Happy Birhtday Zoe

Zoe's birthday was a couple of weeks ago. She is fourteen! I can't believe she is that old already! This is the first time I don't have a picture of the cake or the kid blowing the candles out. :( I went to Arizona, my step dad, Chuck, passed away sadly. I came home the afternoon of Zoe's birthday and we had a family dinner before Brent's mom took off south for the winter. Brent and Zoe made the cake the night before and we took it to the dinner. Brent even hosted a slumber party for Zoe and a few friends the Friday before! Well, "hosted" isn't exactly the right word. He was there, in charge, while the girls were over, a first for him. We are usually at home for the birthday cake and we forgot a camera when we sang to her and didn't even do the candles. I think she still had a good day. She wanted giftcards so she could go on a shopping spree, she ended up getting a "smash book" which is a scrapbook that has all sorts of fun doodads and it gets really fat after you fill it up so you have to "smash" it together. Zoe is such a beautiful, bright girl. She amazes me with her creativity all the time. I love her!

Some pics of the present opening:

Enough Already

You don't like Obamacare, I get it. Actually, I don't, but I get not liking something. The fact is it is law and has been voted on 40 times or something like that and still passed. Tea party people don't want to compromise. They don't care if the government is shut down anyway so why bother. Too bad they don't care that people are going to hurt financially because of this. Some facebook friends think it's the workers' own fault: They never should have taken a government job in the first place! They should have lots of money set aside to cover their expenses in an emergency! As if it is always so simple to do that. Just vote on a budget and deal with your Obamacare issues later. It's unfortunate that these teapartiers won't likely be voted out because they come from very republican districts or very gerrymandered districts. (I hate that they have ruined the term tea party for me, I used to have good associations with the Boston Tea Party and three cornered hats.) Hopefully, republicans will see them for the obstructionists they are and put some good republicans (by good I mean sane and not a$$hats) in office instead soon. Hopefully there is a lot of, "I think we might have made a mistake" thinking going on. Very soon, please. 

From a reader of this Ezra Klein story:

"In May 2007, 140 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted to defund the Iraq war. In September of the same year, Congress voted to increase the debt limit. Imagine if Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats had threatened to breach the debt ceiling unless Republicans agreed to defund the war. At that time, approval of the Iraq war was polled at 33% in favor and 64% against."

This pretty much sums it up: