Two months ago...

I tried to convince The Boss Lady that we should just get rid of ALL of the carpet in our house. It is all beige, it is all stained, thanks to dogs, cats and kids and some of it is 24 years old. She now claims not to remember that conversation.

Twenty minutes after she got home from her business trip, The Boss Lady suggested that maybe it was time to ditch the nasty carpets and either stain the concrete or lay down tile in the rest of the house.

Less than one hour after she said that, our bedroom looked like this:



There are no before pictures. I wanted to strike while the iron was hot and while the wife was onboard with my home renovation idea.

Here are a couple of pictures of me pushing the giant mass of bedroom carpet, that I named ScuzzBall, to the front door.





By the way, a little advice for anyone considering home renovations, ALWAYS be friends with the guy down the street with a giant remodeling dumpster in front of his house

Long Summer Days

The wife is out of town again this week. The kids and I have worn ourselves out the last couple of days and the house is a complete disaster. I hope The Boss Lady comes back in on Thursday night relaxed and ready to clean house. 'Cause I imagine there will be plenty for her to do.

Especially considering that we still have almost 24 hours to trash the place.

Big beds for big boys

Though it will never be as un cluttered as the one above, The Talker is getting a new bed. A bunkbed like the one in the picture, but no drawers underneath.

A friend of My So Called Aunt tried to sell them in her garage sale. We found out about them a few days after that and the kids and I went out to look the bed over yesterday. Ironically, one of my stay at home dad friends lives in that neighborhood and contemplated buying the bed at the garage sale. Lucky for The Talker, he passed.

Now we just have to figure out a way to get this big thing home. THIS would be a great time for that half assembled truck in the driveway to be up and running. Maybe next weekend The Talker will be getting to crash on his new bed. By then I should be able to borrow a whole truck from someone...

Anyone want to start a betting pool to see how long until he crashes OUT of his new bed?

I can't wait until February

I was outside moving the junkin' find satellite dish to the side of the house (so that the old one, which spent 2 months mounted to the top of a ladder beside the house - true redneck engineering of which I took no pictures), and hoping to get everything working before the trucks rolled by when I heard the squeal of metal and the whooosh of air brakes.

Though I got the dish installed and everything is working, I am a little sad that I didn't get it done in time for the old dish to go on the truck, so the kids and I are off to try to find a friendly pile ahead of the trucks to throw our old dish on.

And while I was finishing the dish reinstall, I got an email from my community based recycling partner:

Junkin' Season is closed! I just saw the beloved Treadmill get squashed like a grape! The compactor came by and got everything!

And now, one final picture to celebrate the success of this junkin' season.

Junkin' Journey 2

I'll keep the photos small, but you can click on the pic for a larger view.

The return from our second trip. The shelving was strapped down, but the composter was not, thanks to the sunroof. But having stuff piled on top is OK since we had stuff hanging out the rear of the Explorer, too.

The boy ended up getting three Tonka trucks. Which we power washed this morning.

Our neighbor's escaped white doves have been hanging out in our backyard. So they got a little something, too. Brand new, super score!

The composter. It needs a good power washing I think.

The satellite dish and shelving are on temporary display in my side yard. I just need the mounting bracket off of the dish, but I did not want to slow down the junkin' to remove it last night. The shelves will likely be in my garage or storage shed by nightfall. Don't worry, both have already been power washed.

A Yamaha A/V Tuner Amp. It powers up, but I don't know if it actually works.

Edit - It works like a champ. Have it hooked up in the living room right now.

I just can't pass up electronics when they are set out carefully with the remote. People who take that much care with their junk should win an award for making junkin' fun and easy. I don't think I'll power wash this one.

Somewhere along the way there was a treadmill, another Yamaha receiver, a TV/VCR combo, a hair dryer for The Boss Lady (that'll teach her for asking me to find something nice for her), some brand new 10' pine planks and 8' pressure treated 2x4s.

Overall, another high quality junkin' experience.

Best Junkin' EVER

So that magical time of year is in full bloom around here. Junk piles in front of houses all over our neighborhood. And I gotta say, I love living in The Land of Conspicuous Consumption.



The TV was my first pick up of the weekend. But the power supply is shot, so it wet back on the curb. The VCR, I decided wasn't worth the hassle of seeing if it works. The phone, same thing.



On my next trip out, I found this beauty. 27", Picture in Picture, stereo sound. A good garage TV. It has a loose connection that I ought to be able to solder easily. After it is fixed, it will make a great bedroom TV. The picture tube isn't great, but I bet it'll work until the next big trash collection. The chair needs an arm stitched back together, but it should work fine for watching two shows at once in my garage.

Edit - Click on the tv and you can see that I was watching Casino on TNT while fixing my treasures.

Edit - The chair is already repaired and living in the backyard. It is perfect for watching the kids play on the playscape.


I just picked these up on my way on my way home from Home Depot. They needed a good cleaning, but that was OK, because I got to use the best junkin' treasure ever, an electric power washer that works perfectly. It needed a new nozzle that I found on clearance at Home Depot for $15.


I never would pay $130 or more for one of these, but I will give $15 for one, for sure.

Racecar Man and I are going out again tonight. But it is going to be tough to top this afternoon's finds. But rest assured, I'll let you know if I do!

Junkin!

It is that magical time of year around here, Bulky Item Collection Week! The one time every seven months that we can get rid of stuff that is too big to fit in the city issued 60 gallon rolling dumpster.

I have a pile started out front. Metal scraps form the old truck bed, old hanging plant baskets, A Zeus statue that was supposed to go to a neighbor's house as a prank - but he turned out to be way to heavy to move again, several old toys that have seen better days, a broken jogging stroller and lots of other junk.

I was going to take a picture of my pile, with Zeus guarding the stash, but someone already picked up all of the toys, the stroller AND Zeus. Maybe Racecar Man and I will find some treasures that are worthy of photography later tonight, like last time.

And for those of you who might be worried, Maria hasn't been seen in a long time. What do you bet she comes out of Law Talking Guy's storage shed soon.

Dehydrating Daddy

Our kids love apple chips and banana chips. Once in a while we buy some at one of the hoity-toity organic/whole grain/no msg added grocery stores. But yesterday, on our regular grocery run, The Princess announced that she wanted banana and apple chips. So we stocked up on fruit.

After slicing fruit for an hour, I had the kids help load up the dehydrator and we have been patiently waiting. OK, everyone except me. I managed to eat all of the apple chips we made yesterday. So this morning I sliced apples for another hour and now, seven hours later, we are ready to snack like kings. As a bonus I found a bag of cherries in the fridge, so I dehydrated them, too.

The food dehydrator doesn't come out very often, but it seems that we make lots of fruit and beef jerky once we start. Saturday I'm hoping to make some jerky before the machine goes into hiding in the garage again.

Edit: More info about my dehydrator on Amazon.

Just a couple of FYIs if anyone is looking for a dehydrator-

• They aren't real expensive, but get one with an internal fan and temperature control, otherwise you have to rotate the trays so that everything dries evenly.
• They are a pain to store, too big for kitchen cabinet doors, so our lives on a shelf in the garage.
• Get one that you can add trays to later or run with just a few trays. Of course, then you have to store more trays...
• Wal-Mart always has them in stock at their stores. I think that is where mine came from
  
• And if you want to make AtHomeDaddy really happy, buy him one of these.

To my friends and family

who have told me in the past months that Coke Zero tastes "OK" or that "You can't tell the difference between it and Coke", I say...

grow some freaking taste buds!

Coke Zero tastes like crud and it certainly is no substitute for a nice cold Dr Pepper. So while we were out at the grocery this morning, I snagged a 12 pack of the usual, even though it has been 4 days since I had a DP.

And you know what? It tastes OK and I can't tell the difference between it and real Dr Pepper. Because it is REAL Dr Pepper. No more of this diet stuff for me.

150 calories per can? No biggie, I can burn that off just trying to get the kids to behave at the grocery store.

Thank you, that is all, liars.

T minus 6 months and counting

The kids are down for naps. And they went down easily today, since I brought out the big guns. Wallace and Gromit on the big TV for anyone who takes a decent nap. Bribery works so well on these kids. Suckers.

Anyways, this morning The Talker reminded me that he only has to nap until he is 5 years old. And today he is 4 and 1/2 years old. Dang, I was hoping he would forget. We have told him that naps can end at 5 years old so that he will be one step closer to Kindergarten. That will give us 8 months to get him used to staying awake for school hours. Heck, I am 35 and I can't do it most days.

Plus, I am hoping that he and I will get to work on academic stuff, to get him ready for school. He is already awesome at some stuff, like colors and spelling family names. Hopefully before kindergarten starts in 13 months, he will be ready to go.

I want him be buddies with the smart kids at school, you see. Then he can tell me all about it, 'cause that is certainly one place I never hung out.

Where does it hurt? Everywhere

Monday afternoon I had my second appointment with a fitness trainer at the YMCA. I am hoping complete this 6 week program and to not be as much of a lazy slob as I was a month ago. I don't have goal to lose a certain number of pounds, but I am sure that after this program I will be in better shape and hopefully have more energy to play with the kids all day.

The trainer had me go through half of the resistance machines in the gym. I have avoided these contraptions since joining the Y, because I don't want to hurt myself by using one of them wrong.

So it was great to have a trainer helping me get each machine set up properly and to make sure I was using them safely and correctly. And that is just what he did. He even wrote down all of the settings for me, so that I can replicate the proper form on my own. But you know what? Even though I was doing everything right, I think I broke something. Every muscle is aching 40 hours later.

And I really hate pain. Maybe my fat and I can just make a deal. I won't hurt it any more and it won't bring over more of it's friends to hang out.

CRAZY, I tells ya

The Princess woke up from her nap and headed straight to the fridge for some 'nack. She was on a mission and she knew what she wanted. Trying to figure out what it was, almost pushed me over the edge...

"Daddy I want pumpkin.

Sorry honey, we don't have pumpkin. Do you want a banana?

Yes.

Ooops, sorry baby, we are out of bananas. Do you want an orange or a peach.

I want pumpkin.

Sorry, no pumpkin, do you want something for snack?

I want pumpkin bread.

Sorry, no pumpkin bread either. Do you want something else?

No, just milk.

Cool. Here you go."

Then I walked out of the room and she chased me.

"Daddy, you forgot my peach.

Huh?

I want a peach for 'nack.

OK."

So I sliced a peach and set it out for her.

"Where is my orange?

You wanted a peach.

No. I want an orange."

The peach goes down my gullet, and I peel an orange in double time.

"Here you go, an orange, just like you asked for, remember?

No. I want pumpkin bread, remember, Daddy?"

Sorry, cowboy

Surely nothing good can happen when Big Brother wants to play in the backyard, and Little Sister is playing quietly in his room. Especially when she comes running into the livingroom and tells me "I need a diaper and wipe. Hurry! He is laying still."

Huh? Whattheheck?

Of course, I couldn't resist giving her some wipes and a diaper. And in a few minutes she posed with her conquest. I guess Cowboy Woody should have put up a little more fight.

The Princess speaks:

Two statements I just heard come out of our 2 year old's mouth.


"Hold still while I cut you with my knife."

Luckily she was playing with a wooden toy knife but I I am not sure what the Hot Wheel did to deserve a slicing.

And then 10 seconds later she took off running, without the knife, and screamed:

"I am going CRAZY! AAAAAAAAAAhhhhh!" Then came the evil laugh. ""Mwaah Haa Haaaaaa."

I am not sure what that pizza did to her, but just to be safe I think we will lay off of the extra cheese next time.

Power cleaning

I borrowed a friend's power washer this weekend and started cleaning around the house.

Since I have my priorities straight, the underside of the truck was first. Then I moved onto the house. The vinyl siding is looking spiffy and the rock on the house and front fence were easy to clean.

The back of the house was a lot dirtier, so I have only gotten to about half of it. But the worst thing I have tackled so far was certainly the playscape. I got most of it done before I ran out of gas. I'll be finishing it up and the rest of the house Monday evening.

And hopefully I'll get around to staining the playscape before it mildews again. Just like I thought I would, 18 months ago.

I bet this is the biggest promotion ever

Uncle Lemon got called up to the majors this morning.

When we were walking into church, The Talker was singing a song that he learned a couple of weeks ago at Vacation Bible School.

One of the lines is:

'The Lord liveth and blessed be The Rock'

But trying to convince the son that the words were not,

'The Lord Lemon, and blessed be a rock'

proved to be a little too challenging for me at 8:30 on a Sunday morning. Especially since his mom and I could not stop giggling about it.

Way to go Uncle Lemon. Maybe the promotion comes with a raise, too. If not, I bet you can get some killer baseball player autographs in Heaven.

Computer woes

I held onto our old computer for a long time. It has sat in the bedroom closet for most of the last couple of years. It was a pretty good machine that we bought refurbished at the Dell Factory Outlet, back when they had a physical store here in town, and not just a website.

Since then we have used up and thrown away an entire HP/Compaq system that was a piece of junk. The Dell sat there, waiting to be called up. For a while it lived in the garage, holding 60 gig of music I burned from my CD collection. It was my workshop jukebox.

Then I swapped out the bootlegged Windows 2000 OS for a bootlegged XP Home OS. And finally Microsoft got smarter than me. After 30 days, XP locked me out of my own machine. But I could not justify buying a full version of XP for $175 or more, just to listen to music in the garage. And I could not find my bootleg copy of the old OS to revert back to.

Yesterday the Dell and I parted ways. It went to the Goodwill computer recycling center, and I went to Computer Works, the Goodwill computer store to buy a second video card for the Gateway XP Media Center Edition machine that we bought several months ago.

I wanted to hook up a second monitor that would sit atop the computer cabinet and run a PowerPoint slideshow of family pictures. Kind of like one of those expensive digital photo frames, but bigger and a lot cheaper. Anyways, I guess the video card I bought will not work with dual monitors. No high tech family photos for us.

So for the first time in years we no longer have a computer the garage, our bedroom or in the closet under a pile of shoes.

Awww, hell no...

We live on a cul-du-sac. Or in my hometown, a dead-end street. So we don't see much traffic in front of our house. But we have to still be careful when the kids play out front, because there is a blind curve 75 feet from our driveway.

Last night the whole family and Mother of the Bride were out front checking out the truck, when a jerk came flying around the inside corner of the curve, tires squealing and running about 60 mph. Knowing that grandma and the kids were out there with me, I chose not to scream the usual. "Slow the $*#&($ down, you stupid @#()*@#(*)%(@#*()$^@&*#%^()_)#$^()_%!"

Instead, I went with the multi-purpose, "Awww, hell no you didn't." The teen driver of the Honda Prelude turned at the circle, and was trying to decide if he wanted to park and deal with me or skip his pal's pool party next door. As I was walking out to his car to chat about my theory of not getting your ass kicked when driving in front of my house, he decide to skip the pool party, and our chat. So he drove back down the street. Slowly.

But I noticed something funny a few minutes later. Two of the party guests left in a 4 door Civic. As they hopped in the car the driver told his co-pilot, "Go get the biggest towel back there." And being a good co-pilot, he brought a HUGE towel back from the pool.

No surprise the 4 door was back in a few minutes. But this time instead of parking on the street, they drove into Wonder Woman's garage to unload Speed Racer, who was hiding in the back seat under the beach towel.

So I let go with another "Awww, hell no..." and I went to visit Speed Racer so that we could chat. We talked. They swam. They left in the Civic a few hours later.

And they drove slowly in front of our house.

It's the end of vacation as we know it...

The Boss Lady will be working 4-10 hour day weeks for the rest of the summer. During her one week off this summer we did not make any special trips or do anything too exciting. Which may make it one of the best summer breaks we have had in years.

We hit the YMCA pool a lot this week. Both grandmas and one grandpa came to visit. And the cars got washed. That sums the week up nicely.

Nothing too exciting, but we all got a lot of rest this week. And that made for a good summer break.

Though I am still not amazed

with MySpace, I guess I understand a little better why people like it. Just for grins I searched through and found 10 or so people who I graduated from high school with. Considering there were less than 350 of us in the class of 88, I guess that is a decent percentage of people who will still claim BHS.

But of course, I was such a geek, and not in the good at math and about to make a million bucks in the tech industry sort of way, that I recognize some of these people in their profile pictures, but I doubt if I ever spoke to most of them. And some of my classmates on MySpace, I don't have a clue who they were.

When I searched my college graduation class I only found one person I remember. But there were 10 different ways to explain what our degree program was called to other people. And I have only searched a couple of those.

On the upside, I think I found one of my best buddies from high school. He was younger than me, so I just kind of stumbled onto his profile. But when I saw his picture, I knew it was him.

I think. He hasn't yet responded to a message I sent last night.

In the end, I have had fun searching through some of my old memories, but when it comes down to it, I hate the MySpace search features. But as KB pointed out, free is free. And I am getting what I pay for.

Edit - By the way, it was my pal from HS School. He emailed an hour ago. Now we just have to find a time to hook up. That shouldn't be too hard, he only lives an hour away.

Fine, I give in...

OK, KB, I give up. I set up a MySpace site tonight. On first glance, I don't get it. Why does everybody love this site? Seems really slow to load on my machine and several features just never loaded at all. Is it Firefox friendly? Dunno.

Maybe it'll grow on me, or I might just get bored and forget about the whole thing in a week. We'll see...

You want to see for yourself? AtHomeDaddy on MySpace.

Huh?

The Princess is truly taking after her big brother, as evidenced by this request she just made of her mommy.

"Help me. I can't find a baby for the rocking banana".

Whatever. Freaky little kid.

When is naptime?

The Boss Lady is off of work this week. So she is getting to spend some extra time with the kids and I am getting to spend some extra time without the kids. It works well for all of us.

While she is home I am trying to get a bunch of chores out of the way. Saturday I mowed the backyard with my new mower. But it looked like crap because I had not set one of the wheels properly. So this morning I mowed the whole yard, just to even things up.

Then I moved onto the cars. I got both washed, waxed and vacuumed. After cleaning out about 10 pounds of crunched up snacks from the back seats, I am ready to ban the kids form the cars. More likely I'll just ban snack. Or at least until our next road trip.

The only thing I finished inside the house today was getting The Talker's clock running on time. Since we brought it home, I had not gotten it adjusted properly. It is awesome to watch.

A more practical effort went into The Boss Lady's car. It got an oil change after I finished cleaning it up. This was the first time I have changed the oil in this car, so it went smoothly but took a lot longer than I expected, just to make sure I wasn't screwing anything up.

I planned to get some other stuff done today, but getting the cars cleaned up took a lot longer than I planned. Maybe I'll get to the other stuff on Wednesday.

But maybe not.

You ladies better listen up...

Aww right Grandmas, listen here. The Talker just declared that he is wanting to live with his grandma. So you chicks better get some things straight if you want to be the lucky one. His requirements include:

She has a puppy named Navan Alazanna

She already has dinner

She does not like going to watch baseball games

She just likes going to basketball games

She lives in a little rock house with the same phone number and house number as ours (Don't get any ideas, ladies)

But her house is on a different street. (See I told you...)

She has snakes that will sting you

She took a picture of Lighting McQueen and all the characters at Disney (Score one for Dodie)

In a while me and my grandma are going to go walking with her walker (Another for Dodie)

She bought me a life with a sweet hole at Target so I can fly (OK, I'll quit letting him smoke pot before nap...)

My grandma will have a sick big white dog (Be careful, those things can get expensive!)

My grandpa did not get scratched by a motorcycle because his was slow and it had a sign that said no helmets allowed

She has wooden animals and a zoo pickup. It's a toy game that you roll the elephant to see where it lands on it's babies (Again, I'll cut out his dope before nap...)

She has a robot leg and now it is a bionic leg (Finally, one point for Mawmaw)

My grandma has avacados

I don't know her name. Her name is David. My grandpa has my new room set up there. They have all kinds of good snacks

They can say watermelon in Spanish

My grandma has a huge pool and go cart and a golf cart and kid newspapers. All good things

So Mother of the Bride and Queen Mother, settle it and tell us which one of you guys will be taking him and all of his stuff when you come to visit later in the week.




BTW, The Boss Lady will vouch for the above statements. I was typing as quick as he was talking...



Wow, I never knew I could type that fast!

Carnival Fun

Friday night the whole family loaded up and went to a Vacation Bible School carnival at a neighbor's church. It was awesome.

Our church does lots of big things that end up costing lost of $$$, either for the church or the participants. Loads of people come to the fun stuff and hopefully they learn something about the church in the mean time. Good times for the family for sure.

But this is a smaller church in an older neighborhood. So they threw a good ole' carnival. College kids, teens and older adults set up games on folding tables. Every kid got to pick a prize after every game. Face painting and several bouncers were waiting for anyone to come. A couple of the teens were walking their goats on leashes around for the kids to pet. They also had a high-schooler do a one man, 8 character play that he wrote.

Hot dogs, sodas and nachos were fifty cents. Burgers and sausage wraps were $.75. Popsicles were a dime and watermelon was free. How can you not have fun at a place that gives you free watermelon? And nothing had more than a few kids in line.

The kids got home worn out, with lots of trinkets and prizes. And The Boss and I were thrilled to have been invited to such a fun event for the family. Especially since we played and fed the entire family with the change in her purse.

Who is this fat slob wearing my clothes and playing with my toys?

When we signed up at the YMCA a couple of weeks ago, I was thrilled with the idea of having more options available for play times with the kids. During the school year we sometimes get into a rut, going to the same parks and playing with all of the same kids. So it will be nice to have our kids around a new group of kids once in a while.

But I was most excited by all of the really cool looking equipment in the fitness center. Treadmills, ellipticals and free weights, oh my. Since we joined, I have been up there several times. But I have been trying to take it a little easy, no need to hurt myself while I try to get back into decent shape.

Today I started a 6 week fitness program with a personal trainer. After asking lots of questions about diet and exercise the trainer did a couple of basic fitness tests, a body fat pinch test, a bench press strength test and a 3 minute step test. Guess what. I am fat and out of shape. Ti was a real ego boost to see those results.

Let's just say he could pinch a lot more than an inch and I think I started crying while I was bench pressing 80 pounds as many times as possible in 60 seconds.

Anyways, to celebrate my girth, we ran out (OK, we drove over to Lowes) and bought a new lawn mower. This one isn't self-propelled, so I guess I can get a little more exercise while I lug the Troy-Bilt up and down the hills.

Or maybe I'll just have a stroke and you can bury my weak fat ass in the tall grass.

Bye Bye Birkies

May we have a moment of silence to show some respect to my favorite footwear?

It is time to ditch my favorite pair of Birkenstocks. I thought they could be re-soled and live for another few summers. But it's the professional opinion of the local repair shop that they COULD be repaired. For a price. Which happens to be about $30 more than a brand new pair.

So I'll be heading out to the dumpster in a little while and I'll be coming back bare-footed and sad.

After all, these sandals have been with me since before I became AtHomeDaddy. The Talker was only five months old when I bought them. I did not become a stay at home dad until a few months later. And that is when the Birks got broke in real good. I am pretty sure I went months without wearing socks or other shoes, except to church.

The kids and I walked a million miles around the neighborhood and visited almost every park for 25 square miles. All while I wore my brown Birks. I had them on when The Princess was born. When The Talker went to the ER. When The Princess went there, too. A couple of different times. And when we all watched The Boss Lady roll by on a stretcher a couple of weeks ago, my favorite shoes were there.

Since buying my first Birkenstocks, I have gotten two more pair, both tan. And they are worn out too. But if I am in a hurry, like if someone needs to go to the Emergency Room, I always go back to the first pair.

So I guess if The Boss Lady will jar loose of $100 I'll be walking my bare-footed sad self over to the sandal store to start a relationship with a new pair of Birks.

Hello Birdies

We found some mockingbird eggs in a hanging plant on our front porch a while back. The kids and I have been peeking into the nest once in a while to keep tabs on the eggs.



I was a little worried that Momma Mockingbird had become kitty chow. I have not gotten dive bombed in several days and I had not heard a peep out of her for a couple of days.

A few days ago The Princess wanted to see the eggs so I pulled the hanging plant down and was surprised to find three babies. They were not all crammed together in the nest; they had lots of room, so I guess they were newly hatched. I did not get around to snapping a baby picture until this morning. The are really crammed in the nest now.



Here is a close-up shot. It is a little blurry, because Momma Mockingbird decided to divebomb my head while I was taking the picture. Glad to see she is taking care of the babies. But I am even more glad that she missed my melon.

Halfway through a busy week

The Talker is going to Vacation Bible School this week. And just to make sure it sinks in, he is going to two different ones.

Our church just opened a new recreation center and they are having VBS there. The Talker did not want to miss out on all of the cool stuff they have, from bouncers to canoeing and indoor rock climbing, so we signed him up along with 1200 of his close friends. He is there all week, from 10am-2pm.

A neighbor's church does VBS a little differently. They have a neighborhood group at their house and at member's houses all over town. So their VBS is in the backyard each evening. The Talker goes down there from 7-8:30pm each night.

On Monday the whole family swam at the YMCA's outdoor pool for a couple of hours in between Bible schools. By bed time we were worn out. The Talker most of all.

The Princess and I have been getting some good one on one time during all of this biblical chaos. Monday she and I went to the Y for a couple of hours in the morning. Today we are off to the Children's Museum for a few hours after we drop big brother off. After naps we will probably all end up back at the pool.

Luckily, The Boss Lady is working short days this week. And then she is home all next week. Not much of a summer break, but at least next week won't be so busy.

Bring on the visitors

About 30 minutes before JB called on Sunday afternoon, I had given up. The house was a total loss for the weekend and we would be starting another week living in a toxic waste dump. No big deal. It has surely been worse in the past , but it still takes the wind out of my sails to start the week this way.

Then JB called from 20 miles up the road. He would be at the house in less than an hour.

The kids and wife were asleep, so I thought I could make the living room/dining room/kitchen presentable in short order. But then the size of the huge mess hit me so I called up reinforcements. The Boss Lady and I dove head first into the piles.

And in 30 minutes, with about 5 minutes to spare, the main part of the house was not only passable, it looked durn good. Our bedroom? Don't ask. The clutter had to go somewhere. But we just skipped that part of the house tour and no one cared.

Amazing how much cleaning a couple of lazy slobs can get done under the pressure of a surprise attack. I mean visit. Attack better describes what The Talker and The Princess did when they found JB sitting on the couch.

Garage Clearance Sale. Everything must go.

I am quickly clearing out the garage. The gas dryer has been replaced and the old one promised to a neighbor. Another neighbor has dibs on the treadmill. Soon, the Salvation Army will haul away the old washer.

No real reason for the summer cleaning, other than getting rid of some clutter. But if you see something you like, make me an offer.


In other family news, we joined our neighborhood YMCA last night. It is a nice facility with indoor and outdoor pools, a nice gym, a huge workout center and lots of family classes and events. Did I mention the hot tub? It's hot in the hot tub. And a lot cheaper than buying one of our own.

To celebrate we all hit the indoor pool last night for a couple of hours. It was really nice since they have a 3-4ft deep pool just for kids and swim lessons. Both kids can touch bottom and play without lifejackets in a big area.

This morning I went over again. I rode one of the recumbent bikes for about 40 minutes. The equipment in the fitness center was really nice and I really dig the TVs broadcasting over FM frequencies. My nice clean MP3 player really came in handy.

Wash. Rinse, Dry. Rock out. Repeat.

My Sansa m240 MP3 player survived a ride in the new clothes washer. After drying out overnight, it is playing fine this morning. The first time I tried to boot it up, it locked up. Thought it was gone, but I tried it later and it started up just fine.

So, if you plan on throwing your MP3 player in 40 gallons of warm soapy water, you could do worse than to buy a SanDisk player. Mine may not be as trendy or sexy as an iPod, but I bet your iPod could not even survive the gentle cycle. Plus, mine cost less than $100 and it is lemony fresh smelling now. Yours? I thought not.

By the way, can I borrow your iPod for about 45 minutes? I just want to check something on it.

Garden Bonaza

Not a bad harvest for two mornings from two tomato plants, six or seven bean plants, a handful of carrot seeds and three onion sets that a neighbor shared with me early in the spring.

Now if I could sell these things for $127.45 a pound, I MIGHT break even.

Tomato aficionados might notice that some of the fruit are still a little green. The birds get 'em if I don't pick them a little early. The Boss Lady says they don't taste as good, but I hate 'matos, red green or otherwise. But I hate it more when the birds peck holes in them and I get squishy tomato guts all over me when I pull them off of the vine.

The To Do list

The Boss Lady has been gone since Tuesday morning. She should be home sometime this afternoon. The kids and I are ready, believe me. Last week she was gone for 4 days. And she did not get home a moment too soon.

Anyways, last week I had the house ready for her arrival. It was not spotless, but passably clean and straightened. Clean sheets on all of the beds and the floors were freshly vacuumed. The kid's rooms were fairly organized and I had even folded AND put away the laundry. Which after 4 years as a Stay at Home Dad, is the one chore I still REALLY can't stand to do.

Today? There is a couch somewhere under that pile of laundry over there. If she wants to sit down, I guess she can fold clothes until she finds a seat.

And the rest of the house? The vacuum is still sitting in the corner where I left it when I was preparing for The Boss Lady's last arrival. The clean sheets are still on the beds So I guess they no longer qualify as clean sheets. And the rest of the house is an absolute disaster.

We might get around to cleaning the house a little today but I doubt it. It is kind of overcast and cool outside so we most like be found floating away the morning in the neighbor's pool after the USA World Cup Game.

Welcome home, Boss. Feel free to fold yourself up a nice cozy spot on the couch.

Are you ready to tumble?

Which one of the following does not really belong at the bottom of a load of laundry that just finished spinning in the new machine?

Three pair of blue jeans

Two swimsuits

One white sock

Two pair of Batman underwear

My SanDisk MP3 player

It may not belong in there, but it IS sparkly clean now... I guess I'll let it skip the dryer ride and just give it a few days to dry out before I see if it still works.

Passing on the neighborhood dryer

I just finished installing the new clothes dryer. I bought a washer and dryer set from a friend who is moving out of state. It was a great deal that we could not pass up. Plus, for the first time in my adult life, there is a matched washer and dryer in the house.

I plumbed up the washer the other day, because ours is rusting away. But our dryer was working fine, so I put off that swap until today. I just rebuilt the dryer in the spring after we bought it for $50 from a neighbor. Now it is headed to that side of the neighborhood again.

Other Dad is taking the gas dryer to replace his old electric. His family lives just two doors up from where we bought the dryer in December.

Now I just hope it keeps working good for them because they are friends of ours. And we never seem to be out of old dryers around here, but I would sure hate to run out of friendly neighbors.

Too much fun for this early in the week.

After a huge scary problem that worked itself out, and that I won't detail further here, The Boss Lady and I were both asleep before 10pm last night. Good thing I got my rest, since she is off to a conference for the rest of the week.

I am not sure what happened, but the kids were angels today. No whining. No fighting. No yelling.

All right, who replaced my kids with Folger's crystals?

Uncle Lemon rides again

Take a man's tractor away from him and this is what happens...

It is like Christmas around here.

Father's Day just keeps going around here. When I ran to pick up lunch, the restaurant was passing out free caps to all the dads who came in. So Dad and I both got caps that say "World's Best Dad". I guess we will have to battle to the death some day to decide who actually deserves to wear the hat.

And once Mom and Dad headed home, I ran to the south side of town to pick up another of my Father's Day presents. A used washer and dryer set. They are a lot better than what we have now, and maybe I can sell our old ones for truck parts money. Besides, since I do almost all of the laundry around here, I am glad to have a washer that isn't rusting away.

And we are about to finish Dad's Day at the baseball park. Hot dogs and sodas at the ball park, now that is a good way to start a week.

Happy Dad's Day

To all of my pals who are dads, Happy Father's Day a couple of hours early. Along those lines, I got my Father's Day Present tonight. Here is the left overs.



It will take me a while to get all of this packaging thrown away. But it was a big box and it took an hour and a half to put together, so you know it is a good gift.



Yep. I got a see saw for Father's Day. I have seen them for six months or so at Costco, but they finally went on a clearance sale. So the family met me up there this evening so that I could drive the Saturn. Without kid's car seats I was able to fold down the back seats and just barely squeeze the big box in for the ride home.

The best part of the gift was having The Talker help while I assembled the see saw. He held tools and brought me parts when I needed them. And he stayed out there the entire time I was working.

And by the smiles on their faces, it looks like I got a gift that everyone will enjoy.





After the kids were in bed, The Boss Lady and I moved it to the back yard. NOw it is one more reason for every kid in the neighbor hood to want to hang out over here.

Fire the Rocket!

Tonight Roger Clemens is pitching for the Round Rock Express.

If that sentence does not make any sense to you, then go away. Thank you. Come Again.

The Boss Lady and I are splitting season tickets with Uncle Lemon, so we would be getting to watch the action form some prime seats. If we hadn't given tonight's tickets away a month or more ago. And no, it did not help that the people who had the tickets are big Astro's fans.

This is The Rocket and he is pitching 150 feet from our seats.

After the people offered all of the tickets back, we finally decided to take two of them, so Uncle Lemon and I will be out there. The Boss Lady gets to spend some quality time with the kids and we don't waste two awesome seats on the munchkins.

A good deal for everyone.

Blogging away my free time

At some point during the last couple of days I followed a link from Darth Daddy's blog over to Margie's blog, Mix-Pix Awards.

While looking around over there I stumbled onto one of her posts that just cracked me up. Even now, when I went back to find the link to it, I am still cracking up.

And to top it all off, Mix-Pix Awards has the good sense to feature AtHomeDaddy's entry about the mad momma mockingbird as her newest entry.

Yeah for me.

Day 4, Airport Run

The Talker and I went out to the airport tonight to pick up The Boss Lady. Her flight arrived about half an hour later than scheduled. But because of my piss poor listening skills, it arrived about 3 hours after I THOUGHT it was going to land.

Turns out it is a really bad idea to tell the kids that Mommy will be home to read them bedtime stories if you haven't read the entire trip itinerary. And it is a REALLY, REALLY bad idea if you do it a dozen times or more during the day.

The kids were really bummed when I finally told them that they would have to wait until tomorrow to see Mommy. And I just could not stand the idea of The Boy falling asleep crying, so I took him with me and a friend stayed with the sleeping Princess

Everyone is home. The house is a wreck. The dog is barking and chewing on the kid's toys.

Life is normal.

At least until she leaves again for a few days in a couple of weeks...

Day 4, Movie Day!

It's not like we haven't watched a movie or two every day since The Boss Lady left but I took it to the WNL this morning. Mad TV fans might know about the WNL - whole 'nother level.

So how did I pick today's feature flick? I flipped over the DVD cases and found the movie that had the longest running time, 115 minutes. That is all I cared about, how long could I keep both kids occupied. Hey, I had a ton of laundry that I needed to fold before the wife comes home tonight.

So what movie was it?

Does it really matter?

If you are worried, I did finish folding laundry AND I got it all put away, too.

AND best of all, the movie is only halfway over. So we can cruise with it right up TNT!

Which is 'til nap time for those of you who are not as hip as me...

Don't Mess with Texas Mockingbirds!

A couple of nights ago I headed out side to toss a some trash in the dumpster. As soon as I stepped on the front porch, a momma Mockingbird, which if you follow the link you will learn that they are the state birds of Texas, came flying at my head. She was not happy to have me standing on the porch.

Turns out she has a nest and three eggs in one of my hanging plants. No wonder she was defending my porch so mightily.



This morning the kids and I were able to sneak a peek into her nest when she wasn't home. Hopefully they will hatch soon and momma will quit dive bombing me when I walk on the porch.

Day Three ends in a draw

Well, the kids haven't won yet. But I can't gloat. 'Cause neither have I. They did get to bed at a decent hour, but we made that deadline by skipping baths and the rest of the night time routine.

It is 10pm and I am beat like a flat-topped step child.

Goodnight.

Day 3, Off to an early start

The Boss Lady and I have always been opposites. She is a morning person (after the second snooze alarm) and I am a night owl. Which work out pretty good for me on weekends. I stay up late watching TV and surfing the web and then in the morning I sleep until all hours of the morning have passed me by.

With The Boss out of town, I am trying to get to sleep earlier, so that I can be semi-conscious when the little ones wake up. 'Cause they both wake up FAST! From asleep to ready to play in .357 seconds.

So last night I put in Raiders of the Lost Ark as soon as the kids were down for the night. I figured I would not make it through the movie, since I was worn the hell out. But of course, I was still up playing on the 'net and watching Sports Center after midnight.

The first thing I heard this morning, at 6:13 am, was The Princess yelling "Daddy, I am up, come get me. Mommy, come get me! Bubba, I AM AWAKE, OPEN MY DOOR!"

But, even if she did wake me with a laugh, there was no chance she was getting out of there before 6:30.

Two minutes later I heard The Talker heading out on a rescue mission. "Hang on. I'll be right there after I go potty."

The boy has his priorities right...

Within 30 seconds I heard The Princess turn loose again, this time with an angle I could not ignore. "Help me, SOMEONE! I am stuck. HELP ME!!!"

I imagined her wedged underneath a piece of furniture or stuck between her bad and the wall. Something drastic. What I found was funny, but not injury-causing. She had climbed up on her play table and pushed her way through the mini blinds, to bang on her window and scream at the world.

I guess she had given up on her family. She must have been hoping that a neighbor would come to her aid and open her bedroom door so that her morning play could begin.

Day 2, Lesson Learned

This morning the kids and I went the movies. And this I vow. I will never take a child under 4 to a movie without the following:

Prozac - for me, myself and I - and a lot of it
Popcorn money - and a lot of it
A child sized set of theater seat restraints to keep the kid in place
A straight jacket in the smallest possible size for when the toddler decides to toddle around
A muzzle with a hole big enough for the toddler to drink through a straw and eat popcorn
At least two leashes - in case she chews through one of them
A set of ear protection for everyone else in the theater - for when the two year old gets bored and decides to sing her ABC's really, REALLY LOUD!
A wife, babysitter or perfect stranger - someone to pawn a kid or two off on an hour into the show

Besides all that, the movie was OK. The Talker loved it. I was a little too busy with the other child to pay much attention to the flick.

47 hours until The Boss Lady's plan is scheduled to touch down.

Day 1, Done

The kids and I had a good time yesterday, as evidenced by the fact that everyone in the house was still asleep at 7 am. Now at 7:30, I am the only one awake.

I must have worn them out good with playing in the yard and swimming with friends for several hours before dinner. Today we are off to see Cars and hopefully find a lot of fun stuff to do this afternoon.

But before all that we need to run to the grocery store. There is no way I can be out of Dr Pepper with two and a half days to go...

Quantity time with the family

The Boss Lady left an hour ago for four days at a conference in Las Vegas. So the kids and I will be seeing a lot of each other until Wednesday night. Especially since they were both up 45 minutes early this morning.

Oh, It is going to be a load of fun around here this week. Wanna come watch the chaos and maybe take the kids to Mc Donalds for a few hours?

But it is a good week for her to be gone. World Cup Soccer is on three times a day. NASCAR is on this afternoon. The NBA finals might need a little attention this evening. And the kids and I are heading to see Cars in the morning.

So while the wife is out gambling away the kid's college funds, which should only take about 5 minutes, we will have plenty of fun right here. So hurry and let me know if you want to come vist or babysit for a couple of days.

Is it Happy Belated Blog Day?

Or maybe it should be Happy Blog-iversary. Anyways, I started this blog 2 years ago yesterday, with these four posts.

Welcome to AtHomeDaddy!

Today's schedule, It's rigorous..

The Rest of the Story

Thanks for that!

And this memorable post, Next Time, I'll Take a Spatula, was the first one that someone I did not know commented on. I thought I had made the blogger big times!

So this thing started before one kid was sleeping through the night and before we switched dogs and cars a couple of times. Ah the memories... But what I am really wondering now is, who the hell has time to post four times a day to a blog?

The AtHomeDaddy Fan Club

Has held it's first couple of meetings this week. And boy, is it tough being the Mayor of the club.

The neighbor's grandsons are hanging out with her this summer. They are 5 and 8 but the 8 year old could pass for 12 easily. The fiver is ALL about being five. He is a sassy little smart mouth know it all. My kind of kid. Somedays.

The problem is that Grandma works nights, so the boys are looking for something to do in the mornings while she is asleep. Yesterday they came over and played out front with us for an hour or more. Everybody was good and The Talker loved having big boys over to play.

While they were playing, the five year old saw our playscape through the fence. But the back yard has been needing a mow for a long time. The skeeters are so bad that I think they set up a landing strip back there. Anyways, I was finally motivated to mow the back yard. Nothing like having a herd of kids from 2 to 8 guilt you into doing your chores.

Yesterday afternoon the boys heard us playing in the backyard, so they came over. This is when I found out about the 5 year old's bossy side. I had to remind him several times that The Talker is indeed allowed to play on his own playscape. When he tried to play along with the older kids, The Talker was sent away by the younger brother several times.

Finally, when I was really getting tired of trying to teach Jr. the house rules, the older brother took charge and they headed back to grandma's.

So now I have to figure out how much playtime these guys are going to get over here. I don't want to provide free baby sitting, but I don't ever mind kids coming over if they can follow our simple rules. And from what I've seen so far, Jr. might have a problem getting with the AtHomeDaddy Program. Big Brother is proving to be a good model for the little kids. And I really want The talker to see more of him in action.

The Talker's View

I created a Flickr account for The Talker's photos. Go there to check them out.

And here is a teaser...

Stream of semi-consciousness

I once had a college professor who would start each class talking for a few minutes about whatever was on his mind. And if no one interrupted his thought, he would talk for the hour about lots of unrelated things and then dismiss the class. He called it a stream of consciousness. I called it an easy 8 am class.

Not surprisingly, I made an 'A' in that creative writing class. But it is a little surprising that I don't remember ever actually writing any papers.

Anyways, in the mindset of that class, here are a few things I have been meaning to blog about but haven't gotten around to...

When we were loading up to go to Pop's house last Friday morning, I heard a bird squawk . It sounded odd and when I looked that direction, I saw a Red Tailed Hawk swoop down and snatch a mockingbird right out of the air. It flew off over our house and several mocking birds gave a short chase. Cool!

When I was fishing Friday afternoon at Pop's pier, the fishing was lousy. And I saw why late in the day. The bay is protected from the main part of the Gulf of Mexico, so lots of small fish live there. But that invites dolphins in. And there were several dolphins eating sushi in the bay that afternoon. Cool!

At one point, when we were heading home, The Boss Lady was trying to get The Talker to chill out and be quiet. She asked, "Son, where is your quiet voice?" His response sounded like something out of a horror movie "The quiet voice is GONE!" Cool! I have often wondered if the boy is possessed.

Yesterday, when the kids and I were out running errands, I was needing a few minutes of quiet. The Princess was happy, playing with a Leap Frog toy. And the boy was needing something to keep him still. So I gladly paid $200 for a quiet 30 minutes in the car. I gave him my digital camera and I showed him how to take pictures. He shot 60 pics in about 15 minutes. So when I get around to it, I'll upload some of his pictures. Interesting stuff.

Well, that about does it for this morning. Class dismissed.

Damn.

I should probably just end this blog entry with the title.







But I am not a man who chooses to use only a few words, so here goes...

We got home from a long weekend yesterday afternoon. On the way home The Boss Lady and I were planning the rest of our busy week. She is leaving Sunday morning for four days at a conference. So big fun will be had right here at home during that time. And if the conference is boring, I guess the wife can skip out and find something to do. After all, she is heading to Las Vegas. How the hell do I get sent to a four day conference in Vegas?

Then, when the week was looking hopelessly busy already, we found out that to fly out this morning on a quick trip home to attend a funeral. She will be back tomorrow night, so I guess today/tonight/tomorrow is like a warm up for the kids and I.

After taking the kids to the grocery store at 8 this morning, the park at 10, running errands all over town at 3, the baseball game at 6 tonight and back home and into the tub at 8:30, we really needed the extra warm up day.

Now, the kitchen is trashed, the car is filthy and still full of stuff from our road trip and daily errands and it is a couple of hours before I usually head to bed. But I am down for the count and the piles will be waiting for me in the morning.

And maybe for The Boss Lady after she gets home from Las Vegas in 9 days.

The Flounder Fumble

We headed down to Pop's fishing shack on Friday morning. By 1:30 I was already 'sitting on the dock of the bay, wasting tiii-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiii-iiiiiiii-ime....'.

Got skunked Friday on the trusty rod and reels. But the sail line was loaded with Gafftopsails. I don't get to fish in the bay often and when I do I usually go after Reds and Flounder.

SO when I pulled in a couple of small gafftops, I tossed them back. Then later, I landed one big gafftop, but I did not want to clean one fish, so I tossed it back. Of course, when I finished reeling the sail line in, there were two more nice sized gafftops, and several smaller ones. But by then I was really wanting to find the flounder, so I put all of the gafftops back.

Saturday we went to a family barbecue. More about that later. But no fishing all day.

This morning I finally landed a nice flounder. We would have been eating great tonight. But right after I unhooked him, I fumbled the fish and he flopped right back into the drink.

I decided that fish for dinner did not sound so great, so I packed it in and we headed home. Fishless.

But I did find a gas station that sells Dr Pepper with real Imperial Pure Cane Sugar in it, so I brought home a handful of those instead. Yum.

The streak is over, over here.

It is official. The AtHomeFamily is really and truly Ford free. Got the settlement check from our insurance today. We now have no ownership of any kind of any Ford vehicles. OK, I know about the Lincoln/Mercury/Mazda/Volvo/Jaguar/Land Rover/Aston Martin ownership thing but that does not count...

Until The Boss Lady's car went away, we have held the title ot one tiem or another to 4 Ford cars, one Ford truck and a Ford minivan. Now we have one import sedan, one compact SUV and the truck. Life is good. Not a blue oval in the fleet.

Here is a little more trivia for you... Of these Fords, we have had one red car, two white cars, one black car, and a forest green truck and a forest green minivan.

I assume that our insurance guy is glad to have us out of Ford Escorts. After all, he has paid for two to be totaled out and another 5K claim when The Boss Lady's first one met the rear of a school bus when it was only a couple of months old.

Treasures from the trunk

While trying to get familiar with the Mazda I have given it a good cleaning and the mechanical once over. So far I only see one big problem with the car. The front half of the exhaust system is pretty rusty.

The previous owner already had the back half of the system, including the muffler replaced. But it will be up to us to replace the rest, including the catalytic converter. The woman we bought from told us about that, so it was no big surprise.

Otherwise, I found a few treasures in the car. Under the driver's floormat I found a sticky quarter which I promptly gave to a young man at his high school graduation party. (Don't worry, I am not cheap. He also got a box of pea gravel. And some real cash.)

I was checking tire pressures this morning and I pulled the spare tire out to check it. Good thing I did, since it was about 75% low. Plus, I hit the mother lode in the trunk. Two flat head screwdrivers and three more quarters. One is a 2001 Indiana quarter, the second is a 99 New Jersey and the third is a 1967 quarter. I just thought you might be interested to know that.

Now if I find another couple of thousand quarters under the rear floormats the car will pay for it's own exhaust repairs.

Zoom Zoom, The 626 has landed

We are back to normal. Normal for us may not be reflective of REAL normal. But it works for us...

The new car is tucked safely in the driveway and the little old car is sitting out on the street. So if the UPS man decides to hit something, he is not bearing down on the 3 month old Saturn.



The 626 is a decent car and hopefully it will be a good commuter car for The Boss Lady. But I have to tell you, if she hates it, We are still OK, because with only 80 K miles, this little car still has some kick. The kids and I will be able to run the highways in it just fine.

It is OUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTA HERE!

The salvage company just came by to pick up the Escort. The Talker is sad to see mommy's car leaving, but everyone else is ready to move on.

Except our mechanic. He is upset, too.

Escort Recap

Edit: After I spoke to The Boss Lady this morning, I learned that we actually bought the car a couple of months earlier than I remembered. So I recalculated the costs involved. But they still aren't good

Want the vitals?

We bought the Escort in May of 2001. During the 60 months that we owned it, we spent $4,981.53 at the repair shop.

This does not include tires. We bought them elsewhere.

It also does not include routine maintenance like filters and oil changes. I did that stuff myself.

But it does not sound so bad if you put it this way, we spent only $996 per year on the Escort repairs. Oh wait, that still sounds bad...

But it does not sound so bad if you put it this way, we spent only $83 per month on Escort repairs. Crap, that still sounds bad, too...

Goodbye you money sucking sub compact piece of junk. I hope they dismantle you real good.

Second Edit: We put 38 thousand miles on the car while we had it. Right at 7600 miles per year. The mileage was lower than normal because it was simply a commuter car for The Boss Lady to get to work. That and it is hard to drive a car that spends most of it's time on a lift at the repair shop.

Die Escort, Die!

This morning I got an email from a friend who used to be a Stay at Home Dad. His wife listed a car for sale this morning on craigslist. It met all of our needs and is in our price range. Plus, it has half the miles of The Boss Lady's wrecked car and most importantly has been impeccably maintained.

We test drove it and agreed to buy it tonight. We will finish up the deal Thursday night.

Now we just have to get the insurance to total out the Escort and haul it off. Just this morning I told them that we were keeping the Escort, but the Mazda is too good to pass up.

So what have we learned in this deal?

Don't slap a $130 alternator into a car that you might not keep. The auto parts store might not take it back and you'll be getting rid of a car with a brand new alternator. (And a $600 ignition system, but that is another story).

Don't go ordering $250 worth of parts off of ebay unless you are sure you are keeping the car. Luckily the vendor who I bought most of it from is canceling the order for a $10 Here is Your Money Back, Dumb Ass Fee. And I am glad to pay it, 'cause I'm a Dumb Ass!

And most importantly, don't be a Dumb Ass. Take the freakin' insurance buyout and quit thinking that you are "going to fix it up real nice".

The Escort will NOT live on

Edit: We decided to junk it, so this post is already outdated, but I like the pictures, so I'll leave it posted.

I tore down the front end of The Boss Lady's car last night. No major damage, so we are going to take the insurance buyout and fix it. At least that way we know what problems the car has, instead of jumping into a different cheap car and a whole new set of problems.

Here are a few photos, while we wait for parts.

The dent

The front end after teardown
(it looks like the driver's side is dented up in this picture, but it isn't ...)

Where do you keep YOUR bumper?

Finally a Ford free family? It's fearfully feasible...

The insurance is going to total out The Boss Lady's car. We can either get a settlement of a little over $1500 and let them have the car, or we can keep the car and fix it ourselves, but then we only get a settlement of $600 and the car will have a 'salvaged vehicle title'.

We are hoping to avoid the two car payments for another few years, and a neighbor has a Toyota that he might part with for cheap. So we might be taking the cash from the insurance and buying the Toyota. Then my dream of being a Ford free family will finally be realized.

Test Drives

To make up for driving her car into a parking lot pole and crunching the front driver's side corner on her way to work yesterday morning, The Boss Lady went and test drove a couple of cars last night.

She is considering the Saturn Ion as a replacement for the battered and bruised commuter car. She has been dreaming about the Toyota Prius, but since we might be doing something sooner than we thought, the Prius is too pricey.

The dealership we bought the Vue from has a nice 2004 Ion sitting there with 18,000 miles. It is a decent little car and with the manual transmission, it should get a little better gas mileage than the automatics that they have new on the lot. They sell mostly automatics in the 4 door ion, so they only have one sitting on the lot with the manual transmission and it has no AC. No dice. This IS Texas for goodness sake. It is summer 8.3452 months a year down here.


The quandary is this, is the 3K-3.5K less than new a new car worth getting something with 18,000 miles financed at a higher interest rate? Or should we bit the bullet, buy new, get a lower interest rate but a little higher payments. The downer is having two car payments at once. Ouch.

Because her car is 11 years old, the insurance just might total it out. But the worst part of all, The Boss Lady filled up with gas and washed her car on the way to work. So it is sitting there shiny and crunched with a $3 a gallon tank full of gas. And try as I might, I can't get the siphon hose to work. I want to get that liquid gold out of there before we send the car to be fixed/crushed/exported. Big OUCH.

Through all of this, everyone is fine. And that is all that matters.

That, and making sure The Boss Lady seriously considers the Mini Cooper Convertible before she buys anything...

Garden Eatin' Momma

For Mother's Day, The Boss Lady got a nice lunch right out of the garden. Everything in the picture, except the counter top and the bowls grew in our yard. Green Ice lettuce and beet greens, tomatoes and one itty bitty little carrot made up the salads. The Princess really wanted to pick a carrot, so she brought one in for mommy. The eggplant we sliced and rolled in wheat bread crumbs. Then it was fried in olive oil with fresh oregano and rosemary that The Talker picked for mom's lunch.

The greenbeans are the first ones we have gotten this season. Yummy with just a little bit of pepper and butter. The Boss Lady helped out, too. She grilled some chicken while the kids played in the yard and I harvested the veggies and got the eggplant cooked and the salad ready.

Now everyone else is sleeping off the feast.

Hope I picked a winner...

Our neighborhood got slammed with a couple of hailstorms lately. Every roof in the area is needing replacement, so the roofers are out in force right now, trying to drum up business.

We had a horrible experience with our last roof, so I went with a guy who came highly recommended from a friend in real estate. He told me that this company is a good one to work with.

We signed the contract yesterday and he put a sign in our front yard, to mark his turf and keep the other roofers at bay I guess. The roofer was across the street this morning writing up an estimate for our neighbors. And he told me that he has gotten two more calls from our street.

Now I am REALLY hoping he is good. Looks like the entire neighborhood might be depending on my ability to pick a roofing company.

The kindergarten teacher will be mad...

The Princess and I have been playing with her Little People A-to-Z Learning Zoo animals since lunch time.

She picked up the polar bear I said "P. P is for polar bear." She wanted to argue that the animal in her hand was a dog. She finally got frustrated with me and told me "No daddy, P is for puppy."

But I guess I can't blame her. After all, she thinks THIS is a puppy, too.




For the record, he was standing with his back feet on the floor and laying across our queen sized bed. And think, he still has a year and a half to grow!

Kid friendly truck place

I am having a tow hitch added to the Saturn Vue. So this morning the kids and I ran to a couple of shops to have them give me prices for the parts and install. We found the best deal at the first place we stopped, a dumpy old warehouse hidden behind a couple of other shops. Guess the guy does not pay much overhead out there.

But one other place really made a good impression on me. Too bad their price was 25% more for the same equipment.

Right on the front door they had the store hours posted. And underneath the Monday through Friday hours they had listed something like Closed Saturdays and Sundays, so our employees can be involved in their children's weekend activities.

I really thought about just having them do the work. But their nice show room had two Hummers sitting in it, an H2 truck and an H3. That is a lot of overhead to pay for. Guess I'll stick with my dumpy place.

Besides, the warehouse place is closed Saturdays and Sundays, too. I guess their kids have stuff going on all weekend that they don't want to miss, either.

Express 13, Omaha Royals 3

Tonight the AtHomeFamily headed out early to the ballgame. We had to grab dinner at he park, since it was Dollar Dog and Drink Night. The whole family ate dinner for $10. What a bargain.

While we were out there, The Talker tried the rock climbing wall. He made it about 1/3 of the way before deciding that he wanted to come down. Pretty awesome for a 4 year old who had never been on a real rock climbing wall before that.

Early in the game, the visiting catcher threw the boy a ball at the end of an inning. So we waited until the end of the game to get the ball autographed. Very exciting stuff for a four year old, and his daddy, too!

So we have a new piece to the baseball collection, a game ball autographed by Paul Phillips, a catcher for the Omaha Royals, the AAA team of the Kansas City Royals system. Good Times.

The Talker caught another game ball last year. A catcher for Tacoma Raniers tossed him a ball back then, but we never did manage to get it autographed. And now Ryan Christianson is playing AA ball for the Montgomery Biscuits, so we likely won't be seeing him back around here anytime soon.

The Princess also caught a ball tonight. A little soft ball souvenir that the stadium staff toss into the stands between innings. She was very excited to have a baseball of her own, and even more thrilled when mommy wrote her name on it for her. How cool is it to have a baseball autographed for yourself, by you (or by your mommy, if you still can't spell)?

Cinco day Off-o

The wife was home from work today, a day off to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. The kids and I worked most of the morning Thursday getting the house ready for Mother's Day. We scrubbed The Boss Lady's bathroom and bedroom, top to bottom. And then this afternoon, the wife told me that Mom's Day isn't for another week.

Crap. I hate cleaning and I REALLY hate wasting a good cleaning.

This evening we headed out to the ballpark. Halfway there I realized that I had forgotten the tickets. A quick couple of call from the car and the problem was fixed. We grabbed some dinner and picked up our tickets at the Will Call window, thanks to Uncle Lemon. It was a perfect night for a game and fireworks. Which they dedicated to the Mothers in the stands... So I doubted the wife's knowledge of holiday dates once more. I called her in the outfield, just to to double check. Don't cell phones rule sometimes!

And my wife is greata too. She could have suckered me into cleaning the house or something worse, just by lying about the calendar, but she didn't. Isn't that the kind of person you want educating your kid?

I guess I am off the hook for cleaning the rest of the house for a few more days. Good, because I really wanted to put it off as long as possible.

The down side to being a big kid

I was collecting all of the trash this morning, hoping to beat the garbage truck to the curb, when I got stopped in my tracks by The Talker.


Daddy, do big kids have to help with the trash?

Yeah, big kids have to help take the trash to the street. Little kids have to make sure all the trash makes it into the cans first, though. And that is a big help to me.

Do big kids GET to empty the kitty litter boxes?

Do they get to? Sure thing buddy. When you are big enough, I'll let you empty the litter boxes.

COOL! Thanks Daddy.


And if he is a really lucky boy, maybe I'll let him wash the dog, too!

Museum Week

This morning the kids and I are going downtown to the Children's Museum, because it is "Family Day" also know as "No Groups Day". The kids will have a blast today, since they won't have to compete with field trip groups for the activities. Yeah for us!

Thursday morning we are going to the university to check out the new art museum. Thursdays are free for everyone! We will have to see how crowded it gets, but it might become a regular Thursday trip.