Category: Marriage

Discussions about marriage in America.

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Life in these United States Marriage

Marriage and child-rearing…tricks of the trade part 1

I’m not sure when my ‘clean’ gene kicked in, but I know it was sometime in my late teens. I suspect it had something to do with the cleanliness with which our house was kept as I was growing up, coupled with the fact that, as a child, I didn’t have much “stuff.” I didn’t have action figures, or Hot Wheels cars lying around. No, everything I had could easily be hidden under the bed, in the closet, or in the hideously 70s green colored toy box my dad made for me. Even when I was single, I was never afraid to have a girl over to my condo because it was always immaculate, even with my dog there.

But the funny thing is, my organization only goes so far as the exterior. Once something is in a box, or in a drawer, it can be as disorganized as it wants and I’m generally OK with it.

Out of sight…out of mind

If you were to walk through our house either at night after the kids go to bed, or after the kids go to school in the mornings, you would hardly know we have kids. CareerMom and I do our best to keep things picked up and hidden. We do such a good job compared to CareerMom’s siblings in fact, that my MIL is always remarking about how clean our house is.

Don’t get me wrong, we clean a lot, but the trick my friend, is in storage.

Let me show you some of our many storage areas:

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The Bombay Company cedar-lined toy(?) box 		Holidays and Birthdays 08-09 080
The really really tall, dark-wood entertainment center we bought in our old house…that really doesn’t work with a large flat-screen TV
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Living room bookcase on the left…

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…and…Living room bookcase on the right

Let it also be said that there MUST be at least one “tosser” in the marriage. And I use the word “tosser” in the American vernacular to mean, “Someone who throws things out,” as compared to the English tosser which generally means, “wanker.” And if you need further explanation as to the origins of the word “wanker,” well then, I’m just gonna send you here.

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States Marriage Society

Go ahead, take away my Man Card

image Men have codes. We have a LOT of codes. And the funny thing is, for a gender that has, historically at least, been maligned as little more than sex-starved warmongers, most of our codes involve things like chivalry and bravery and good stuff like that.

But, if I’m being honest, we do have codes about sex and war, so there is some fact at the bottom of all that history.

At night, I have a routine. Once the kids are in bed, I get myself cleaned up, check my e-mail and then I usually retire to bed with CareerMom where we lie in bed and watch TV (unless we have other things on our minds). Most of the time, CareerMom is good about letting me watch what I want to watch because, unless we’re engaged in witty banter, she’s usually asleep within 30 minutes anyway. So the few times that she does actually want to watch something, I give in.

And that’s how I started watching “The Bachelor” this season.

Yeah, I know, I know. Don’t start with me guys!

To be honest, there are things about this show that redeem themselves, such as the 25 beautiful women walking around all dolled up for the first few episodes. But, as time goes on, and the Bachelor sends them home one by one, the eye candy dwindles and you’re left watching some young stud try and woo these women using all of his charms.

Now one of the codes we men have revolves around how we married guys rally behind our single brethren. At the risk of sounding like a pig, it’s a bit of a “living vicariously through another” thing. Sure, I may be happily married, but that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate watching a master at work. Heck, I bet even Bob Ross would have appreciated watching, oh I don’t know…what’s that “Painter of Light” guy’s name?

Anyway, I’ve been mentally giving this year’s Bachelor a “You go BOY!” as he cut the list of ladies down to these last three; but last night, I must say I lost all respect for the guy. Even followers of “The Code” have a line and that line involves marriage. When you get down to the nitty gritty and you start talking marriage, then I think you have to stop and re-evaluate your actions and perhaps adopt the “other code” that we married men follow.

The Married Man’s Code:

My wife is my best friend. Her trust I shall not betray. Daily, I am tempted, but my promise is stronger than any temptation. I can look, discreetly, but I shall not touch. I respect my wife and I will not disrespect either her, or her memory, in the presence of others.

There’s more to it, but we sort of make it up as we go.

But this Bachelor guy, he’s a piece of work. Now granted, so much of this show is manufactured that it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s not. But what IS obvious, is that this guy is a couple of dates away from asking a girl to marry him, and he’s spending the night, in the same room, with three different women. Even I can’t get behind that.

But I think what clinched it for me last night was when the second woman asked him the question: “Your house is on fire. What one thing would you grab as you ran out the door.”

I’ll pause here and ask you this question. What would you grab? Well, I’ll tell you that the first thing that came to my mind was, “my son.”

What did our Bachelor say? “My Air Jordan tennis shoes” or something like that.

I’m sorry, did you just say that you’d grab your shoes over your child? And this is after making a huge deal about family and how important they are. And while I’m bustin’ on this guy, here’s my other complaints:

  • Do you own anything other than a dark sweater and jeans? These ladies are dressed to the hilt for you and you have on your Levis.
  • OK, so you have a BA in Psychology. Still, quit staring at the girls like they are bugs. It makes them nervous and then they just start gabbing and saying stupid stuff, which you should know.

I can only imagine how the parents of these girls feel as they watch this guy, who their daughter is in love with, close the blinds on his love-nest with another women. Sheesh.

There is another code I’ve yet to mention and it goes something like this:

“R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Find out what it means to me….”

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States Marriage

A simple sample of trickle-down-economics

image I don’t post many political blogs. This is mainly because I know that many of my readers don’t adhere to the same political views that I do, and I don’t want to piss off the few readers I do have. But with tax time hitting and everyone trying to decide whether to do something fun with their refund, or whether to just save it, I thought I’d give a little lesson on Reaganomics–specifically “Trickle Down Economics,” which the Democrats have poo-pooed to death with this stimulus plan.

Reaganomics, in this instance anyway, is the idea that tax cuts that benefit everyone the same, actually benefit the middle class and poor the most. Now true, if you make a million dollars a year, and you save 2% on your taxes, then you’re actually getting back a heckuva lot more than someone who makes $50K per year. But let me use my own example to show how it’s not this cut and dried.

CareerMom and I do pretty well; as my family (not you “TT” or “BP”) is always quick to point out in a passive aggressive sort of way (“Wow, if I made the money you do…”). It drives me nuts because most of them also live in Timbuktu, by choice. So, while they don’t make much money, their cost of living is very low as well, so it doesn’t cost them as much. But while we do well, we still have a lot of bills, and thus, our spending cash is probably nearly the same as a family living on half what we do.

Sound odd? Let me explain.

When you make a certain amount of money, there are only a few ways in which you can keep it out of the government’s hands:

  1. Contribute the crap outta your salary into a 401K plan. The downside is, that’s cash out of your pocket every paycheck, that you won’t see for 40 years.
  2. Buy a nice house and pay the crap outta a mortgage. The downside is that, while you get to write off all that interest, it’s again, money out of your pocket every month. Plus, the utilities are HUGE!
  3. Donating to charity. The downside, again, more money out of your pocket. Sure, you get a nice “feel good” but that doesn’t pay the grocery bill!
  4. Have lots of kids. The downside is…really? I think we all know what these are.

If you’re obscenely well off, there are more ways, but these are the basic ways most people you know can save money.

I mention all of this to point out that when CareerMom and I do get a little chunk of cash back, while we’re not having to use the money to pay off the credit card that we had to use for vehicle repairs, we’re also not so flush with cash that we can just run right off to Hawaii (in fact, the only “Island” vacations we’ve been on, were to St. Thomas because CareerMom won it along with a bunch of work people, and once to the Bahamas at a very inexpensive all-inclusive–something I would NOT do again OR recommend).

With the economy where it is, it’s making even those of us with a little extra cash laying around, reconsider what to do with it. For example, with MLS (My Little Surprise) on its way, we’ll be losing our guest room. Now, we have a very large, unfinished basement, but even to convert one room and a bathroom down there will cost about 15K. Using some creative financing and with me doing a LOT of the work, we could do it, but we’re not sure we want to spend the money right now because that would completely sap us dry. So, that’s 15K NOT going into the economy.

On a much smaller scale: I was working outside the other day and a guy, who was apparently doing some pressure washing on the neighbor’s house, came over and tried to pitch me on having mine done. He was insistent that he could do it “extremely” cheaply, but I still couldn’t let myself spend that coupla hundred dollars on something that we didn’t really NEED.

So, even the small jobs aren’t getting done, and the guys who could really use the money, aren’t getting it. Having illustrated this, I’d love for the guys in Washington to show me how giving the “middle class” an extra $500-$1000 is the same as cutting everyone a tax break, which would then potentially loosen the wallets of people like us and in turn provide even more cash into the economy.

Building roads isn’t going to make me feel better about spending money. Getting GM back to work building more cars with even more gov’t requirements and standards isn’t going to make me spend any more money. And building the CDC a new, “Green” office building here in Atlanta isn’t doing a darn thing for my psyche.

No sir, there’s only one thing that will make me feel better about spending–having more to spend. Also, from me to you…a Tax Tip: If you do your taxes via TurboTax or TaxCut, don’t let them deduct the e-filing fee from your refund. On top of the regular charge, they also tack on an additional “Handling” charge. For TurboTax, it’s another $29.95 for doing nothing more than transferring money from one account to another. No, just pay for it up front with a check, or your debit card and save yourself some green!

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Dad Blogs Family Life in these United States Marriage

Too busy to care?

Can you feel it? And didn’t it happen right around the turn of the year?

Aren’t we all just a LOT busier? My Lord, even with the “The Pregnancy,” I hardly have time to cook a meal, much less ponder meaningful and reader-worthy posts.

My only consolation here is that everyone else seems to be suffering from the same malaise and so I don’t feel so bad about not commenting as much as I used to. I applaud those of you who are sticking with it however. You complete me!

HA!

In all seriousness though, part of this post is that old exercise in college, “Just start writing something…anything…” but so far it’s not working. Oh, I could go on and on gabbing about nothing in particular, but is that really a good use of your time? Don’t you have like, laundry to do or something? Chickens to feed maybe?

Oh, so CareerMom had week 13’s “High Risk” pregnancy work up and all initial signs point to thumbs up. So that’s good. I have one of the ultrasound pics pinned to my cube wall. I’m not sure why. Is it to remind myself why I work? Is it to hopefully help get me all excited through the overflowing bubbliness that is sure to ensue when some of the ladies around the office stop by to “oooh” and “aaah” over it.

Who am I kidding, nobody drops by my cubicle.

Also, no signs of either a female, or male sexual organ, so we’re going to have to endure a few more, “Oh, maybe this time you’ll have a little girl” comments like I got from my cousin on Sunday. I might have been a tad rude in my response that simply said (and remember, this is a person I speak to like twice a year), “After two miscarriages, we’ll just be happy with a healthy baby.”

So sue me…I was grumpy.

Let’s see, oh yeah. The airline tickets are really cheap up to “Trisha Truly’s” neck of the woods (she’s my Bio-Mom), so I might fly up to see her in March. But that’s only if I can convince her that this rock-hard, manly body of mine CAN NOT and WILL NOT subsist on Metafast and clover that she picked from her own field.

Well here’s to hoping that whatever is keeping you busy, at least feels good!