A juggling technophile shares personal stories, challenges, humor and perhaps some political commentary.
I highly recommend my web host. The way it reports statistics in the user control panel is a little weak. I have full access to the server logs and could process them through Webtrends for detailed reporting but it should be easier. I have been procrastinating on installing PhpMyVisites for my wife. Little procrastinations hang over your head and become huge burdens. I finally have a nice statistics report package in place for my wife to monitor her sites!
Can you meet The August Challenge?
I have walked some rocky paths but I wouldn’t change a single step of my journey because I love where I am. I am happy with the choices I have made in my life.
Cathy says, "It’s not the destination. It’s the journey." And I am so happy to have her on this journey with me.Can you meet The August Challenge?
Marriage is just plain fun! I fearlove my wife! She makes me laugh.
Cathy started off her August Challenge the right way because family makes us happy!
Today I am happy I overcame a huge programming obsticle and am back to better productivity. I hope my client meets the August Challenge too!
Can you meet The August Challenge?
I went upstairs and couldn’t believe my eyes. Mixed in with the toys scattered across the living room floor was a, um, er, a marital aid
Coming close to a recreation of a scene from Parenthood
Asking, "What would Alan Shore do?" I reacted calmly, slipping the tool into my pocket, making eye contact with the wife, and calling Sarah to babysit for 3 minutes.
Now honey, your neck massager needs to be put somewhere different. And feel free to read all kinds of double entendre into that.
Wedding at the gorillas tonight. Scouts having to tiptoe by ultra quietly.
Update: It was actually at the bears and the reception was at the tent in Kids Cove. Thanks to their music, we were able to rock around the clock while learning about condors. I can think of 1000 other places I would want to get married other than the zoo. I’m quite pleased with Guns N Garters in Gatlinburg! Note that the picture (larger view) shows Baskin N Robbins which is a great place for a small, intimate reception.
Bear video and another bear video (both of these are from the following day).
I knew she valuable and, I love her dearly, but this is just out of budget!
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A full-time stay-at-home mother would earn $134,121 a year if paid for all her work, an amount similar to a top U.S. ad executive, a marketing director or a judge, according to a study released Wednesday.
Now, conceivably you would think we could save money by having her work outside the home but noooooo!
A mother who works outside the home would earn an extra $85,876 annually on top of her actual wages for the work she does at home, according to the study by Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts Salary.com.
Mom’s can go to this website to calculate their pay and get a paycheck printed. I wonder if I can get a $134,121 tax deduction?
Mom: Asks Tommy to decide between two things.
Tommy: Growls
Mom: Further prompts for a decision.
Tommy: Remains silent.
Dad, slightly melodically: "Tommy, if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice."
Dad: Chuckles under his breath.
Parenting is fun, particularly when the children haven’t got a clue.
Dad: "How were your TCAPs?"
Sarah: "Boring!"
Dad: "I know they were boring. How did you do?"
Sarah: "I don’t know. They don’t tell us."
Dad: "How do you feel like you did? Good. Bad. Questions were hard. Made you think."
Sarah: "I don’t know"
Dad: WWASD
Mom: "Noah, can Granny and Granddaddy come to your graduation?"
Noah, confused: "Did they come to graduation?"
Mom: "Can they come to graduation?"
Noah, still confused: "We haven’t had graduation yet."
Mom: "CAN!"
Noah: *blink* *blink*
Dad: "Noah. _Can_ Granny and Granddaddy come to graduation?"
Noah: "I don’t know if they can."
Dad, shouting: "Do you want them to come?!"
Dad, regrouping: WWASD WWASD…
So Amy, Evan and Cathy are heading to the zoo to visit with Aunt Carmen, Gabriel and Abby. This will be Evan’s first trip and Amy is bouncing off the walls. I am dying to go! This afternoon/evening we have Sarah needing to be picked up from afterschool activities, Noah needing to be dropped off then picked up from Karate, and Cathy has a meeting at the same time as the Juggling Club. If I attend the Juggling Club I can enlist another juggler to help me at this year’s CMHW Zoo event (Saturday, April 29 from 10am-2pm – I perform from 12-1).
These choices give me ulcers. Had I woken when I wanted I could have accomplished enough work to feel justified in taking some time at the zoo today but I didn’t. I don’t want to make Cathy skip her meeting but the juggling is good therapy and I’ve wanted a 2nd juggler to attend the CHMW event for years. I’m going to skip the zoo, work hard today, and juggle tonight.
There is one deodorant that I cannot use. Anything by Right Guard breaks me out in a rash. Pretty much anything else is ok.
My wife and I had this discussion the other night. I ran out of deodorant two days ago. "What kind can you not use?" "Right Guard" "Isn’t that the one I always buy you?" "Yes, their marketing must be very good. Right Guard breaks me out in a rash for three days. Do not buy Right Guard." "Ok. Got it. Right Guard is evil." "That’s correct. I cannot use Right Guard but you always buy me Right Guard anyway." "What kind do you like?" "Gillette works well for me. But you can get me anything as long as it is not Right Guard." "Ok. Got it. Gillette, not Right Guard."
Today in my drawer in the bathroom — Right Guard.
Back in January Kristy wrote that she’d like to see more blended families discuss the step part.
Being a step-parent is hard work. The dynamics of the family change almost daily. Dealing with step-parents, biological parents, kids related in all different combinations of blood and marriage… It is difficult. … I know of a few blended families that I read online … but … I don’t read a lot about the ’step’ part.
Like many of Philip’s posts, I thought Kristy’s an inspiration for writing material. Here it is the end of March and little to no references on Reality Me to step-parenting.
Writing about the step part is difficult for me because I don’t view the children as step children despite being their stepfather. I do not want others to think of my children as stepchildren and, despite the awkwardness, I even allow other people to address me with the wrong last name on occasion. We de-emphasize "step." I think it has come up in discussion with either Noah or Sarah once and we pointed out that Amy and Evan are their brother and sister, and technically, if a qualifier was necessary, they are halfsiblings not stepsiblings.
stepwife- The wife of one’s father and not one’s natural mother.
Beyond that technicality, dealing with the absentee parent in a blended family is difficult. One of our challenges is the lies told by biodad. His version of the events that led to the divorce are far different than Mom’s version. Sarah yesterday declared, "I don’t know who to believe." Biodad is a habitual liar. He is so good at it that I am certain he believes his own lies. It is not fair to the children to tell them conflicting stories. All they need to know is that Biodad and Mom could no longer be together. I’ve directly confronted him on this issue but either he disregards it or needs a reminder. The children do not deserve to have to deal with the stress caused by lies.
Are you having problems with Blogger? This error should give a clue.
450 Write error: No space left on device
Why have they allowed a harddrive to remain full for a week instead of fixing the problem? Simply put, Blogger does not have customer service and does not care about its customers. I highly recommend WordPress over Blogger. I will happily help anyone move from Blogger to WordPress. Cathy has moved.
I stole an hour this afternoon and Amy, Evan, Cathy and I took Molly out to the dog park. Molly was very excited and relatively well behaved. Some other dogs were running free and I let Molly off leash. This was the first time she realized she could go in the pond. The other dogs did and she tried to figure out how to simply get a drink but then put a paw in, then two paws, then all the way (it’s shallow at the top of the waterfall), then plop! she laid down. The entire time she is biting at the water as if she hoped to pick it up. She walked in circles chomping the whole time and then started jumping and splashing and jumping and splashing. It was riotous!
While there I was pleased to be complimented by a dog judge and therapy dog trainer for my handling of Molly. She even asked if Molly did shows!
