Tag: Dad Blog

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your kids’ friends

gender bath Tonight, MLI has his first non-familial sleep-over at someone else’s house. It’s with a girl–the same one whose mom keeps asking us to do things. After saying “No” to Disney and numerous other requests, the child’s mom cornered CareerMom at daycare and asked that he come over tonight for a sleep-over.

What’s a CareerMom to do?

Well, one thing she did was tell the girl’s mom that she didn’t want them bathing together.

*crickets*

*more crickets*

When she told me this, it struck me as a bit of a silly thing to say when asked if your child can have a sleep-over. Of all the things to be worried about the first time your four year old stays at a relative stranger’s house (who is a divorcee with an ex-husband of questionable character), worrying about the kids seeing each other’s thingies seems a tad bizarre.

I don’t know, but are four year olds that “aware”? Granted, I started digging girls at a pretty young age, but not THAT young.

What do you think? At what age did you stop bathing your opposite-gendered children together?

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Dad Blogs DIY Family Life in these United States

Adventures in pipe replacement – part deux!

georgia My plumber arrived on time yesterday morning, apparently from Georgia (formerly part of the Soviet Union, not the state in which I live), and commenced working. However, based on a previous conversation I had with his office, I was under the impression that he would be using a pipe replacement technique in which they slide the new pipe inside the old pipe and then pull it all the way through, splitting the old pipe in the process. The idea here is that you can run a new line without ever having to fire up a trencher.

That was not to be the case.

By noon, I had a very circuitously trenched path from my water shut-off valve, down the hill, around my grass, through where some of my prized bushes were placed, under my sidewalk, and then through yet more bushes (flame creeper azaleas).

When I saw the path of death and destruction, I nearly cried. Me, a grown man.

The fellow doing the work, in broken English, explained why the “split and replace method” didn’t work and why he had to trench, and then I explained how he’d just destroyed about $300 worth of plants, not including the $600 Seiryu Japanese Maple that he laid his boring pipe against and rubbed off a 1.5″ strip of bark, right before WINTER!!!!

I was pretty upset.

By 4:30 p.m., he had the pipe in the ground and was just letting the PVC set before turning the water on and I began the arduous task of getting my plants back in the ground. Unfortunately, he put the pipe right under three of them, which meant, despite his having buried the pipe 13″, I still had to raise the mounds up where I put the plants just so I could cover the existing roots.

I fumed. I “huffed.” I made very annoyed screeching sounds when I talked. It was not my finest moment, but this was like having someone come into your house and write all over your walls with pink magic marker and then having the paint store tell you that they don’t sell your particular color anymore!

In the end, he helped me put everything back and I watered it in as best I could. I surveyed the damage again this morning and it looks like most of my big stuff will make it, though I lost an entire section of Creeping Jenny and probably two Flame Creeper Azaleas.

Here’s a before and after:

IMG_2347 IMG_2353

It’s hard to tell the difference here, but there is one. If nothing else, the difference is in my psyche!

But we have water now. I washed dishes, I cleaned, I wiped things down, I FLUSHED! (repeatedly). It’s a great feeling. Honestly, I don’t know what people did before modern plumbing. I really don’t!

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood Life in these United States Marriage Society

Monday’s Collection O’ Goodness

georgia football After about two months of posts, I usually end up with a bunch of little blog-ellas that aren’t really worthy of their own, entire blog. So here’s this month’s Blog-ellas. May they bring you much peace and happiness.

  • When you hear about frown lines and laugh lines and worry lines, you think, “Eh, it’s all part of getting old. There’s nothing I can do about that.” But nobody ever said anything about “pillow lines.” Yes, I have a wrinkle now from sleeping on one side all the time. It’s where my chubby cheek folds up against my honker (my nose Romi, My NOSE!) as I lay on my pillow.
  • We played one of the Veggie Tales movies for the kids on the way to church this weekend and now I have the song, “Oh, I need to tell you sumthin’….I don’t got a belly button‘” song running through my head (and I keep laughing about it!)
  • My football team, Alabama, completely rolled over #3 Georgia this weekend…and then almost blew it in the 4th quarter. But we held on and that makes it all good, for an ENTIRE YEAR!
  • I told you about my little cigar hobby. I am a rank amateur…there, I said it. But, I do know that a humidor doesn’t really work if you don’t put any solution on the little spongy thing, so I dropped by a cigar shop on Sunday to pick some up. How do I explain it? Have you ever been politely told that you’re an idiot without the words “Idiot” ever actually being uttered? Well, that’s how I felt when I left. I think I need to find a different cigar shop to give my money to…that or either purchase everything online. Thank the Lord for the Internet. It’s an introvert’s best friend!
  • Here in Atlanta, we have a severe gas shortage. I spent 1.5 hours in line waiting for gas this weekend and as I drove to work this morning, I must have passed five stations with lines down the street. I’d like to address Congress and tell them to forget bailing out the morons who mismanaged all their financial assets and instead bail out Exxon! I’m pretty sure that in 35 years when I retire, my savings will have recovered, but I need GAS NOW!
  • My sister is getting married on November 1. For many and various reasons, I am not attending, and I feel horrible about it. I went to my other sister’s wedding, which perhaps makes it even worse. CareerMom has a weeklong trip the week leading up to the wedding and she’d literally have to get off one plane and get on another for us to make it in time. Also, we’d have to miss Halloween and though normally I couldn’t care less about that, but this year MLI is really excited about it. He’s to the age now where he can appreciate candy…and does.

I think that’ll do it. But the week is young. We’ll see what other exciting new things pop up!

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Dad Blogs DIY Family Marriage

What? You don’t like the dogs playing cards picture?

color wheel As much as I like to pretend that I don’t care what other people think, the truth is that I do. But not so much because I want their approval as much as I like the validation for my ideas. Is that different? I can’t tell, but I think so.

For a guy, I like to think that I have a pretty good eye for decorating and color. When I was single, I got lots of compliments from…um…people visiting my condo; I can match clothes when CareerMom and I go out (what few times we do), and I can even be trusted to pick up household knick-knacks on my own without CareerMom having to return them in the dead of night to keep from hurting my feelings.

Wait…

No…

It’s Ok…after some self-introspection, I’ve reconfirmed that I’m hetero!

Anyway, we’re in the process of updating our house as I’ve blogged a few times. This includes new paint, some new appliances, lighting, etc. Now, barring winning the lottery, I’m making these updates as I can afford them, which means I can replace approximately 1.2 fixtures per paycheck, or 1 appliance every 6 months (washer and dryer count as two appliances) without having to serve beans and rice to the kids for a week of dinners.

We’ve come to a point though where now that I’ve re-painted, some of the window treatments that were leftovers from the old owners, no longer “fit” the decor. Some of these windows are oddly shaped, in strange places, or have some characteristic that makes your typical “drapes with a swag” an unattractive proposition.

CareerMom’s sister hired an “interior decorator” to come in and create a design for her house and CareerMom wanted to do the same for ours. I did something similar with our landscaping. I had a guy create a plan that I could implement on my own as my finances afforded, and that’s worked out well, so I agreed with CareerMom that it sounded like a good idea. I was afraid of the cost, but the lady she’s using works for a local decorating and fabric store and so she works for one flat price–not the by-the-hour charge many of them use.

I happened to be working from home the morning the designer dropped by and CareerMom took the morning off so she could shadow the designer as she wandered around the house. For about an hour and a half, the “designer” mumbled to herself while walking around measuring walls and windows, making the occasional comment about this or that.

So now that she’s come in and mentally critiqued our house, she will go create a plan. I’m a tad fuzzy on her deliverables (and her credentials frankly), but CareerMom didn’t question it and I’m no dummy, so I’m keeping my mouth shut.

To her credit thus far, she did make a couple of good suggestions for our dining room, which I at first thought were ridiculous, but after having lived with them for a few days, have decided that I rather like, so I’m open to her other ideas. But the one thing she did comment on while she was here that got my hackles up, was as she walked into the kitchen and said, making that little pinched look with her lips and forehead, “Hmm, the older shiny brass fixtures and newer stainless appliances are throwing me off!”

I held my tongue, in part because I agreed, but mostly because I didn’t want to upset CareerMom since this was “her thing.” But I really wanted to ask “design-lady” how many of her clients can afford to come into a “new to them” house and wholesale remodel in one fell swoop!?

Sure we only have one stainless appliance right now and the rest are black, but that’s only because the old black dishwasher broke and I had to replace it and wanted to move towards stainless. And yeah, the hood on the stove is shiny brass, but to update it, you have to buy a whole new hood and one like that, with a different finish is about $1,000! And I’m sorry that the perfectly operational sink fixture is shiny gold instead of a nice brushed bronze, but they ain’t cheap!

SO LAY OFF LADY!

That’s what I was thinkin’ anyway. In actuality, I just nodded along and bit my tongue.

But as she left, she did say one thing that I agreed with, “You seem to be into comfortable rather than glitzy, so my design will reflect that.”

It’s true; neither naked Greek statues nor ostentatious grandfather clocks will probably ever grace my foyer, but daggum, when I sit down at night to watch “The Office,” I’m comfortable, and frankly, that’s all that matters! (did you see Jim propose to Pam?)