Simple Thoughts...

So I was at work today, and it was particularly slow, and this is what came to mind. Please take the time to read this:


Right, Left. Red, Blue. Yes, No. Wrong, Right. Why must there only be two? Why can’t I go any direction I want, what if I want purple, what about maybe, what about me. This upcoming election season I am faced, truly, with two options, Republican, or Democrat. Two, from the surface, very different sides of an argument. A black and a white, if you will, with no grey in between. I am forced to choose between these two sides, someone who will lead my country, and define how I live, and save, and work. I have to cast my vote, fill in a bubble, and choose one of these two. Two options that I don’t fully back, two options that both have good points, but also have flaws, things I don’t believe in. Two choices that, ultimately, I cannot choose. But they are my only options, right? As I open my ballot this year, and I read over the Presidential options I see only two options to vote, don’t I? Wrong, I have ten-plus men and women who are all vying for my pen to fill in their bubble. Who these people are, I’m not certain; What they believe in individually, I really don’t know, nor do I really care. But what they stand for, collectively, what the idea of having such a choice means; that is what I care about, that is why I am here, That is what can change the entire world in which we live in, and that is what I intend to explore, an idea.
We all know the stories, people left their homeland in search of religious freedom, in the pursuit of riches, or to just get away. Through the centuries, a country was formed, a land, based on the ideals of freedom, the liberation of choice, and the thrill of being able to do whatever we wanted. This freedom, this great gift that our forefathers granted us has been squandered. Where we can have the freedom of choice, we have shackled ourselves to mundane, repeated, despised tasks. Forcing ourselves to examine two presidential candidates, and choosing the “Lesser of Two Evils.” Why do we have to vote for evil? Now I am not saying that these two options are inherently evil, I don’t even want these two parties to disperse. What I am saying is that these two views hardly cover the views and opinions of an entire country. Thus, if the candidate you select doesn’t line up with your core values as a person, then you are, ultimately voting against yourself.
Grab a piece of paper, Think about the government, think about the law, think about how your country interacts with other countries. Now, I want you to write down the ten most important things you care about, and how you believe they should be handled; your ten strongest opinions on the nation. I challenge you to find ten, no five, other people that have written down, word-for-word, exactly what you put down. I’d bet you the commission on this paper that you can’t fill that request, without a little fudging. If we can’t find five, out of millions to agree, how can we expect, honestly, for half of them to side with one candidate and truly, deeply, feel happy about that.
With that extreme example out of the way, we can of course find people who believe fairly close to what we do, where we match on ideals, have the same basic stance of foreign policy, and also stand with us on many other national issues.But even if we do that, I guarantee that we would find ourselves in more than two groups standing opposite each other. We would mingle, move in and out of groups, depending on the specific concern at hand. That’s the beauty of having a free mind, we can freely think, we can hold firm on one resolution, but perhaps be persuaded to think differently on another.
That is part of what these other candidates on my ballot represent. Freedom. I challenge you again, to take that piece of paper, with your top ten, and compare it to the candidate you’re planning on voting for. Do they all match up? If so, great! If not, which is most likely the case, examine for me, the parts that don’t match up, are these areas important to you? Of course they are, you wrote them down. Why are you sacrificing your core values, parts of your very being, for a choice that only strips away more of your once great freedom?
These candidates, the names on a piece of paper that you’ve probably never even heard of before, they embody another core aspect of the first Americans. Hope.  These people must know that they have no real chance of winning, that the general media is going to ignore them, that they cannot possibly raise the money needed to campaign against the unfathomably rich in the two party system. Yet their names are still on that ballot, yet they still care about their Nation enough to fight against the mainstream, to demand that this country be given a fair chance at succeeding. They hold a hope, and a resolve greater than many. They hope that Americans will do the right thing, they hope that we will give our freedoms a chance. Hope drives them to put a nation before themselves, hope pushes them to challenge the greatest odds any have ever faced, and hope keeps them alive as a trickle of people choose to stand up and listen to their hearts and minds. They say that the greatest emotion is love, and I say the strongest is hope. Hope can change all things, hope can stand the test of time, and as long as hope is left to burn, it can rise up against every challenge. These men and women, they foster hope, when all else is lost in the two party choice, hope yet remains in a third party. Someone who lines up with your core values, someone who stands for you and what you fight for, some is waiting for your vote, someone needs your vote, someone deserves your vote, and it probably isn’t who you think it is.
By voting for someone that only lines up partially with your core values, by choosing one of two options when you really are a third option, you are lying to yourself, you are lying to your peers, and you are lying to the world around you. You are dismissing your freedom, and are abandoning hope. You owe it, owe it to yourself, to look at these other names on the list, to do a quick search on these people, to see if any might actually line up with you better, then to really dig into who they are, to see if they deserve your vote over your initial choice. It may feel like you are throwing your vote away, but I tell you, if enough of us throw our vote away, if as many people who read this vote for the man or woman who they would be proud to stand with, then we would not be throwing away votes. Nay, we would have the most exciting, and most fulfilling election season you could possibly imagine.
This is no small choice here, this is The President of the United States of America, one of the most powerful people in the world, and your vote gives them that power. Make sure you like who you choose to sit behind that desk.

Slow cookers, soup, and sickness

So I said I wasn't doing anything exciting this week in our cooking. And for the most part that was fairly true, had some dijon salmon, but I've cooked that before, so no surprises there... the big hit for me was the slowcooker Chicken and Rice.

It started off fairly normal, a few cups of chopped mushrooms, a large onion, roughly chopped, some paprika, chicken thighs (with bone, but skinned), broth and a can of cream of chicken soup. cooked it on low for about 4 hours, then added some pre-cooked brown rice (from earlier in the day), kicked it up to high, and cooked it another hour.

Turned out fairly well, decent flavor, I was happy with it.. at the end we had 2 thighs left and bunch of the fixins with it, and Elizabeth suggested something genius, let's make soup!

So the next day I pulled the chicken meat off the bone, chopped it up, and threw it all into a pot, including the two bones. I added an equal part water, a teaspoon of salt, basil, sage and rosemary, and one bay leaf.
I brought it all to a boil, then dropped the temp, covered, and let it simmer for a solid 2 hours. Made an absolutely fabulous chicken/mushroom/rice soup! Will be having that all week at lunch, methinks.

This Weekend went by pretty quickly, I spent Saturday fixing up the car and reading more in my A+ manual, and Sunday poor Elizabeth got herself a bug and was sick all day and night... :( and I read a couple more chapters in the book. Unfortunately folks, I will have to rescind my former vow to complete the book before the end of this month, and reapply it to the end of the year.

Life... (And a movie review!)

Sorry about the two week delay here in posting... it would seem that life got in the way.

This weekend was my wonderful wife's 24th birthday! We had waffles in bed, a surprise party for lunch, and a night out at the Chocolate Cafe, a fantastic little hole-in-the-wall up in Fort Collins that specializes in all sorts of food and drink themed around chocolate. Sunday we were able to spend the day with some great friends, Josh and Andrea, and went to go see the new Liam Neeson flick: Taken 2.

(This is the part of the blog where you find out that I very much enjoy going to the theaters and have an opinion on everything I see (Generally positive, and not exceptionally objective) for a much better review source, I would visit my good friend Rob Lacy over at Snark Week. No really, go read his reviews, now.)

I whole heartily recommend that you do not see this movie. it was fairly boring and predictable, with some very cliché moments. The movie went by so fast you don't realize it's actually over until the credits roll, in a very disappointing 'was that really it,' way; not the 'it was so good I lost track of time,' way. Most sequels have a tendency to fall short of the originals, but this one falls very far from it, succeeding only because of the greatness of the first, drawing poor suckers like us to spend our hard earned money on 91 minutes of sadness.

As to my previous goals set in here, I am still eating less and exercising more, Elizabeth says she can see a difference, although I still don't feel it, but I shan't lose hope, I'm going to lose this weight. The Bible study has been off to a rough start, in fact it still hasn't quite gotten started yet, but we're scheduled for this Thursday for some delicious beer, great fellowship, and most importantly, studying the Word of God. If any guys want to join, it's at my pace, 6:30 this Thursday, call or text for more info.

As for grub, I've not cooked anything terribly exciting the past week or so, and we've got a couple new slow-cooker recipes on tap for this week, as well as some salmon... I think I'm going to try and do some sort of breaded oven bake with the fish, not sure yet.

Anywho, there's the life update, I'll be back!

-Joshua Anderson