Tag: Roswell

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Dad Blogs Fatherhood Life in these United States

Today’s Bible Lesson Brought to Us by…

Ecclesiastes 7: 15-18

7:15 All things have I seen in the days of my vanity: there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness, and there is a wicked man that prolongeth his life in his wickedness.
7:16 Be not righteous over much, neither make thyself over wise; why should though destroy thyself?
7:17 Be not over much wicked, neither be thou foolish; why shouldest thou die before thy time?
7:18 It is good that thou shouldest take hold of this; yea also from this withdraw not thine hand: for he that feareth God shall come forth of them all.

Having grown up in church, I pride myself on having at least a working knowledge of the Bible. So imagine my intrigue when I read the above scriptures the other day that when paraphrased in the New Living Bible, basically said, “I’ve seen good people die young, and wicked people live to a ripe old age. So don’t be too good or too bad because if you love God, he’s going to take care of you either way.”

Wow! Now doesn’t that just fly in the face of “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because your are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Revelation 3:15-16 NRSV Bible)

This is what drives me nuts about the Bible, and about churches. They take one scripture and translate it literally, and then they take another and try to translate it into a metaphor that they live by. Either the Bible is literal or it isn’t.

At any rate, I’ve decided that this is how I live my life–not too good, and not too bad. If I were to put my life on a balance, I hope that I far outweigh to the Good side, but who knows?

However, lately I might be adding to my Bad balance because I’ve been sneaking out at night watering my yard and bushes even though there is a complete watering ban in my county during the week. I get it that we all share the water and if I take more than my share, others suffer, but Dangit! I just spent $2K on new bushes and such and I’ll be darned if I’m gonna let them die. Plus, if my grass dies, my home owner’s association says I have to immediately fix it. And then what? Put new grass down, water it with a 30-day permit, which might take me through middle-August, and then it dies again because I can’t water it but one day a week.

Ya know…just sue me…cuz I’m gonna water my yard. I just hope God doesn’t hold it against me.

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Dad Blogs DIY Family

You Know You’re Getting Old When…

We bought the house we now live in late last year and when I first toured the house with the Realtor (I’m not sure she’s an actual REALTOR) one of the first things I did was look at the backyard. After walking out on the deck and peering over its edge onto a backyard that had a severe slope that started right after the deck supports and ended up about 12 feet down the hill, I immediately said, “No way!”

But after looking at a dozen more houses and finding nothing comparable for the price, I did what we all do when we REALLY want something, but when there are valid reasons for not getting it…I rationalized.

I rationalized that I could plant grass and shrubs on it and it would be beautiful. I rationalized that I could build steps down the side leading to the flat area down by the creek. And indeed, all these things have come to pass (well, I wouldn’t call it “beautiful” at this point just yet).

However, having had to weed-eat this hill (since it’s far too steep for a mower), while trying to keep from sliding down the hill at every step, I finally decided maybe it was time to re-think my idea. And again…I rationalized, except this time I started thinking about this hill and my caring for it when I’m in my 50s. It went something like this:

“Do I really want to be trying to cut this grass without breaking my neck when my body is 15 years older and more beat up than it is now? Will I be able to afford some kid to come do it for me? What if they don’t do a good job? What if he hurts himself while trying to cut it and he sues me?

So, I finally decided that, while I could leave the shrubs and small trees, perhaps I should just lay down a thick carpet of pine straw and be done with it. And so, I headed to my local Mega-Home Upkeep Mart and bought 12 bales of pinestraw.

It didn’t even cover a 1/3 of it. And have you ever tried to walk on pinestraw? It’s very slippery, especially on a 15 degree slope. There’s apparently some trick to laying down pinestraw on a hill and as far as I can tell, it’s basically that you put the bale on your left, grab some in your hand and throw it on your right. Forget trying to do it uphill/downhill. As I found out, you’ll only sliiiide down the hill every time.

So now I’m considering having someone drop me off another 30 bales and finishing the job. They wanted about $5.50 per bale (spread) for someone else to do it and I can buy just the bales for $3.49 at the Mega-Home Upkeep Mart, so that’s a good bit o’ savings. My only question now is how I’ll refresh it every year. I won’t be able to climb all over the hill to lay a new layer like I did this time. I might just have to stand at the top and toss it down. I’m sure the coverage would be excellent (NOT!).

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Dad Blogs Family Fatherhood

Why We Have Children

In the last three years, I’ve often pondered how we as a species, continue to populate the planet. Parenting is not easy and statistics show that affluent families are having fewer children, or waiting to have them much later than their parents did, while lower income families (often single parent ones) are having the same numbers or more children as in the past, and at a relatively early age.

When you consider the cost of raising children, one wonders how we do it. Those who can conceivably afford to get help, have elected to forego children. As I often do, I again come back to blame the dual income family. This lack of children among the affluent almost always coincides with a dual income household. The really interesting thing is that I can watch this little mystery unfold in my very home.

My wife comes from a very large family of 7 children. Dad always worked and mom was always there for the kids. My wife always felt that she wanted lots of children; in fact we used to have mini-arguments about how many we would have. I wanted 2, she 4. Nearly eight years into our marriage and two boys later, my wife recently turned to me and declared, “If I say I want more children, shoot me.”

My my…curiouser and curiouser.

The question is then, “What changed?” Had my wife never become successful in her career, would she be happy as a stay at home mom? As it is, weekends wear us out watching just two kids, much less staying home and watching them for a whole week. I find it interesting that this whole “nurture” thing we’ve grown up expecting women to feel towards their children is all but a thing of the past.

The point being, that raising children is not easy. We thought we dodged the “terrible twos” bullet with our older son, only to have it rear it’s ugly head in his “threes.” And now of course having a newborn in the house, old questions as to “why” and “how” this whole children thing continues its popularity plagues my soul as I’m sitting in the Dutallier rocking my grunting son at 2:30 in the morning.

There’s an old saying of mine: “You can do a million things right and never get any credit, but you do one thing wrong and people never forget you for it.”

With children, I think the opposite is true: “Your children can act like the spawn of satan for a solid week, but when they get up in the morning, come over to you and give you a genuine hug–you know, one of those that they don’t immediately pull away from–you realize that it was all worth it.

Don’t get me wrong, I still only want two children, but it is in times like this that I realize how and why our species will survive. We thrive on love and acceptance, and children offer these without asking anything in return except our own love.
I get it now. It took two kids and months and months of sleepless hell, but I get it now.

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Dad Blogs Life in these United States

I’m sorry, I can’t understand what you’re saying with my hand in your mouth…

Consider the toothbrush.

Have you noticed how it has evolved in the last decade? It wasn’t too long ago that you had three choices, outside of the color, in your toothbrush selection: soft, medium and hard (bristles). Then, the most difficult decision was whether or not buying a purple toothbrush would be seen as a “gay” thing to do if you were a guy.

But today…well, today there are literally dozens of choices in toothbrushes. There’s ones with little rubber nubbies to clean your gums, there are some with the bristles in neat little circular patterns, presumably to appear more like an electric toothbrush. You have sonic toothbrushes that clean your mouth with sound and vibration–oooohhhh! Oh and let’s not forget that toothbrush innovation hasn’t stopped with the bristles. Nowadays, on the back side of the toothbrush you’ll find all kind of interesting little things that are designed to scour the inside of your cheeks as you brush.

Now, my personal favorite is the old Crest Reach toothbrush with a full-sized head made of medium bristles. You can’t find it today, but you can find similar models that contain its core details while eschewing newfangled additions such as swirlies.

I get that even toothbrushes must evolve, if only to support increasing the marketing budgets of the manufacturers. I mean, we simply can’t expect today’s youth to brush their teeth if we don’t provide them with “cool” tools. So I don’t really mind if the messaging around the new toothbrushes is a bit of a stretch. Do half as many swirly bristles really work as well as twice as many horizontal rows of bristles? I think not.

Therefore, I don’t mind being lied to by Johnson & Johnson, or whomever, but what I don’t get is why my dentist would lie to me…(it’s a logical jump folks…stick with me here….)

I recently had my teeth cleaned and as usual, “Your teeth are beautiful, blah blah blah.” In fact, they didn’t even take X-rays this time. So, imagine my surprise when a couple of days later as I’m shining a flashlight down my throat to count the number of puss-pockets on my tonsils from my sinus infection, that I find what appears to be the beginning of a very small cavity right smack on top of my back molar. Now, I’m no dentist but I think I can recognize a well-rounded hole in my tooth as a cavity. And I can’t for the life of me imagine that both my hygienist and the old feller (the dentist) would miss it when they poked their head in my head to look around.

The only thing I can think of is that it’s too small to do anything about right now, so they didn’t make a big deal of it. But isn’t that kinda like not telling someone they have an enlarged prostate? “Thanks for considering my mental health doc, but I’d really like to know if I’m prime for a colonoscopy.”

Perhaps I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but since I haven’t had a cavity since I was 8, and the whole thing has become a bit of a source of pride for me, I’m only slightly less than devastated. Of course, in the grand scheme of things it’s a very minor thing for sure.

I guess between now and my next cleaning I’ll try out some of those newfangled toothbrush gizmos and see if they help me dig down into my molar crevasses (what a great pluralization!).