Rambling all the way to nowhere....

I know. That title's been used by other people. But there's just no other title that would fit as well as that one.

There must be something I'm missing about crock pots. People sing their praises and talk about how wonderful they are and how easy they are and all kinds of inspiring talk to make me pull mine out a couple times a year. But in all honesty, I don't like crock pots....and while pulling mine out yesterday, I realized that for some strange reason I have 3. Three crock pots. I have no idea how that happened and cannot think of even one situation that I might need even 2 crock pots.

And the recipes...they all taste the same to me. The chicken, the beef, the vegetables...all the same. And I don't really like it. We walked in the house yesterday evening after the crock pot had been working on dinner most of the afternoon, and the kids immediately scrunched up their noses and asked what the smell was. I hated to tell them it was dinner. Thankfully they had already been filled up full of Cocoa Pebbles at my parents house, so they weren't terribly interested in white chili. Actually, it was one of the better recipes I've ever used. But it doesn't matter how good the recipe is, the crock pot is also a pain in the neck to clean which takes away any "Oh, it's so easy" feelings from me.

On to other news, we ordered some stockings the day after Thanksgiving. I've been wanting to buy them for years, but this was the first year that we actually had the money in the budget to do it. While we were ordering, we explained that Marc-Adam's name was spelled M-A-R-C "HYPHEN" A-D-A-M. When we got the stocking, it was Marc'adam. Apostrophe. So we called back and to tell them it was wrong and to see what they would do about it. The lady said, "Well, ma'am, this is hyphen." No. It's an apostrophe. As in "can't" and "it's" and "Alli's". She said, "OH, you're right! I'm looking right at it! It's been years since I've heard someone use the word 'hyphen'". Wha....? Whatever. Can we have a new one? So, they're sending us a corrected one free of charge. Which is why, among other reasons, we love JCPenney's.

One more thing in this post o' random....I know some people think it's entirely too early, and some people are already sick and tired of hearing about it, but I want to encourage you to start looking into a presidential candidate you can get behind. I'd love to tell you to get behind the guy (and yes, it's a guy) I'm behind, but I won't. Yet. I just want to encourage you to at least start listening and researching. It's more important than ever to know what these people are saying, doing and planning. And even though it's a little less than a year away, please plan on voting. I'm afraid that the votes will be too close for people to have the luxury to say that their one vote won't matter.

And now I'm off the soapbox....but as November '08 draws nearer, I'll be talking more about this.