it important to teach children how to be giving from the start? Because from the moment we're born, we're always learning how do live our lives by watching the world around us. We learn by example. Your children are ALWAYS watching what you say and do. This is how they determine what is acceptable and what is not. For example, if you try a food and you think it's disgusting and you spit it out? Chances are that you're not going to be able to get that food anywhere near your kid's mouth. If you think it's gross, they'll already have it in their minds that it's as bad as poison. And if you show them how to treat the new pet cat with gentle strokes? They're going to be loving to that kitty-kitty, even if Mr. Whiskers isn't exactly thrilled about it. Acts of sharing and caring with others are no different. If you treat charity and volunteering as a foreign concept, your kids will too.

For one, it helps to show that that what we have is not who we are. I argued with this idea at first, thinking about how most of the stuff I own, I got because it represents what I'm into, things I love to do, and some items such as gifts mark special moments that happened in my life. But then what if there were a flood and all of my items got destroyed? Would I be less of who I am because my material possessions were gone? No. I'd still be me. I'd be a sad me, and I'd mourn the loss of my items (because to be honest, I am a VERY material person), and then I'd eventually have to move on, but I'd still be me, and those precious moments that were once represented by items I owned would still be as precious to me. (I know this because I've already suffered through one great loss in my lifetime before.) What you own does not define you.

Second, teaching them about giving also helps them look past boundaries. We're all human. We all have to share this world, and we all have basic needs. We need food and water, shelter, and love. Sure, we act tough and pretend that we don't need love. Love is for fools. Love is for the weak. Right? Okay, let's take a step back and look at it this way. Have you ever been in need of something that you couldn't afford it, but then had someone buy it for you or donate it to you? Or maybe just feel bad for you? People do these things out of love. Whether it's them wanting to make themselves feel better by doing something good, or because they honestly care, it was done out of love for one thing or another. As complicated as this world is, it IS simply divided into two main groups. Love and hate.

What's that, you say? Some people never had help, and never had anything handed to them like that? Well then how did they make it so far in life? Surely they had to have someone feed them and care for them when they were infants, right? It may not have been their parents, but there's always someone there who is willing to give a little love, because they know we NEED it. Love is just as essential to our lives as food and water, and shelter. These things may not always be there when we want them to be, but they are indeed things we need. Everyone. We're all human beings, and despite our differences, be it race, color, size, religion, sexual preference - we're all a whole of Mankind, and that is why giving helps children see past the boundaries.

Third, teaching kids to give also helps them to decide for themselves what's worth keeping in life and what they are able to let go of. The items they own can be here one moment and gone in the next, but acts of love and kindness, doing things for others - those are the things that stay with them their whole lives and make them who they are. They should have values, and those values should be in things that cannot be bought with money.

So now that we determined why it's good to teach your children to be thankful, let's discuss how. Giving kind words such as "thank you" or "it means so much" are just the smallest ways to express thanks. I know you may think that it's not a way of giving thanks because you're just using your manners, but do you realize how many people there don't even bother to do that much? How many people there are out there that lack manners? Some people don't bother to be polite, so using manners and having respect for others is just one day to begin.

But using good manners isn't exactly what we're talking about here. Sometimes we need to think on a grander scale, and learn to take that extra step, and give the extra effort. In our town, we often see food drives, coat drives, bake sales, toy drives, school supply collections, fundraisers, penny drives - so much more. There's always someone out there looking to take up collections for the community and for the needy, and always looking for someone to help volunteer.

Maybe offer to help out at a homeless shelter or a food pantry? Organize a drive or a fundraiser of your own. If you can't put a collection event together, maybe just make items to donate to places, like blankets for shelters, or baby hats and mittens for the hospitals. Donate food if you see a food drive. Food drives will also often collect money, in which they'll buy more food. Maybe you're older, and you can help out by donating blood, volunteering to help out at a nursing home, the hospital, or the school?

There's always a way to give, and there should never be any reason to stop you from giving. But whatever you do, make sure to include your children, because you are who they look up to, and you are the person they will learn from. If you don't have kids, maybe be a role model to kids you know. Almost everyone has nieces and nephews, or they have a friend with kids. Invest in our youth. The future is in our hands, but our future is in theirs.

I Just Made It More Complicated

Somehow, I had messed up the internet, and had spent ALL DAY trying to fix it. I was going into the computer room, and my foot caught the internet wire and yanked on the wireless box. It looked like it was still on, so I thought everything was okay, but then Tricity said her internet wasn't working, and Adam said his wasn't working. My PC is directly wired, and it was working just fine.

Somehow, the wireless stopped working on the box. I thought when I jarred it, that maybe something broke inside and now it was still putting out a wired connection but that the wireless somehow malfunctioned...

Keep in mind that I had just gotten off of work that morning, so I kept falling asleep during this whole process because I had not yet slept since coming home. I would try to look up a solution online and you know how it is when you read, right? You start getting sleepy? So I kept dozing off.

I tried shutting it off, unplugging the wires, replugging them, turning it back on... I even tried to reset the router, which meant losing all of the settings for IP configuration and such. Resetting the box didn't even help. What I didn't think about, which was the most simple solution, was that there was a tiny little nub on the back that turned the wireless on and off. Apparently when I had jarred the box, it hit that wireless button and shut it off.

So now I had the wireless back on, but I had reset all of the configurations for the router. It was a simple solution to fix the wireless, but now I had made it much more complicate than it needed to be! Luckily, I have experience with setting up a Minecraft server, so I knew how to get the information that I needed to get it back on, but it was still a pain having to redo everything.

I finally got done at 4PM, so it took me about 8 hours to figure out what was wrong and how to fix it, between falling asleep every couple of minutes. It was ridiculous! Needless to say, my day was pretty much shot and I didn't do much after that. Tricity didn't have school the next day because it was "Professional Development Day" for the teachers, so we stayed up all night catching up on Monster High videos on YouTube.

Ideas to Make the Elections Better

Let's admit it... The Presidential Election took us all by surprise. A lot of us thought Hillary was going to win, and I'm sure there were Trump supporters who assumed the same. But in the end, while it was a close call in the popular votes, he clearly won in the electoral votes.

What does this mean, though? How can she win by one category and he wins in another, yet he is declared the winner? Isn't that like saying she baked a ribbon-winning cherry pie, and he baked a ribbon-winning apple pie, but even though both of them baked pies that won, he's somehow more of a winner than her???

A lot of us aren't exactly sure how this election thing works, and I think that's part of the reason why we ended up in this situation. It's kind of like one of those situations where you order cable television service, but when the bill comes, you find out they've added registration fees, equipment fees, installation and setup fees... and then if you can't pay the bill, you have late fees, re-installation fees... There's so many underlying issues that end up making it a lot more complicated than it should be, just like with the elections

There has GOT to be an easier way to do this, right? How can we fix our election system so that who we vote for is the actual person who wins? Or what are other ideas we can come up with to make the system more simple and less twisted? Here are some suggestions.

A Third Party

For starters, a 3rd candidate would help. A lot of us aren't into this "left/right" "this or that" situation, and I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was with the "other" option. A lot of us didn't like either candidate in this election, but instead of making a choice with the two most popular candidates and choosing who they thought would be the lesser of two evils, they marked "other" and chose people like Harambre, Justin Bieber, or Selena Gomez. They pretty much threw their vote away. If that "other" option had been assigned to someone, we might be looking at a different president right now.

Ranked Voting

I think a ranked voting system would pair well with a third candidate. But even if a third candidate was not an option, ranked voting is still one of my favorite options. If we could rank our choices, it would mean we would be putting in order who we like the most, who we could tolerate if we had to, and then who we liked the least. Then maybe at least one of our top choices would be elected.

Same-Day Registration

Another choice could be same-day registration for all states. A lot of people are being told to go out and vote, but what they're NOT being told is that they have to register in advance. Apparently only about half of the United States voted this year, but I heard about so many people that wanted to vote and were turned away when they were told they hadn't registered far enough ahead of time. I wonder how much different that number would be had everyone that wanted to vote been allowed to vote? Same-day registration would make elections more accessible.

Automatic Registration

Another alternative to having to register in advance is just to not have to register at all, if eligible citizens could be automatically enrolled as voters. A lot of people wait until the last minute to do things, so if they were already registered to vote, it would ensure a much higher turnout on voting day.

Mandatory Voting

The most effective way to ensure that voters do their "patriotic duty" is by requiring them to vote, or else receive a penalization. There are so many other things that we are required to do, such as renewing our driver's licences, attend jury duty when summoned, register to own a gun, and now we're even required to have some kind of medical insurance, or else we get a penalty during tax season. Why not be required to vote as well? After all, voting is something that impacts our country on a huge scale.

Weekend Elections

Something else that might draw in the crowd on a larger scale would be weekend elections. Most of the working class works on the weekdays, freeing up their weekends to take care of anything else that needs to be done, including voting. It may be a federal occurrence, but it's an event based on the people, and should therefore suit the people's convenience, not the officials'.

A Federal "Holiday"

If the weekend isn't a good time for voting, then why not make voting day be a federal paid holiday so that everyone can be off of work to head to the polls? After all, it's not always a fast process, and waiting lines mean inconvenience, and having to set aside time, possibly losing out on income they could be earning at their job, had they not taken off work early to go vote.

Some of these may not be the best options, but I think they're pretty good choices, and they would certainly help things. Do you have any ideas to add to this? If so, leave a comment and share your opinions!

Cherry Not-So-Cheesecake

It happened unexpectedly that I came to the realization that vanilla yogurt tasted like cheesecake. It started with my daughter Tricity taking up a fondness for vanilla-flavored foods. She says it's because she had loved my snow cream recipe so much. She also happens to love yogurt, so one night at work, I noticed we had a vanilla yogurt, which she had not yet tried. I had her try it, but as I had never tried it either, I asked her if I could have a bite.

To my surprise (and delight) it wasn't that bad! To me, it had actually tasted like cheesecake filling. So then I got the bright idea to buy a graham cracker crust, get a few packages of vanilla yogurt, get a package of cream cheese, and I had a cherry topping here at home.

I warmed up only about half the package of cream cheese, mixed in a bit of sugar and 3 vanilla yogurt containers. Then I realized it was a bit too thin to make a cheesecake out of, so I went looking around for something that would help thicken it up. I found a package of instant french vanilla pudding mix, so I added a little bit at a time until it was the right thickness. Then I put on the cherry topping and popped it into the fridge to finish firming up.

It turned out pretty good! Even Adam thought it tasted okay, but of course he's one of those "if it's not really made out of the same ingredients, then it's not really the same at all, and therefore I won't have anything to do with it because different is weird" kind of grumps, so he didn't really eat any slices. But as far as a healthier knock-off version goes, I liked it! Tricity liked it too.

That's pretty much what I did with my day, besides buying a planner to get my days sorted out. Then right after I made this, I went to my Mom's house to see my nieces Jazmin and Allison ♥

I Am NOT a Natural At This

Today was Veteran's Day, so Tricity was home from school. We spent most of the day watching My Little Pony (yes, I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm a Pegasister.) Then later in the evening, she went across the street to my Mom's house to play.

While she was gone, I had an idea that I thought was great at the time. I had a couple of packs of peach oatmeal, so I thought - hey! If I just mix these with some pancake batter and add some sugar, I'll be able to whip up some peach muffins! Then I could have her come over and get some to take to my Mom! So I got to work whipping it all together and I baked them.

When they were done, I got them out and let them cool. They sure smelled good! However, the taste test proved otherwise... They tasted so bland and despite my efforts to add some sweetness, they certainly were not sweet. They basically tasted like pancakes with a slight peach aroma. They were awful. Adam wouldn't eat them, I wouldn't eat them, and when Tricity came home, she wouldn't eat them either, so I tossed them out.

So much for that experiment! I guess I'm not a magical muffin maker like I thought! hahaha Thank goodness for pre-packaged muffin mixes! LOL  I DO want to try some more experiments though, and this time I'll use recipes online. We have so many boxes of raisin bran sitting around, and I want to find a way to use it because we never eat it as actual cereal. I'm going to try some time to make muffins with it. Wish me luck! Ha!

Anyway, I went to work that night and Adam and Tricity brought back my lunch, but they looked panicked. When I asked what was wrong, he said I needed to take her to the bathroom. I asked why, and he said it was because her tooth was about to come out, and she looked terrified. Of course she was worried and protesting, but I told her not to be scared. That her actual fear of me pulling her tooth was going to be worse than me actually pulling it. I got a good grip, counted to 3, and out it came. She was like "Oh!", as if she was surprised it came out so easily. It bled a little, but she was fine after that.

They went home and she was excited to put her tooth under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy! Then I started sorting through some magazines. I do that at work now since my laptop is messed up. I'll go through the magazine, take out the articles I want, and recycle the rest (all of the advertisements and such). Then my best friend Tahnee called, so I chatted with her and our friend Kelly. It was so good talking and laughing with them again.

How My Online Habits Changed

I would have thought it was the falling out with my friend Stewie that would have caused me to stop being online as much as I used to be. We used to do a lot of gaming and we would play Minecraft for hours, but even after we stopped being friends, I was still online a lot.

I think it was a combination of the air going out and summer vacation that messed up the way I used to always be on my PC. I couldn't actually use my computer because it was about 100 degrees in the computer room since the central air unit stopped working correctly. Our landlord gave us a window unit to use, which meant we were pretty much confined to the living room. We even put a spare mattress in the living room floor, and Tricity and I slept there while Adam slept on the couch.

And even if I could have used my PC again, I wouldn't have been able to game that much because recording is hard to do when there is someone else home and they are talking. Tricity was home for summer break, and she's usually laughing at YouTube videos that she watches, or she's singing, and I certainly don't want to stop her from doing that.

Thinking back, though, I just miss being online. I miss staying current with everyone's Twitter, and I miss meeting new people. I miss my old friends too, who were with me when I first started playing PC Minecraft. Those are the ones who made it such a great experience for me. I miss seeing some of my favorite YouTubers on the servers and then freaking out about being "noticed by Senpai". I want to get back to my "roots" (so to speak) of Minecraft, and enjoy it like I used to. I just lost myself along the way during a toxic friendship, and I let others do my thinking for me and tell me where and what to play.

On the other hand, I don't want to stay glued to my computer like I used to be. I don't want to get into any other serious friendships like I was in before. I don't want to be so reliant on anyone like that again. My schedule should be my own. It shouldn't have to revolve around anyone else. If I want to clean all day and then hop on for just an hour, that should be okay, and no one should get offended by it. When I play, it should be for fun, because I WANT to. Not because someone else wants me to. I want to be around more because I miss all of the great memories I made, but I want it to be on my own terms this time.

Just Like Mom Used To Do

Today I cleaned up in the toy room. I'm trying to get the toys organized so that the kids can wreck them all over again when they come over to play during the winter season. LOL I said - just let me organize it one time and then they can go crazy up there! That, and I'm trying to get my stuff out of there and get the toys moved to one side so the studio can be fixed up on the other side.

I also have a cigar that I found when going through some old boxes. I don't smoke... but if I did, I'd probably do something like hookah or cigars. So I have this one cigar that I had gotten many years ago as a free sample in the mail, and occasionally I'll light the tip and take a few puffs. Not enough to make me sick as a dog, but enough to remind me of why I don't smoke  :-p  LOL  I don't see how people can be addicted to it... It stinks, leaves your  mouth with a bad taste, and hurts your lungs.

Anyway, what I was doing was repairing some of Tricity's Monster High toys. Draculaura's umbrella was snapped in half, Clawdeen's bed had a leg that was broke off. Ghoulia's box of brains was all mangled. Just little things that needed to be fixed... And I was making sure the dolls were clean, and I was brushing their hair. Basically dolling up the dolls ^_^

Then I got to thinking about when my Mom used to do that for me when I was little. While I was sleeping, she would get my Barbies, and she would brush their hair, put some clothes on them, often MAKING clothes for them, clean them up, and make them look so beautiful. Then I would wake up and see them sitting so perfectly in a row, looking better than new, because my Mom did it just for me. I LOVED those moments when I was little ♥ I love doing things like that for Tricity, too, now that I'm a Mom, because I remember how much it stuck with me, and how much it meant to me.

She came home and joined me upstairs, and started playing with them right away. I had also recently cleaned up her doll houses that were sitting in the basement for the longest time, so she put her Monster High doll furniture in the houses and put the dolls to sleep in their beds  LOL

Adam also got paid today since tomorrow is Veteran's Day. He still has to work, but the banks won't be open, so we got KFC for dinner, and he got me and Tricity some cherry icees from the gas station. Unfortunately, the icee machine was frozen over, so he forced the handle to work and ended up busting their machine, I think. He said it started overflowing and wouldn't stop  :-\  He got red stain all over his hands, and said "This is what happens when I try to do something nice". I said "You made us happy, didn't you? Then that should be what matters."

Sadly, I didn't realize tonight was "Family Fun Night" at school. I had put it into my phone, but instead of November 10, I had put December 10, so we didn't realize it was going on tonight until after it was too late  :-\

Election Days Make Me Sick, Too

Ha... The title is just for the LOLs because yesterday was election day, and Tricity had to stay home from school today because she was sick.

Since yesterday was Adam's birthday, Mom cooked dinner for us, and we got stuffed! So much that I think Tricity ended up getting sour stomach from eating so much, and that's what made her throw up this morning, so she's here with me today. It's so weird... When I get sour stomach (which very rarely happens), my indigestion smells like boiled eggs. When Tricity gets sour stomach, hers smells like a trash can. And when Adam gets it, he has these demonic-sounding belches, and his smell like terrible, horrible, rotten farts. I know, I know... TMI

Anyway, I stayed up all night following the election on Twitter. Even my friends from the UK were keeping up with it! LOL Not that either candidate was a good choice, but I have to admit that I'm highly disappointed with the results. I personally think we just took a huge step back in progress. We gave up the chance for the 1st female president so that a pig-headed woman-groper could be in charge. I guess it shows that women still don't matter when it matters most... That's just my thoughts. Not meaning to start any arguments with anyone LOL

The Great Election Debate

I usually don't talk politics. I'm not even registered to vote. I prefer not to have anything to do with it, I just try to live in the world I am in and abide by the rules, and enjoy what I have been given in this life. But I will say these things about it before the election tonight.

If Trump wins, we're screwed. He has bad morals, he's a hateful person, and he's a big ol' pervert.

If Hillary wins, we're screwed. So many people have Trump's small-minded ways of thinking that if a woman gets elected president? They'll probably cause an uproar and mass chaos.

Maybe they won't? Who knows? But you know what else? Maybe Hillary WILL do a good job. It's time for a woman to try being the president for once. Why not? Are women not created equal? (If not superior? hahaha JK, I don't honestly think anyone is more superior over anyone else in this world. We're ALL human.)

If she does a good job as the first female president, then great! Well done!

If she does a bad job,.. well then we know better next time, and there will probably not be another female president any time soon, huh?

And that's pretty much all I've got to say about that. ♥