The Grinch Who Stole A Story

So it’s been over a month since I posted anything on my blog. It’s been a crazy month that was chock full of events worth writing about, but for some reason my brain blocked my creativity like Shaq on a kindergartner. Seriously, there were times I stared at my monitor for hours and nothing would come out.

Then one day, with my unslippered feet ice-cold on the floor,
I sat there puzzling and puzzling some more.
Like the Grinch after a Christmas morning theft,
I puzzled three hours until with one thought I was left.
I puzzled and puzzled till my puzzler was sore,
Until I thought of something I hadn’t before.
What if blogging, I thought, doesn’t come from my store,
Of endless witticisms and sarcasms galore.
What if blogging perhaps means a little bit more.

And then what happened?
Well…in Blogville they say,
My small creativity
Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute my brain didn’t feel quite so tight,
I whizzed through a blog posting with delight.
I brought back the humor, and acted like a goose
And I…
…I MYSELF…
Pilfered a story from Dr. Suess.

I hope you Blog-heads had a merry Christmas and I hope you have a happy New Year! And I thoroughly apologize to the great Dr. Suess, without whom my rump would’ve been roast goose. Ahhhh g’night folks.

A Quest for Importance

So I’ve had this idea rolling around in my head for the last couple of weeks. But it was stuck in the pre-planning phase. It was kind of like when you have a really good dream and then wake up and promptly forget what the dream was about. You can remember that it was good, you just can’t remember why. You see when I started this blog, it was a creative outlet. It also helped with maintaining memories even to the point now where I read what I wrote a month ago and begin to remember things that had already escaped me…in a month. Sheesh I used to think I had a pretty decent memory! But there was another angle I wanted to approach as well, and that was to help other guys/dads out there that may be looking for some advice or guidance on something they were dealing with. I know that sounds a bit pretentious, but I didn’t really set out to help mankind, I set out to help some poor Joe surfing the net wondering if anyone else had gone or was going through what he was. Well, that was the plan anyway. Easier said than done I suppose, but back to this idea.

It all started one night as I was finishing fixing the door from our dining room to the garage. Someone had bent the metal flashing that goes around the frame of the door so it wouldn’t close right. Upon asking who broke the door, I was informed that my arch-nemesis did it…Nobody. Nobody is a jerk and I dislike him greatly. He sneaks around my house breaking things, stealing the last of the tasty treats in the cupboard and clogging our toilets with enough toilet paper to choke an elephant. He’s dead meat if I ever lay hands on him, but I digress.

I had just fixed the door and was marveling at my handy work when I felt the overwhelming need to show off for my wife. I actually interrupted her conversation with a friend she had over and with a great flourish closed and opened the door several times. She smiled sweetly and humored me by claiming I was “the” man and that my handy man skills were unmatched by any in the land. (She said it far less poetically, I believe her exact words were less superfluous and much more sarcastic, but meant with love!) I didn’t think much of it at the time, but later I was pondering what caused that need in me to be noticed by my wife. It was weird, I fix stuff all of the time (remember that jerk Nobody) so why the sudden need for attention?

You see some guys (not all, I hate overgeneralizations) but some guys need that “atta-boy” every now and again. It’s not necessarily that we think we are doing the most important and/or difficult job in the world (I bent a piece of metal back into shape so the door would close) it’s that we want our wives to think that we are doing something important and difficult. It’s a primal feeling, but a feeling none the less. We want to show off for our mate to reminder her of all the good things about us (so hopefully she’ll forget our gastrointestinal prowess or our ability to burp the ABC’s on command.)

I can tell when I’m running low on spouse power. I’ll do things (like show-off more) and beat my proverbial chest in an effort to draw the attention of my mate. My wife is my tether to my home. She keeps me aware of all of the important things she does all day with the kids and all of the goings on with each of them. When I hear all of that, I’m not going to lie, sometimes it’s easy to lose my perspective on where I fit in within our home. With everything running so well and with the kids happy, it can be easy for me to assume that I’m not as needed in our family. It’s during these times that I will seek my wife’s respect in order to fill the need to feel like I’m important to my wife. When that need is met it bleeds over into everything I do. I work harder at my job, I play better with others and I even do more around the house. I haven’t kept a chart or anything, I have just observed this as I go about my day.
So for any women out there reading this and asking yourself how you can make your man feel more important (and not just so he’ll do more laundry) let me tell you things that make me feel important to my wife and you can experiment with your hubby and see if he is similar. For one, there is nothing that shatters the cold grip of an exasperating day than when my wife looks me in the eye and tells me how proud she is that I’m doing what I’m doing and how much she appreciates what I do for the family. It’s almost like it rips me away from the fog of the day and reminds me that I’m not at work bashing my head against a wall for nothing. There are people depending on me and on my results at work and that makes me feel important. Another way my wife makes me feel important is by bragging about me to my kiddos. When my kids understand why I’m away all day and not able to be with them like mommy and when they understand that I have to leave every week day to ensure that we have food on the table and money to buy plungers, I feel important. One other way that my wife makes me feel respected is by listening to me when I share things about my day with her.

I want to interject something here for the benefit of any ladies reading this. Your guy may not be the most forthcoming when it comes to talking about what’s going on in his life. For some of us guys, coming home and sitting on the couch for a good gab-fest is right up there with a woman getting a Brazilian wax. It’s painful for some of us to sit still and talk about things. The good news is, if your guy is like this, there’s a good chance that he is an experiential communicator. Meaning he communicates while experiencing something. For example, if you have a difficult time communicating with your guy, go do something with him that he likes to do such as a sport or a hobby. Many times guys, myself included, feel more comfortable talking about what’s going on if they have something to do while talking. It makes us feel like we are accomplishing something and you might be surprised how much more your hubby gabs while hiking or fixing up the garage. Give it a shot, go do something with your hubby that may be you did when you were dating and see if there is more communication.

Alright, thus far I’ve given the ladies a lot of instruction, but guys we have things we need to do as well. For one, a woman can’t respect someone that doesn’t respect himself. You may hate your job, your boss, your school, but in the end if you don’t respect the fact that you are putting yourself out there for your family everyday, you will be a difficult person to make feel important. I realize I said that I seek my wife’s respect yes, but not all of the time. Not as the sole source of my strength. To be honest that’s too much of a burden to place on one person. I seek my wife to bolster my level of importance at times, but you’ve got to have a baseline of self importance to build from. Second, you have to be open and honest with your wife. Just a week or two ago I wasn’t sharing some potentially game changing information about work with my wife. I didn’t want to get her worried. This backfired horribly and in fact actually ended up not only worrying her, but confusing her as to why I was acting so weird/irritable. We have to be honest guys and share the good stuff with the bad stuff otherwise you are going to make things very difficult for your wife and yourself. One last thing guys, don’t hide your mistakes. I know it can be extremely difficult to tell your spouse about your moment of stupidity, but she will respect you more if you are unafraid to admit your mistakes and learn from them.

So what do you think blog-heads, any guys out there just looking for a little respect? Or any ladies out there with a good suggestion for making your guy feel important? Don’t be shy, leave a comment!

Check out this great MSN video: Seal screams like a man

Check out this great MSN video: Seal screams like a man

Darth Vader's Nephew Chad Vader...

I'm stuck doin' Cub Scout leader training this weekend so I didn't get to blog. I figured I'd give you this little vid to make up for it ;) Have a great week blog-heads!

The Best Defense….

...is a good offense and let me tell ya I’m already attacking this old house and it’s only Thursday. Remember the $37 heating element for the oven I ordered from Sears online? It was supposed to get here tomorrow, but it made it a day early and I was able to get it installed tonight. Score one for the…home team? Anyway, here is the new element…

And here is the new element compared to the old element…

The repair was EXTREMELY easy and only involved turning off the oven’s circuit breaker, unscrewing two screws and unhooking two wires shown here…

I knew this because, when I ordered the element, the Sears webpage had a blown-up picture of the oven. You know it’s one of those pictures that you get when you buy a Lego set and it shows things taken apart with dotted lines were they attach. Those little pictures are a God-send when you are trying to not only A) order the right part but also B) figure out if you are going to need any other parts. Next I hooked up the new element to the two wires, screwed the two screws in and flipped the breaker back on and bada-bing bada-boom…

I got a glowin hot heating element ready to bake! This project turned out just about as well as any project I’ve ever done. Not really because of my great skill or good looks (although there is plenty of that to go around) just simply because it was any easy fix once I did a little online research. My wife and I were freaking out about trying to find $5-600 in our budget for a new oven but ended up only being out around $50 (after tax and shipping.) God bless Google and Sears! Now all I need to do is go find some oven-cleaner sheesh!

So how about it blog-heads, any repairs going on in your neck of the woods this weekend?

Hi…You’re not alone.

When I first set out on this Blogging thing, I obviously was (and still am) pretty clueless about what’s out there in Blogsville. So, I did some research. Actually I did A LOT of research. Over the past month I’ve read somewhere in the area of like 400 blogs. Believe me when I say, I’ve seen some crazy stuff and some not so crazy stuff and everything in between. Of course there are blogs of cute kids, zealous moms and even meat turtles, but I don’t really remember much about those. What I do remember are the three or four blogs that I couldn’t stop reading. It wasn’t because they were super entertaining and shared a common thread with my blog. It wasn’t even because of witty pictures and funny stories. I was drawn to the very real and very honest conversation about the pain the authors were/are dealing with. One in particular was from a person battling mental problems and others were from people with serious health issues or issues of just plain old being alone. They (for the most part) didn’t have many followers (1-10) and what struck me the most was the followers they did have, seemed to be a close loved one or sometimes a spouse. Yet here they were, firing blindly into the vast web with the hope that someone, any random stranger would take five minutes out of their day and offer a brief hi…you’re not alone.
As I am adjusting to this new blog thing in my life, I find that I am obsessed with numbers of page visits and followers. I check my comments often and always make sure to re-comment on other blogs. But the thing that freaks me out the most… is the fact that I’m happy. I have a beautiful wife and three kids I’d die for, a job that puts food on the table and even a couple of dogs that can be pretty cool when they’re peeing outside of our home. God has blessed me incredibly. And yet I still obsess over stats and comments…..But what if I didn’t have my family? What if I didn’t have a relationship that is constantly growing and maturing with God? Heck, what if I didn’t even have my dogs?
How much more would I look for stats and comments then?
Blogspot has a button that’s located up on the top of the page. On my blog it’s right above the “Dutiful Dad” heading. It’s called “Next Blog>>”. If you hit that button, you will be taken to a completely random blog that has no affiliations with my blog. So how about it fellow bloggers, got five minutes? I dare you to hit the Next Blog button and see what comes up. Odds are you’ll get a fluffy page with someone’s kid dressed up as a bunny. But maybe, you’ll hit the 1% of blogs out there that I’m talking about. Maybe you’ll pull up a blog from a person whose whole entire day would be rocked by someone just saying, hi…You’re not alone.

Eye of the Tiger Baby!

Well the house definitely put up a fight, but the final score for the weekend…Me 3 House 1. As it turns out the people on the Hot Water Heater box where WRONG! I didn’t need two people to install nor move the heater. Instead I employed a bear hug and much grunting and before you know it….hot water. Ok well it didn’t go quite as well as that, but I have to say, it could’ve gone A LOT worse. As it turns out, the whole project (including slurpies, parts run and puke clean-up) took about 5 hours. Yes, I realize that there is a lot that needs explaining after that last sentence. So here goes…I started the hot water heater project at about noon on Saturday. This was about four hours later than I had planned due to a nasty case of HALOitis (not to be confused with halitosis) which I contracted the night before. (I’d just like to give a special shout out to Babymaker2000, Urillegitimatechild and j dub el u for a wonderful evening.)  HOLAitis is a nasty condition that, if left untreated, can cause irritability, sleepiness, the inability to track time annnnnnnnd holes in the wall shaped like X-box controllers. The only treatment for HALOitis is the constant nagging of one who isn’t affected (usually a female but not always…. Shout out to kdpm98.) Anyway, I finally make it out to the garage to identify what exactly I have to do and right away realize that I need to go to Lowes for parts I didn’t know I needed. This didn’t really bother me too much as going to Lowes for me is like going to Toys R Us for my kids. What did bother me was I wasn’t sure what exactly I needed parts-wise, and the only way I was going to know what I needed was to rip apart the heater. This sounds simple enough, but bear in mind, when you take out a water heater you have to shut off the water and the gas to the house. Not exactly something you want to start and then discover you can’t finish right away.

Once I had a complete list of what I needed, the kids and I jumped in the car and headed to Lowes. On the way, we stopped at 7-11 to grab their favorite treat…Wicked Apple Slurpies. The clerk at 7-11 always laughs at me when we do this because I only fill up their drinks half-way.  Someday, when things are called what they really are, I will be laughing at the clerk with my half filled glass of diabetes. Seriously, those things are ice and sugar with a little bit of dye to turn your poop pink. So, slurpies in hand we hit Lowes. Now I could pontificate about Lowes for days. Literally, it’s like a time warp for me when I walk in. Five minutes in Lowes for me is like one hour in the real world. However, I’ll limit my words for Lowes in this post to say that I got the parts I needed and checked out with relative ease. I love Lowes!

We got back home and I started in on the water heater. In the mean time Abigail was complaining of not feeling well so I had her lie down on the couch and watch Diego (a show best watched from several rooms away.) Suddenly I look up and there is Abigail holding her tummy. She says her tummy hurts and then proceeds to spray apple smelling vomit all over her shoes and the floor. Fortunately, I had just turned the gas and water back on and was able to clean things up.

One note to anyone who decides to update their hot water heater….make sure that you clean out any rubber gaskets and other pieces of stuff that can clog water lines. I actually only spent 3 hours on the water heater, the rest of the time was troubleshooting the kitchen faucet and why it wouldn’t put any hot water out. In the end I took off the hot water valve under the sink and that appeared to work.

 All in all I consider this weekend a victory. I still need to replace the heating element in the stove next weekend and the light bulb in the fridge this week at some point, but I replaced the water heater, secured the washer and dryer platform in the garage (seriously it sounded like the space shuttle launch every time the washer started the spin cycle) and I even managed to fix our bed. The middle rail was broken in the middle from a previous dragon attack (see “Goin' Potty with the Paper”.) Final score for the weekend? Me: 3 House: 1. I’ll take it.

Cub Master Powers ACTIVATE...

Alright, when we started this weekend, the house was winning 3-0. I have, however begun to turn the tables. To begin with, I have to tell you about a tradition at my house. The tradition goes like this….whenever my wife goes out of town overnight, such as is the case this weekend, the first meal made is chicken enchiladas with a white sauce. My wife is the ONE person I’ve ever met that doesn’t like my chicken enchiladas so when she’s gone, you can be assured I will be stuffing down enchiladas like a rabid monkey in a banana tree. (The second meal is baked Mac-n-Cheese with a tomato sauce. Another dish that only my wife has an aversion to.) What does this have to do with my oven being broken? Well as you can guess I was in danger of not getting my enchilada fix, when all at once, my Cub Master training kicked in and I had a brilliant idea. I quickly went to the garage and found our Dutch oven that we use for camping. I then made the most glorious chicken enchilada pie and put it in the Oven which I then put on our grill and kept the heat at around 375 degrees.

 Thirty minutes later I was shoving down enchilada pie down by the spoonful (spoons allow you to get more in a bite than a fork.)

As ingenious as the dutch oven idea was, it still doesn’t get that oven fixed. This is the heating element in the bottom of our stove. As you can see rogue brownie mix dripped onto the element and caused it to arc-weld itself and break....

To fix this, I turned to the internet. I’ve been able to prolong the life of some of our appliances by finding parts online and fixing them myself. In this case I was able to go to Sears’s parts website (via Google…what did we ever do before Google?) and found a replacement heating element which will arrive on my doorstep next Friday for me to install at my leisure. Now I know that you really can’t call that a win, but I have to think it at least drops the score to a more manageable 2-0 with the house in the lead. Next step is to replace that water heater. This was on the side….

I try not to let the man keep me down. I mean how do THEY know how many people it takes to install a water heater? It’s not like they’ve done tests or even installed one of these before…..

Weekend Hat-Trick

So this weekend starts with the house firmly in the lead with a hat-trick score of 3-0. The hot water heater is leaking and needs to be replaced, the oven heating element arc welded itself dead and the fridge has a busted light bulb. (Admittedly the light bulb isn’t major, but Madison declared the fridge broken and requested a new one with an ice-maker in the front….riiiiiggghhhtttt.) Any who, much to do this weekend. I’ll try to blog the repairs, in the mean time, a little taste of my new favorite cartoon to watch with the kids….Shaun the Sheep. G’night folks….

Goin potty with the paper...

Having rolled in off of a 60-hour work week, a failed Cub Scout fundraiser and an all around cruddy week I was in dire need of some R&R. And what better way to get that than with a “Shining” inspired pillow fight?!!

The battle started as many others do. A misunderstanding here, a taunt there, suddenly there were feathers in the air and shouts of “fire the cannons!” Sporadic battles flashed up everywhere. In the kitchen, a mummy roared after terrified fighters catching them in the bedroom where the enraged mummy tossed the children to and fro, whilst tickling them till the puked. One pivotal moment in the textile war was when the children discovered that mummies are secretly terrified of small children growls and cowboy hats.

 Upon making this discovery, the children turned the tide of the battle by both deafening and terrifying their opponent. The inevitable ending was the utter demise of the terrible mummy. This photo was taken at shortlybefore the mummy met his end....

After the terrible battle, the troops were extremely hungry. Rallying in the kitchen, the troops yelled for their Quartermaster (oddly named mommy) and were promptly treated to a champion’s dinner of pizza, gogurt and fruit. At one point in the celebration, the Quartermaster determined that she thought we should all “sing-talk” everything. While the CO initially agreed, the merriment quickly devolved into infighting and riots over the last piece of pizza….all done in chorus of course. 

I'm not going to lie...we love pizza in our house...

As in all things, however, too much of a good thing can lead to bad consequences. Immediately following the battle for the last piece, Madison decided that she must retire and promptly announced she was going to go potty with the paper. And with funnies in hand, that’s just what she did. I love weekends.



SWAGGER WAGON

Pulchritude

I had a blast tonight over at the "Single Dad Laughing" blog, writing a quick rhyming poem utilizing the word Pulchritude. It's a contest and the winner gets a mystery prize. (personally I'm hoping for an stuffed Alf doll.) If you want in on the hot word action click here...http://www.danoah.com/2010/10/pulchritude-poetry-contest.html But you should know that I spent the vast majority of my high school career writing limericks of questionable nature soooo I've got some practice here. Here's what I wrote....

Not many women will go out with this dude

For he is lacking severely in pulchritude

His hair has traveled from his head to his back

His teeth are all crooked and far from on track

The fuzz of his belly

Is green and quite smelly

As he likes to dig in the codswallop of the local deli

Of sandwich based refuse his clothing remains redolent

Causing people to shriek and often foment

The dude’s efforts at washing that very moment

And at the sound of his voice the children run screaming

As the birds fly from the trees streaming

For the smell of his breath would make a dragon cry

And cause small rodents to lie down and die

Save but one runs from his stench

Nay it not be a wench

But an old hound dog with a sniffer that’s broken

Who offers a soft woof as a token

When the dude

Lacking pulchritude

Pats her softly on the head

And throws her the bread

From the codswallop of the deli

That made him so smelly

Put up or shut up...

So for the past couple of weeks I've been posting on here with reckless abandon. Relatively assured that the only people that might stumble upon my rantings are either complete strangers or my wife and a few select friends (both of whom are already aware of my personal defects and are growing used to my sometimes unhinged editorializing.) But last night I was placed in the proverbial "put up or shut up" situation. A friend who runs a successful blog with actual readers invited me to write for her blog......At first I was excited, I mean I would actually be writing for real people (not that my selected friends and wife are not real....they know me though and understand who I am.) To put it another way, I don't have anything to prove to them, they've seen the real me and for some reason or another have decided to stay. To be honest, it's kinda like the time I went to the urologist and discovered the my doctor was a her and not a him. (Although I'm not sure why it would've been THAT much more comfortable for a guy to be there for my disrobing...but I digress.) I am beginning to feel naked here and I realized that, over the years, I've fought to not allow people to see the inside of me. I'm the funny guy, the guy that people want to hang out with when they want a light evening.  But what if, after people unearth the inside guy from the funny guy exterior, people don't like the inside guy? ...................So I guess you're wondering if I'm gonna do it. Of course I am, it's an awesome honor to even be considered and quite frankly I'd be a fool to turn it away.....but I can tell that it's going to be a bit before inside guy gets as much respect in my head as funny guy. And there's only one way to do that....put up or shut up.

The Power of Labeling

I never really thought about how much my little intro paragraph would affect my writings. Really, I just thought I'd put something interesting in the little box and get on with my postings. But it grew into something that, at first, just kinda bothered me, but then outright blocked me from posting. It was such a presumptuous little paragraph. Offering hope to other dad’s who might be bogged down in the honey-do-lists of life, and then droning on and on about my day just seemed to be conceited to me. I wasn’t offering up designs of space saving shelves or tips on fixing broken hot water heaters, (you will unfortunately be hearing more about this in the very near future) I was merely pontificating about things going on in my realm. So, I changed it. The whole intro paragraph. And POOF I’m a new writer and once again have the freedom to write about…well whatever I feel like.

Awful Falafel

So I take off for lunch today, and I'm mulling over the different options. You know the three main food groups, hamburgers, tacos or pizza. Anyway I'm drivin along when I have a moment of clarity. Today is Tuesday, and Tuesday is Farmers Market day. Farmer's Markets are a freakin joygasms waiting to happen. There's food, fresh veggies and best of all...people. I love to watch people. Not in the strange guy in the corner with a trench coat kinda way, but in a sort of fly on the wall manner. I get to see five minutes of another person or persons' life and from there get to try to imagine what things must be like for that person. Take for instance the old couple I saw carrying a life time's supply of asparagus and beets. (Seriously, I'm pretty sure your urine would burn a hole through the back of the toilet if you ate that much asparagus.) Anyway, I'm munching along on my falafel pocket (more to follow on that topic shortly) and I'm watching this old guy walking with his wife. They're older, like in their 70's, and he's chewing on some treat he bought from one of the stands like a rabid squirrel. (There is something about old guys and chewing. They don't really move their jaws up and down. It's more of a circular motion that seems to grind their food rather than chew it.) Anyway, grandpa is mowing along on his treat and grandma is following along a few steps behind. (it was weird, I didn't even know they were together until he turned around and grunted at her to keep up. Oh to be old and not give a crap if you're never going to be getting any again.) Now grandma looks like she is Kathy Bates's clone from the movie Misery. Honestly, if she had walked up to me and told me she was my biggest fan I would've worn brown on my backside for the rest of the day. So squirrel master and my #1 fan are trucking along with enough asparagus to kill a small herd of sheep and I'm enjoying every moment of it chomping on my falafel. I freakin love the farmers market!

So while we're on this topic, let's pause for a second to discuss the culinary treat that is falafel. I'm not jewish, I don't really even know any jews personally, but I feel like dancing the Hora when I put falafel in my mouth. It's crunchy and moist all in one bite, and the sauce that they put on the falafel is, quite frankly, what I believe to be liquid in its most pure form. If you have never tried falafel, go to the farmers market at the todos santos shopping area in Concord on Tuesdays for lunch. There you will find a small window to heaven known to us mortals as...a falafel stand. It's right next to the crepe stand (don't.get.me.started.) and the Aids Testing table.

Yes I am aware that I just brought up a topic that really wouldn't be what one would think of as a great advertisement for my beloved market, but don't worry, I'm not even sure that they DO any testing there. The whole time I was there eating my lunch I just saw a couple of overweight women talking to a guy that had one of those bluetooth headsets that just screams, "hi I shop for electronics at 7-11!" But the table and its inhabitants are key to my final story about the farmers market. So I'm all done eating (thank the good Lord in heaven) and I'm throwing away my garbage when Hannah the Hacker comes by and crop dusts the open field of my face with her mucus induced spasms. We've all seen people like this. You know the type of person that slept through that video in health class that shows a person sneezing in slow-mo. They walk around like a germy rainbird spraying forth their sickness and plague from one unsuspecting victim to the next, all the while not understanding the protocol of sneezing and or coughing into your arm. I just want to carry around a spray bottle of my own urine and the next time one of these jerks decides to shower me with bacteria I'll spray them back and then when the inevitable WTF?! comes rolling of their tongue, I'll just roll MY eyes at their sissyness and spray them again.

So there I am feelin like a Ghosbuster fresh off a meeting with slimer and as I begin to wipe the goo from my face I turn to one of the lady's at the Aid's testing table and say (loudly enough for the hacker and all those around to hear) "You don't test for Typhoid too do you?" She just stared at me with all the intelligence of a cow chewing its cud and Hanah Hacker disappeared into the crowed spraying bacteria everywhere she goes. Joygasm, I love the farmers market.

Octoberfest

There's something about the fall that always seems to get to me. Sure winter has Christmas and all the family get together's, but fall is a more personal season. I say this having drank at least 5 beers tonight. I know that that doesn't sound like much, but for me 5 beers is a lot. Not too much, I'm not sloppy, I'm retrospective. Alcohol will do that to a person. Truly it's sorta like looking in a mirror. What you see in that mirror is directly affected by what is going on around you. Tonight I watched a film about a group of brothers that were all Jews during WWII. It wasn't a particularly awe inspiring movie. In fact it was another piece of film in which Hollywood removed any semblance of God and what He can do and made it look like, in the end, men are their own gods and don't need any help thank you very much. But I digress. The film, for me and my Sam Adams alter ego, invoked feelings of (and let it be known that I stared at the keyboard for five minutes trying to figure out how to explain what I feel) the film invoked feelings of missing something. And as I sat struggling to explain that feeling, I realized that I feel like there is something missing in my life. Like there is some mission to accomplish or some quest to complete and then the credits can roll and I can be content. It's a pretty odd feeling. I mean I look around me at the blessings God has given me and I can't help but be overwhelmed with the fact that I have ?may be? too much. And then it hit me. May be the reason I feel like I have too much is because I feel like I need to earn the blessings I have been given. Like, at some point I'll be able to finish something and say, "there you go God, even-steven! I now deserve the wonderful life I've been given with the beautiful family you've blessed me with. Show me the money!" The sad part about that feeling is there will never be a mission or a quest or a task that is big enough to call even-steven with God. So how do I overcome that missing feeling? How do I stop searching for a solution to God's grace and just accept the fact that, no matter how I've screwed things up in the past....he's still blessing me?

All Things Considered...

I had a pretty decent weekend. I ran (by "ran" I mean "walked somewhat quickly while gasping like a goldfish on the living room floor") the Tough Mudder on Saturday. All in all it wasn't a bad little course. They must have left a window open the night before however because for some reason there wasn't any freaking oxygen up there. I'm serious, I was like a fat kid with asthma the whole race. Wheezy doesn't even begin to describe the sounds I made while breathing. I can really only describe it as like a groan/whistle...a gristle. And that's what running up there was like, a big stinkin plate of gristle. But, just like John Candy (RIP) in the Great Outdoors, I ate that whole plate of gristle and came out a better man for it. I wanted to get a tattoo after the race to show that I was not only psychotic but also proud of that fact, but there were six guys in front of me and I didn't have all day. So, I instead paid a ridiculous price for a shirt and hightailed it outta there. On a side note, the after party would've been cool had I been there with friends, but since I have no friends willing to travel three hours one way to eat a plate of gristle, I bailed.

Saturday night I went over to a newly married friend's house with a couple other not so newly married couples to have dinner. It was pretty interesting to see how differently the couples treated each other. But what was REALLY interesting was the fact that the newly wed couple weren't acting all that different than the not so newly wed couples. Reality comes at you fast I suppose.

Sunday was a laid back day with the famdamily. You need these every now and again. It was one of those days where you know that there are about two billion other things you need to be doin', but only one thing you should do. Seriously, the 20 or 30 minutes I spent loungin on the couch with the kiddos Sunday morning had to have reduced my stress level by easily 50%. It was all good until A announced that it was time for her second breakfast of the morning and requested pancakes. When your youngest daughter pops her thumb out of her mouth and looks at you with her big brown eyes and asks for something with a cute little three year old lisp, you pretty much would rip the arms off a 500lb gorilla just to make her happy soooooooo pancakes it was.

We went to church Sunday morning and then laid around till about 3:30 when the kids and I finally decided it was time to build a dog house. I'm happy to say the house got built and the project cleaned up by 7PM! But that's a story for another day. All things considered, not a bad weekend at all!

Naked Cell Phone

No I'm not talking about cell phone porn, I'm talking about the fact that tonight, in my mad dash to get out the door to a father son thing at T's school, I managed to leave my cell phone behind on the dresser. My first thought when I reached down for that slightly radioactive noise box on my hip, only to discover it wasn't there, was...Oh crap now my wife is going to bag on me because she NEVER answers her phone and this will be the ONE time that she calls and I don't answer. Then I realised I was being an ass and made a mental note to not bust my wife out the next time she forgets to turn her ringer up after she leaves work. Once that myriad of emotions was dealt with it began to sink in that I was all alone in the world. I had no tether to my work, my family and (God forbid) my FACEBOOK! How was I going to know if I got poked? How was I going to poke? What if I missed a chance to throw a witty response out and garner a few "likes!!" I gradually pulled myself together and within a few minutes even managed a small chuckle at the guy in front of me scrambling to turn down his phone during the presentation. His face got all red and, since he was as bald as I am, so did his head. It makes me laugh every time I see someone forget to take care of their phone. What kind of a jerk forgets his phone...

Tough Mudder are you in shape enough?!

In an attempt to somehow regain the glory of my youth, I signed up to drive three hours (one-way), run eight miles through a military style obstacle course annnnnnnndd jump into a freezing lake on the top of a mountian. Perhaps I am merely recapturing the stupidity of youth but hey, there are free tattoos and beer to all finishers! Irregardless, I am excited about the race. It looks like a lot of fun and I think that there is only one thing that may impede my testosterone fueled age-reversal experiment....I haven't really been training. Don't get me wrong, I went and ran 8.37 miles up a hill last Saturday and made it just fine....well, it hurt a little.....ok, ok it hurt A LOT. But the point is that I did it. Unfortunately, the race will take place well above sea level. Try 6500-8500 feet above my current 50 feet above sea level. My obvious out-of-shapeness has even begun to worry my wife. She made the comment that she didn't think I was ready to go. Fifteen minutes later I lay exhausted and sweaty on the couch after having performed many feats of physical strength to prove my readiness. (That sounded way better than it should have, I should of said "fifteen minutes later I lay exhausted and sweaty on the couch because I had been thumping my chest and acting like an ass to prove my worthiness to go die on a mountain in the Sierra Nevada's.) Anywho, I'm pumped and I may not be in peak physical shape, but hey, if I waited till then I'd never go.

Hello World

Well, I suppose that I'm not the first knucklehead to sit down and decide that what I have to say is important enough that others will read it. I'm just the newest, for the moment. I wanted to start this blog for a couple of different reasons. One, I like to write. I've always enjoyed writing about things and (attempting) to be humorous about them. I suppose that the humor is subjective, but I laugh at it, and since I'm the only one reading this right now...I WIN! The second reason I wanted to start this blog is to be able to share my experiences as a dad, a Christian, a builder, a husband, an Operations Manager, a video game freak, a landscaper, a gardener etc...I'm hoping that my experiences might help a noob dad or may be even an experienced dad get through something more quickly and more easily leaving more time for relaxing with the family. This ought to be fun...