I really like watching Miss Spider’s Sunny Patch Kids (see also 2004).
Category: Family
Happenings in a 5 child, 2 adult household.
Independent Consulting On Your Time
Ah! The grass is always greener on the other side. If you are in the corporate world, you dream of working for yourself either as a consultant or having your own business. As a consultant or business owner, you long for the simplicity of an 8-5 job with its predictable income, insurance, and assumed stability. The dream of escaping corporate drudgery to freelance is often envisioned with copious free time, barrels of money, setting your own schedule, recovering vacations lost to corporate deadlines, quality time spent with the children, and cutting the yard while advising your client via cellphone for an outrageous hourly fee. The truth of the matter is that a consultant/freeagent has to plan for 20% more time than a regular employee. Yes, that means working for yourself you should plan for a 6 day work week OR 5 ten and half hour work days.
Attitudes change also. The corporate world might have some flexibility in hours. Some people may work 7-4 while others work 10-6 but the world generally expects the business to be open 8-5. When you work for yourself, the world generally expects you to be open 24/7. The world is also shrinking. Right now I am working on a project for a client who is 6 hours ahead of me. That means their day is over one hour from now and if I want that critical progress payment I have one hour to show them the milestone has been met. A couple of weeks ago, I was working with a client 11 hours ahead of me. I also had a client whose corporate offices were 8 hours behind me while their US offices where 3 hours behind me but I received the work through another office which was 1 hour behind me. If you do not set your business hours then it is easy to be sucked into world time and you can easily find yourself trying to be that 24/7 person (ie. exhausted). As a 24/7 person, if you work from your house, you could find clients coming to your door to interrupt dinner, find you in your pajamas, or sunbathing naked in the backyard. Set hours! Most importantly, respect the hours and keep them. If you declare an 8-5 day, you had better be working 8-5. Setting communication hours for IM, email, and phone will also help your productivity (I don’t follow any of these suggestions).
Now, time to defy the laws of physics and make an impossible amount of progress in the next hour. Thank goodness for the television babysitter!
From the mouths of babes
Amy, 5 years old: "I don’t want to die. Dead is forever."
Bad Dad
Amy needs some attention right now and all I can give her is "Daddy has to work." I should work while everyone else sleeps.
PG-13 means dick jokes
Thank you Bindlestiff Family Circus for making me have to explain "deep throating" to my teenagers.
Me: "Do you know what deep throating is?"Teenager: "Yes. It’s when you swallow something partly then spit it up."
Me, thinking: *close*
I enjoyed their stark stares of dread as they tried to melt into the upholstery during my explanation. They needed an explanation because it was clear they didn’t understand when they made a dozen deep throat jokes in front of the grandfather between the theater and the parking garage. Of course, I really appreciate the detail at which you explained the proper use of a condom. I have been trying to figure out how to have that conversation with them and now I don’t need to.
Thank you for the interesting date for the first half of the show. I certainly would have enjoyed sitting with Cathy but I suppose this is called a variety show for a reason.
Your show was innovative and right in line with the style I like to attempt in my performances although I’m more G rated. Thank you for keeping the spirit of Vaudeville alive. I had a blast! Of course, Danny would probably like to know that a highlight of the show was having the very Republican father-in-law sit motionless as the theater erupted into its most raucous cheering and applause in response to the very pointed GW Bush jokes.
That’s my girl!
From the mouths of babes
Evan discovers the leprosy on my hands and declares: "EEEEeeeew!"
Of Being Dad
What’s that noise? *splash* *splash* *splash* Sounds wet. Oh! I spin around to see Evan, having finished his cereal, patting his hand in the bowl. He looks at me with shifty eyes, "more."
From the mouths of babes
Evan, 2 years old: "AOOooooh NooOOooo!"
To Kelly
Here Kelly. You want attention? Ok you got the attention of the handful of Reality Me readers. I don’t know what you’ve done to screwup Blogger commenting but its a good one!
So, did you ever go see the school counselor? You know, the one your tuition pays for. The one that you can see anonymously without your parents, the Internet, friends, foes, teaches, and future employers will never know you’ve seen.
Counseling is part of how we get along in life. Some find counsel in a scout master, their priest, their brothers, an elderly man in the park, a bartender, a teacher, and professionals. There is nothing wrong with seeing a professional counselor and it may very well change your outlook on life.
Do you want to fix things or do you want things to magically fix themselves? Answer that question for yourself as honestly as possible. Then come see me.
"The urge to quit will be greatest just before success." -Chinese proverb
My Rock Star
I just took a little one on one time with Noah to teach him the notes on a guitar, the strings, and how to tune. We used a keyboard to drive home the explanation for when to skip a fret and when not to skip a fret for the correct note. He was a good study. In the end, he put the guitar down because he didn’t want it out of tune when he took it to the grandparent’s house to play with Uncle Danny! That Unc is really important to these children!
It’s good to answer the phone. Sword Swallowing!
I have this mixed luck. I get some of the most horrendous, ill-timed, apparent "bad" luck. But it is all perspective. Yes, the power went out last night and forced me to experience a 4 hour delay; however, I got some much needed sleep and was of clearer mind for it. I do believe strongly in karma as well as outlook.
An Irishman was out walking and stepped in some dog poo. He declared, "look at my great fortune! I could have been wearing my good shoes!"
Two weeks ago I asked if we could go to the Bindlestiff Family Circus. JackFM 95.7 put up a contest which I entered and they drew my name! This is exciting on a variety of levels. One, I rarely win anything. Two, the family gets to do something unique and entertaining! Three, I love the Bijou. I even appear in a fund raising video around the time the future of the Bijou was in question. Four, Sword Swalling and JUGGLING! Thank you JackFM!
Because, we know when something is up!
Yes! That’s it! Exactly!
Old People are so Schtooopid
Apparently my children really do not understand what I do. As I looked over my son’s recent changes to his blog, he took it upon himself to explain, "The 3s are backwards Es, the @ is an A and the 5s are Ss." I wonder if I should tell him about blue boxing and phreaking.
Happy 4th of July
Yesterday we celebrated America. Yes, we celebrate the 4th of July on the 3rd of July each year as West Park Baptist Church puts on their Celebrate America fireworks display. Each year I juggle for the crowd. This year the church could not contact me because Cingular/AT&T has my (865) 382-3080 number not working correctly. So they went searching the Internet for me. Hmmm. I am who I am but I also post creative writing and humor on the Internet that I would probably be more candid about in person. Always takes me back a bit when someone says, "I saw your blog." I always feel like responding, "Cool. Do you still like me?" Guess I need to re-read why I blog.
This year I was fortunate enough to have 2 other jugglers join me. They are exceptionally skilled and we were able to jump right into passing clubs including passing around volunteers despite having not juggled together for the better part of a year! They have such potential! I would really enjoy juggling with them on a regular basis and pushing the limits of our skills. Of course, life gets in the way but we still have these great moments.
The children had a blast on the inflatable toys. I enjoyed the juggling but still feel like I didn’t give the other jugglers enough lime light. Fire was tossed! Tommy was in charge of Molly the girl magnet. Molly did not enjoy the fireworks but got through them. Noah and Phillip found similarly aged friends and enjoyed having free run of the festival. Everyone had a blast! Pun intended.
